Skateboarding Videos

Not everyone likes skateboard videos, but enough people do that they get made on a pretty regular basis. If you want to make a successful skateboard video, here are a few clues:

1) Show several tricks leading up to a huge trick at the beginning of the "part."

2) Show the same trick, first at regular speed, then in slow motion, from multiple angles. Spending that much video time on one trick just automatically makes it seem gnarly. In addition, it eats up video time like crazy. Ideally, a single trick will take thirty seconds to watch after all the slow-mo angles are done.

3) Intercut with the featured skater doing some gnarly things. This style appears at the front as a montage, with fighting security guards, getting drunk, etc. If the skating stunts aren't working out, it's always possible to just jam out with some sophomoric antics.

Is it possible that this is a teaser for a video about a female DC executive who blows off steam by skateboarding?

No it is not possible that this be that teaser.

Writing Telos

From the Times review of Knocked Up:

Alison is somewhat more hesitant, not about the incipient child but about staying with Ben, whose hold on maturity is less sure than his grip on his favorite bong.

It's frightening to think that this is where writers end up: a good sentence; parallel structure; sure, concrete imagery; it's even kind of a joke. But punchiness has been sac'd for tightness, and no one under 35 would've banged out a sentence like that.

To dream of writing film reviews for the Times is akin to dreaming of marriage; we all kind of want it but we are justifiably afraid of the stylistic compromises we'll have to make. (Shit I'm already on my way.)