Can a Minute of Footage Make a Video Part?
I’m stubborn and I think I know everything. That’s one of my problems. So when a mildly inebriated Rob Welsh told me I’m dumb and don’t know anything, I was a taken aback. Am I? Has mother been wrong all these years? I could only wonder.
“I’ve got your minute right here buddy.”
That particular conversation began as all of them do. We were talking about skateboarding. I think I asked Welsh what his last video part was. “Fully Flared,” he answered. But he went on to say he didn’t really have a “part.” I’ve interviewed people for a living the last few years, so I hit him with the old follow up. “Why didn’t you film a full part for it?” “I did,” he said. “But they used it for a montage instead of a part.” I’m a stickler, probably what people might think of as a skate Nazi, so I had to know, “How much footage was it?” “A minute and a half,” he guessed. “That’s only half a video part,” I told him flatly.
Rob’s “part” in Fully Flared. He comes in at 1:44...it’s a minute long. It wasn’t long before the name-calling began and he informed me that I didn’’t know what I was talking about. Just to put it out there, my opinion going into it was and always has been this: A video part is not a video part until it fills a pretty standard length song. Anything less is, well, less. A part should take you on some kind of magical skate journey: the introductory stages, the buildup, the final the crescendo, which could be a Chris Cole tre flip down Wallenberg, or a switch shifty on flat if you’re Ricky Oyola. Granted, some parts do a better job than others. But the best ones will make you want to smoke a cigarette and bask in their afterglow. And I don’t even smoke. This can’t really be achieved in less than three minutes. Not so according to Welsh. “A part can be 30 seconds,” he said. “Or less. The best dudes don’t need more than that. If they’re doing it right.” He then brought up the first video part I ever had, from New Deal’s Useless Wooden Toys back in 1990. I told him it wasn’t a part; it was footage in a montage. He implied that it got the job done better than anything I ever did after that, which is sadly true probably.
Here’s a link to my “part” in Useless Wooden Toys. I come in at 22:59…It’s 30 seconds long. In the end I broke down and admitted his point. My favorite skaters can get it done in 30 seconds, maybe even one trick, but that doesn’t mean I can’t want more from them. Does it? (Disclaimer: Any quotations in the above story are based on recollections that may not be completely accurate due to the conversation having taken place in a noisy bar with no recorder rolling.) - Paul Zitzer
