Jamie Thomas: "I'm Having a Lot More Fun" - Heads - on making skateboarding video - Interview

Thrasher Magazine, Jan, 2002 by Michael Burnett

I know you're working hard on a new video. Do you have an overall philosophy when it comes to putting a skate video together?

In the beginning you're just filming. You're just trying to do what you can to get the ball rolling. You try and see what you can do to get trips and other things going to get people hyped. So, usually you just get the ball rolling and things start to fall into place. You can't really make any plans in the beginning because it's too far in the future and you never can tell what's going to happen.

As far as what you're assembling for yourself, do you have a score card going?

Yeah. I used to. Basically I'd just write down tricks that I wanted to do. Some of them I'd done before and I'd just think, "Yeah, I'd really like to have one of these in my part," just as kind of a reminder. I'd mostly just do that in the beginning to get the ball rolling, but once I'd start getting some of the tricks, I used to get amped to go and cross them off the list. Now, I start to forget about it. It's more just something to do when you have some spare time, like when you're on a plane coming back from a trip. It just helps you get things straight in your mind about what you have and what's left to do. When you get to the spot you think about what the spot looks good for. You think, "I don't have this trick, this spot looks good for this trick, I want to do it." And then you try and get it.

Do you have a detailed spot diary and guide book?

No. You do that stuff, but as soon as you write it down--all the spots and the places you want to go for the video, you remember it all. Sometimes I'll tear a photo out of a magazine and think, "Yeah, I want to go here," and try and track down who was in that session or who the photographer was and then go there with that photographer.

Do you think you know of more spots than anybody?

I have no idea what other people know. I'd guess some of the filmers and photographers would have the most spot knowledge. The only lame part about spot knowledge and knowing every spot is that you have to pay attention to every single thing that comes out--every video and every magazine. So with that in mind, I'd say the people with the most spot knowledge are probably the biggest skate rats in the industry, which are some of the younger kids right now. Those guys know everything! They watch everything, every video that comes out. It's hard to watch all that stuff, because after awhile you OD on skate videos. Sometimes I get amped on some of the pros who have no clue as far as who did what where. You try and explain some spot to them like, "You know, so-and-so did it in this big video!" and they're like, "Sorry, I didn't see that one." And you're like, "How could you not have seen that, it was everywhere," and they're just like, "Wait, what video?" I get jealous because I sometimes wish that I could be that unconcerned. The problem is you end up going and doing a trick at a spot that three people have already done. But I guess when you have no clue, it still feels the same, so maybe that doesn't matter.

If it's a trick you really want to do for your video part, do you care if it was in Progression 6 or Puzzle or whatever?

Right now there are so many kids out there skating that there are rules to that.

Like the Regional Champ rule?

Yeah, like that. Like if some kid did it in some local video. Skating's getting so blown out and everybody's doing everything everywhere that you've just got to ask yourself how much you want to do it and if it would be fun. You ask the photographer if it's worth it and if he says, "Yeah do it," then you just do it. It's all skating, you know? As long as you're not disrespecting someone who's a fellow respected pro skater then you can't really worry about it.

Let's say that Zero team rider A's big trick is a bluntslide down a 15-stair and you know you can bluntslide this new 16-stair. Do you do it?

It doesn't come up very often, so I don't really think too much about it.

But would you hold a trick of yours back if you knew it would take out a teammate's big finishing move?

I don't know. That situation's never come up. Usually everyone has got their particular tricks and then know what the other guys have got so they don't want to do anything too similar for their big move. It would be different if no one knew what the other guys were doing, but people are pretty proud of what they're doing.

Let's talk about editing. Why do you use that really quick cut editing style?

There are two kinds of skate videos: The kind that makes you want to go skating and the kind that makes you want to go to sleep. Some videos, if they're really slow and they are really overly dramatic in the sense that everything's drawn out, or if the skating's really incomprehensible, they make you want to go to sleep on the couch and not even go outside. A lot of the videos I watched growing up were like that. So if I got the opportunity to make videos, I wanted to make the type of video that made you want to get up and go skating. In some ways, I don't want people to get the whole feel of the shot. There are times in a video where you want to slow it down and show more information and give the audience a chance to rest or think about what they're seeing, but other times you want to have some mystery to it--especially when it's their first taste of someone. On a lot of people's first projects I kind of blast through the part, so you're not prepared for what's coming next. I like to watch a part like that a nd go, "Yeah! Wait, what was that?" It's like music Some people like the Cure and some people are more Metallica or whatever. You know what I mean? You see it so fast that your mind doesn't have time to ponder everything that's happening. It's like you're getting bombarded with tricks. But then I like to slow it down too, and relax for a second before it picks up again.