Capturing The Magic of London, Through a Skateboard, and Fisheye lens.
New Skate edit by Jacob Harris for Thrasher Magazine, masterfully captures the beauty that London holds in all our hearts.
Before they became a HYPEBEAST staple, Thrasher were (and still are) one of the most legendary and innovative skateboard houses in the game. A staple in skate culture and skate history, they pride themselves in capturing the best skating in the most innovative ways. Just look at any of their back catalogue: the Jaws Vids, SKATELINE, and now Jacob Harris’s Atlantic Drift — Episode 1.
Skate edits have always been a special type of film, the iconic fisheye lens, the jump cuts between tricks and the sound tracks that you immediately have to look up after the video.
In Atlantic Drift however, Harris takes these elements, and applies an arthouse ecstatic and visual concept to it; that elevates the film, from an edit, into a masterpiece.
The film opens up with a visual of a Jelly fish, swimming in unknown water, “drifting” a long in a shrunken (18:10 type ratio) frame and captured on an older camera giving a sort of hazy effect to the shot. All whilst some ethereal music (Atlantic by Eye Measure) plays on top. This hard open to the edit lets you know that this is no standard edit, and to expect mysticism.
It’s then cut to shots of random areas in London, the classic red buses pass by and there are shots of the natural world, trees and birds and people, mixed in with the concrete jungle. Then, smash cut to some epic skating.
All the establishing and thematic scenes are filmed through this amazing 18:10 ratio, also known as the golden ratio, and it give this feeling of wonder.
The shots are never of anywhere specific or too iconic, although I can recognise some of them, they feel that something great happened, or is happening in that area, like a fond memory.
The stair shots, for example, in the underground station; I remember navigating stairs like that at Covent Garden station for the first time, not realising how many there were, and my mate laughing at my mistake.
The shot of that one guy (Mike Arnold) coming out of the train bathroom on his commute into the city, like every time I’ve commuted into the city. Shots of the old Café, reminding me of all of the old cafes and chicken shops, where me and my mates went to catch up, laugh and tell stories.
All of these shots compile into generate a great memory that isn’t ours, but we have all experienced. Even the clips of the skating, shot in a 5:4 type ratio — the aspect ratio for old TV sets, again add to a feeling of nostalgia.
For me, that’s the beauty of this film; aside from the themes of being one with your environment with how they skate and how the Jellyfish swims, or the glorious, eerie, yet beautiful soundtrack. Genius. It’s the use of the establishing cuts, and how they’re framed and shot; Harris captures the London that everyone talks about, the fairy tale that people reference, the memories that people make, and the memory that people hold of the city.
All in a skate edit.
@o14_Fisayo
