The Magic Rolling Board

A 1976 fourteen minute documentary short film on skateboarding ,produced ,directed ,photographed and edited by Californian filmmaking team Jim Freeman (who died in the same year as this film's release) and Greg MacGillivray. A kind of promo for skateboarding (with narration written by Drew Karrigdon) ,this features skateboarding dogs and chickens ,a one legged skateboarder called Mike Johnson ,a fair number of female skateboarders ,and Guy Grundy breaking his own skateboard velocity record (with a time of 55.7 miles per hour). In this world where 'every surface becomes a dance floor' and 'it's all above board' ,we have skateboarders using empty swimming pools as skateboarding rinks (with 'kids pulling out all the stops' - the narration often goes for a comic tone) ,stunts ,leaps ,turns ,and crashes ,accompanied by a surfeit of intriguing angles ,with evocative use of slow motion ,and mounted cameras as standard.

The skateboard was probably invented in the late 1940s or early 1950s by surfers looking for something to do when they couldn't get to the waves. By the late 1960s, people were paying attention and shorts about the new sport began to appear. But the question of how to shoot pictures of people riding one remained. By the time this short was made, they had solved the problem: shooting from low, shooting from overhead, some skateboard choreography, and put a shaggy dog on one. Then, because this new sport was by and for young people, use a rock score with a lot of electric guitar and you have something that is visually striking.