May 4th I was inducted into the Skateboard Hall of Fame. Here is a quick post about how this video got made. I'm currently in Madison WI working in my hotel room before heading to the Scoring Bat Cave room where I'm working on all of the event score cards for the judges. The past two years I've done score cards as well as worked in Media in photography and downloaded and ingested photos of the games. It has always been fun but so stressful to have to be in two places at the same time. When you leave one room and they say hurry back and then the other room is waiting for you to power and get their work done which is super time sensitive and accuracy is to the detail. 10-12 hour days the norm and last year the food was awful this year they are trying but they still don't get the Crossfit style diet. Fresh vegetables not from a can, no sugar and no preservatives please.
Big thank you to Tyson Oldroyd Coordinating Producer, CrossFit HQ Media he had the idea to do a video on my skateboarding and CrossFit. Thanks Sevan (Executive Director of Media and Content, CrossFit Inc.)for letting him do it. Thanks to the awesome Lindsay and Elliot Schrock of Schrock Films
The Schrocks arrived on Tuesday night. They videoed me working out at the regular 8:30 HQ class with Jenny Lau the most awesome coach. We met two hours later at the NHS museum thanks Rich Novak and Bob Denike for letting me shoot there with them. I ran home they went back to HQ. We got to use the CrossFit Sprinter Van and they came by the house and picked up my family and we all headed down to Anaheim. We had plans on hitting a few parks on the way down but we lost a day so we had to compress everything. We arrived late on Thursday. Friday am we met in the Hotel they did a interview while my family went off to a sporting goods store. I'm not comfortable getting photographed or interviewed I prefer the other side of the camera photo art directing or styling the shoot. After the interview in my hotel room we met up and went to a local park. I had scouted a few close by. It was hot in the 90's and it was more of a street course with tons of guys. We went to another park in Fountain Valley 10 minutes away the traffic was a mess from construction. Found the park it had guys in it but it was more my style with rollins and coping but nothing too gnarly.
When I first arrived I was a bit intimidated with the guys there looking at the big black van that rolled up me getting out and then Elliot following me around with the camera. I was thinking they are going to be so unimpressed with my riding but fuck it. By the time we were done the guys were so nice and they were snapchatting and we were stoked to have met.
We drove back to the hotel I had two hours to get ready for the Skateboard Hall of Fame. I practiced my speech a few times. I was nervous but happy. My friend Frances arrived and we went to the event.
Thank you to Maria Carrasco for the slalom racing footage my slalom racing sponsor Sk8kings. James Cassimus for his Capitola shot, Michael "Smiley" Goldmann for his Winchester footage, Gary Medeiros for the plexiglass shot. James Sweigert for the N-men footage. I'm honored to get this video. Thanks John Ravitch, my dad Richard Oyama who I've not had the time to go by and show the video too.
Thanks friends that I asked for high resolution images.
Don't miss the N-men Documentary Trailer link
