In his films, NYC-based filmmaker Colin Read uses skateboarding to playfully reflect on themes such as life, death, and nature. His 90s-style fisheye Sony VX1000 evokes nostalgia for the heyday of skateboarding, but his visual language expands and challenges the format, both in its content and form. The success of Read’s skate films gave him the opportunity to create music videos for Radiohead, Glass Animals and Weezer, as well as commercials for Converse, Lexus and Burberry. While skateboarding features in some of his commercials, the visual language and technical skill he built through skate videography creep into all of his work.
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Tengu: God of Mischief
For Tengu: God of Mischief, NYC-based filmmaker Colin Read spent over two years filming skateboarders, from the rooftops and subways of New York to the streets of Tokyo and Bordeaux. Read edits the skaters as if they are instruments, rhythmically placing their pops, grinds, and boardslides onto or in between the beats of the underlying score. Using this newly created tempo to seamlessly cut between the skaters and the city’s scenery, his moving camera creates a sense of continuity, reminiscent of a city symphony. The fisheye lens turns the skaters into city-shredding titans, yet every fall reminds us of their mortality.
Midway, the classic Sony VX1000 footage is replaced by security-camera images of a car reversing fast into a one-way street. It ends up hitting skater Justin Clady, leaving him in a coma. The film shows Clady before and after the accident. As he jumps over a handrail, kickflips into a hill bomb down a narrow alley and skitches (skate-hitch) behind a yellow cab across Times Square, we hear Kurosawa’s famous line from Ikiru: “We humans are so careless. We can never realise how beautiful life is until we are face to face with death.”
Tengu: God of Mischief is not only an homage to skateboarding but a reminder that skateboarding is an homage to life.
Bio Colin Read
Colin Read earned his MFA in creative writing at NYU before fully jumping into skateboard filmmaking. While working as a touring videographer and editor for magazines and companies, he directed several full-length independent films. His films Tengu: God of Mischief (2013) and Spirit Quest (2016) both earned Best-of-the-Year awards across the skateboarding media landscape; the buzz around Spirit Quest drew attention beyond skating and led to new commercial work. He has since directed pieces for Radiohead, Battles, Converse, Viceland, and more. His work has been screened by venues including MoMA, the Hammer Museum, and the Berlin Music Video Film Festival.