The seeds of my video production company, True Motion were planted back in 1990 when I purchased my first video camera. I bought it on credit from a local audio/video retailer in my hometown of St. Catharines. It was a VHS-C, recorded in 640×480 (a long way from high def!) and was the greatest thing I had ever bought. It went everywhere with me. It changed every skate session from that day forward. Videos were really becoming embedded in the skateboard culture. As one video quoted “If you don’t have video, you’re shit!”. Well now I had video. It could be a mediocre skate session happening, but as soon as the camera came out and the chance to be immortalized on film became present, everyone stepped up their game. We all took risks we wouldn’t normally take. With video you could invite all your friends over later and show them just how sick of a skater your were even if they couldn’t be at the session. The whole room would cheer and slap each other on the back as if the trick just happened in real life. The only problem was fast-forwarding through the countless hours of tape to get to those precious few moments of fame and inspiration. That’s when I realized this all needed to be edited to a watchable format. Boiled down to the good stuff. I went back to the same retailer and purchased a video toaster (a keyboard), fader controller and an editing VCR. The toaster and fader went between two VCRs to allow you to edit, fade between scenes and add titles. The editing VCR had a “flying eraserhead” which allowed for clean edits and none of those warbly lines between clips. It was fun, but challenging because everything was done on the fly as the clip played on one VCR and the other recorded. IT was more like being a video DJ then an editor. After my first video was complete with edits, titles and music I invited everyone back over for a viewing party. It was a crazy atmosphere and one of my favorite memories. I knew from that day that this would be my hobby.
After only a few years I decided that this hobby of mine would become my first business and so I made the leap. I left my job as a kitchen manager, bought all new digital video equipment and spent 3 months learning how to edit on a computer. I had never even owned a computer before so this was a huge learning curve, but I did it. I filmed my first full-length skateboard video using my new camera and computer. Now it was time to get it out there into the world. I used every bit of skateboard clout I had. I traveled to every store in Ontario acting as my own sales rep and convinced a distributor in Toronto to duplicate & distribute my video. Game on.
This was my first attempt. It was to be a quarterly video magazine show casing young, up and coming local talent. I would mix in some pro demos and contests to give it sales appeal, but my real motive was getting our scene coverage. To help pave a road full of new sponsorship opportunities for everyone I skated with. The first video was clearly a lot of experimentation. It was over-titled, over-edited and reeked of amateurism, but I was learning, honing my craft and passionate about my company. This was only the beginning.
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