The Secret Life of Trees on YouTube

After learning that plants are sentient, a young man takes his two baby cedar trees out for a walk, brushing past moments of human and plant life along the way.

This film was shot and edited all within 48 hours as part of Vancouver's 2020 Run N Gun competition. The original 48 hour film was relatively the same, but a little bit shorter to fit within the 4 minute requirement for the competition. This is the director's cut.

A Review by Mika Doaga (@vanshitty69)

The Secret Life of Trees (TS: 8:50 Finals)
This is the finals opener so this film is clearly awesome but I doubt I’m alone in thinking it deserves more attention. It’s got a soothing, zen quality and it really makes you feel plants are sentient beings. I’ve rewatched it 3 times now, and dang, this hits.

Starring: Julian Baisa, Leuna Sherif, Connor Hogg, Allen Fan AKA Challenga, Margarita Iturriaga, Akshaya Pattanayak, Erica Dimaposoc, Sharon Tseng, Everett Bumstead

Written by: Ayesha Habib

Directed and Edited by: Everett Bumstead

Assistant Director: Jessie Parker Hart

Cinematography by: Kenrick Block Gaffer:

Sergio Carpinteyro

Sound and Music by: Coby Degroot

Sound Mix by: Sharon Tseng

The Opposite of Isolated

A New web series about talking to strangers launches on CBC’s Creator Network

The timely documentary series tackles post-pandemic loneliness by taking to the streets of Vancouver for intimate and vulnerable conversations.

[Vancouver, BC] – “Everybody has a story to tell, if you ask the right way,” says Julian Baisa, the central figure of The Opposite of Isolated, a new documentary web series from CBC. The three-episode series follows Julian leaving his home for the first time after isolation to observe people through the lens of his camera. Searching for moments of connection, Julian engages in vulnerable and personal conversations with real strangers, who open up about their lives, identity, struggles, and loneliness. 

The series, co-directed by Ayesha Habib and Leo award-winner Everett Bumstead, is inspired by the storytelling of Humans of New York and the magic of serendipitous interaction with strangers. Following the collective loneliness and disconnect of the pandemic, the filmmakers sought to capture real stories by approaching people on the street to speak with Julian about their lives. 

From a story about a retiree’s lost love to a young woman’s journey healing from mental illness to a young man’s bond with his partially-blind dog, the conversations are detailed with poignant moments, treasurable wisdom, and relatable emotions.

“There has never been a more important time to talk to strangers,” Bumstead says. “This is a series about finding beauty in the people and places all around us.”

Filmed with a dreamlike quality that resonates with the romanticism of people watching, each episode takes place in a different outdoors location across the city—a skytrain station, a skate park, and a dog park—and reflects the unique locality of its setting, grounding the series in a distinctly Vancouver framework.

The Opposite of Isolated aired on the evening CBC Vancouver News. Episodes one, two, and three are immediately available on CBC’s Vancouver Youtube channel. 

Press kit with hi-res images and teaser clips can be found here. 

Connect on Instagram @keep.it.in.the.streets

Film Theory but for Skateboarding Videos

I’ve been making videos since I was 13 years old but for some reason, I’ve always resisted using a YouTube channel as my platform. I made videos to express myself and I just didn’t think of YouTube as the place for that. But as I’ve grown, so has YouTube and my understanding of its potential.

I’ve only realized how incredibly late to the game I am now, starting a channel in 2021 at 28 years old. I’ve entirely missed the heyday of the early algorithm’s and pay structures that made channels like Epic Meal Time into international celebrities in the 2000’s.

These days, I watch so much on YouTube. It’s where I get my news, movies, tutorials, and of course funny cat videos. As a viewer, I’ve come to recognize that a good YouTube channel must either educate, or entertain, or preferably both.

Since 13, I’ve been honing my skills in the art of using video to express myself. I’ve only started making entertainment and education a priority as I’ve grown older and started making films for other people, not just for myself.

So that’s what has brought me to this point- writing a blog about making a YouTube channel. It seems futile at this point to seek views and subscribers, so instead I’m just focused on creating something of quality that will hopefully at the very least either educate or entertain someone.

I’ve been obsessed with skate videos even longer than I’ve been obsessed with making videos. Throughout my studies in film school and journey into a professional career, I’ve always drawn from skate videos in times of doubt.

There is something to be said about the form, about the genre and conventions. There is something to be said about the discipline, the structure (or lack thereof) and the history.

Writing about the history and theories behind skateboarding videos has always been an underlying ambition of mine. I often fantasize about having enough time in my life to go back to school and write the essays and dissertations that I see in my head on the subject.

For now I only have a few spare hours a month, so I’m starting a series of YouTube videos. These are gonna be some cringey, weird, essay-videos that are meant for a very specific audience. And I guess I’m going to write about it in this blog because that’s supposed to be good for SEO or something like this…

Check out the first video and let me know what you think, I’ve included the script below:

If I were to ask you about the first skate video ever, you’d probably think of something like this: This is The Search for Animal Chin, a 1987 Powell/ Peralta video made by Stacy Peralta. This is probably the most iconic early skate video and arguably the most influential. In it, the Bones Brigade team travel around California, Nevada and Hawaii skating different spots in search of a wise old man - Won Ton “Animal” Chin. It’s all very goofy and pubescent, but the satires on mainstream media, the look, style and many of the conventions established in this video are still used in skate videos today. You could make the argument that it is the greatest skate video of all time, but it is not the first.

Technically, google will tell you this was the first skate video ever made. In 1984, Peralta and the Bones Brigade team made the Bones Brigade Video Show. It had a very similar goofy and episodic feel as Animal Chin but a looser narrative which was pretty much just Lance Mountain riding around town discovering new spots and people. 

Some people feel like the first real skate videos only came along at the time when camcorders became affordable for the average consumer, not just Stacy Peralta. A lot of skateboarders will tell you that the early H Street videos by Tony Magnusson and Mike Ternasky such as Shackle Me Not in 1988 as well Hocus Pocus in 1989 were the first real skate videos. These were more amateurish productions with less focus on gimmicks and more focus on documenting skateboarding tricks that would progress the language of the sport and also blow people’s minds. 

Others will remember that Santa Cruz had a few videos at the same time, such as Wheels of Fire in 1987 and Streets on Fire in 1989, both by Scott Dittrich. These ones are actually pretty legit skate videos and they were shot on 16mm film which must have been expensive at the time but makes them rare relics and really beautiful to watch. These videos were also super influential, featuring a young Natas Kaupas doing the original Natas spin in Streets on Fire.

Outside of skate videos, many people will remember David Winters’ Thrashin’ from 1986 as the first skateboarding movie. Highly influential and full of cheese, it’s basically like a West Side Story (1961) but with skateboarding. It’s the Daggers or the Sharks vs the Locals or the Jets and then a guy from one gang falls in love with a girl from the other.
There’s a lot of cool and weird stuff about this one that make it such a unique skate genre film. The skating was inspired by and consulted on by Tony Alva. The song ‘Thrashin’ was recorded by Meatloaf specifically for the film and was never officially released on any format. Johnny Depp auditioned for the role of Tommy Hook. Steve Caballero was the stunt double for Radley. Chris Cook, Lance Mountain and Allen Losi were stunt doubles for Josh Brolin and there were cameos by Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, Rodney Mullen and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

If not Thrashin’, it’s often 1989’s Gleaming the Cube by Graeme Clifford that gets mentioned in this conversation. This movie is awesome, it features a young skateboarding Christian Slater who uncovers a conspiracy involving government agents and Vietnamese gangsters. A lot of people die in this movie, it’s actually pretty dark. At times, it feels kind of like a skateboarding-footloose, for example this scene where Brian goes to the factory to blow off some steam is so reminiscent of the infamous footloose warehouse dance scene. 

Even though the script is clunky, this movie is a great thematic representation of skateboarding. There’s a lot of emphasis on the importance of individuality and it’s very endearing how inclusive some of the dialogue is towards Vietnamese people. It comes off super culturally sensitive and not at all ignorant, even by today’s standards in 2021. This movie had a $10 000 000 budget, which resulted in Tommy Guerrero making $500 a day to teach Christian Slater how to skate. The box office gross was only around $3 000 000 so it may not be considered very successful by Hollywood standards, but I think this film definitely earns its title as the first and probably the greatest skateboarding blockbuster film. 

Mike McGill and Rodney Mullen were actually Slater’s stunt doubles and Stacy Peralta worked as the second unit director, shooting all the skate scenes for the film, which makes a lot of sense when you look at sequences like this. Peralta’s way of shooting skating is very calculated, often using multiple takes in sequences (which don’t always line up perfectly with continuity if you look too close). And then this kind of shot - react - shot sequence is total trademark Stacy Peralta approach. You can see it here in The Bones Brigade Video Show. 

Tony Hawk and Tommy Guerrero are recurring characters in Gleaming the Cube which add to the feeling that this is like a Hollywood Bones Brigade movie. Mike McGill actually got hit by a motorcycle in this scene fleeing Vietnamese gangsters on motorcycle and he ended up being hospitalized. This crazy freeway skating and under-truck transfer was done by Mark Rogowski..

Unfortunately, I think most people today haven’t heard of this movie, and the first skateboarding appearance in film that everyone actually remembers was in Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future in 1985. While you could argue this cameo was more influential than everything else on this list, it does not predate the Bones Brigade Video Show and neither could be called the first appearance of skateboarding on film.

All the way back in 1978 there was a British TV show called “The World About US” produced by Horace Ové which in an episode called “Skateboard Kings” attempted to profile the Southern California skate scene in a 59 minute documentary. It has a real outsider approach, like a nature documentary made by 1970’s adults looking at children through an anthropological lens. Like all the films on this list, it’s an amazing cultural gem worth a watch. Some of the best moments are these slice of life pieces in between the editorials. This introduction is pretty hilarious, but don’t let it fool you. What follows after this is a very unique and uncommon approach to documenting skate culture. 

Also in 1978 there was a movie called Skateboard by George Gage and this is honestly a pretty weird movie. I think it would be pretty endearing if the main character wasn’t so hate-able. The plot follows an irresponsible and sleazy guy who decides to start a skateboarding team in an attempt to make money to pay off his gambling debts. It’s kind of surreal to think of this Neanderthal parading skateboarders around as a circus act, and weird to see in the 70’s so many people interested in skateboarding that have no business being interested in skateboarding. I mean it’s pretty strange for a middle aged man that’s never skateboarded and who has no children to start a skateboarding team for under 18 youth. He has pretty sus behavior with the kids overall and is not respectable which makes the whole thing a bit harder to enjoy. This one was also consulted on by Tony Alva but the perspective of the film as a whole feels very much like it’s main character - coming from outside of the culture in order to exploit it.

There’s a weird Alfred Hitchcock connection with this film which is not important but one of the skater’s moms is played by Patricia Hitchcock, the famous film director’s daughter who also acted in Psycho and Strangers on a Train. Doesn’t mean much, but this series is all about discussing the merits of skateboarding videos while looking at them through the lens of filmmaking and making comparisons to the history of cinema, so if I see an opportunity to connect Hitchcock to skate videos, I’m gonna take it.

Up until recently, I thought that was pretty much it for the origin story of the skate video; a few cheesy 80’s b-movies and a few early videos which satirized the Hollywood b-movie with montages of skateboarding... I was going to talk about how far we’ve come; how much the skate video has developed as a genre and how it’s influenced some real quality filmmaking in recent years. But then I discovered this next film which totally upended my idea of a linear progression.

All the way back in 1965, Noel Black wrote and directed Skaterdater. This was an American short film which won the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. It was also nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Short Feature Subject category, and then won first prizes in Moscow and Venice international film festivals. 

The film tells a story with no dialogue. The cinematography is beautiful, and although this predates so much of the culture that has defined skate video conventions, you see the same things. The same kind of shots, the same essence of style, the same punk rock attitude, the same conflicts of growing up that would persist in skate media for the next seven decades.