Channel: David Hoffman

Category: People & Blogs

Tags: skateboarding playlistaggressive in-linearlo eisenbergla skatingaggressive skatersin linedavid hoffman filmmakernew york city skatingskateboarding for beginnersespn 2inline skating freestyleskater girlsrollerskatingin-line skatinglos angeles skatingskatingroller skatingolympic skatingskateboarding olympics 2021skateboarding documentaryaggressive inline skating beginnerrollerbladingsenate clothingskater boysskater documentary

Description: In 1997 I had the opportunity to make a feature-length documentary about the (at that time) exploding sport of aggressive in-line skating – rollerblading. I didn't know much about the sport but when I got involved, But I found the skaters that I dealt with in Los Angeles involved with the team Senate and in New York City, involved with the team FR, to be good folk. Very cooperative with my efforts. Excited to have their sport filmed and shared with the world. The team in LA led by Arlo Eisenberg and Brooke Howard Smith among many other great names were also entrepreneurial and building a multimillion dollar clothing company. They were doing outrageous things as part of their style and they created this shirt label as some kind of a joke, even though there were excellent aggressive in-line skaters who were women, some of whom were friends with the up-and-coming skater boys. The popular rollerbladers had become stars in part because ESPN created a network that included aggressive skater competitions. It was an underground movement becoming mainstream with millions of adherents. And because of this T-shirt label, they got national publicity which increased the popularity of the sport and it looked at that time like it was going to become an Olympic sport. Then all of a sudden, within a few years, the sport almost died. Today it is still practiced as an underground sport. The stars from that time have largely faded into oblivion. As an older person, I didn't much admire their views towards education or towards girls but overall, I saw them as good folks not particularly interested in hurting others – just doing their thing. Skateboarders oftentimes didn't like aggressive rollerbladers and there was some hostility toward them that I did not understand.