So this is it, we’ve finally committed ourselves to making the first Rogue + Friends film, now it’s time to get off our arses and put our money where our mouth is or some such phrase. Weds 11th March saw the official start to the ‘As If, And What’ project with Sadie “flip master mike” Hollins. Southbank was her place of filming choice, which seemed fairly apt for the forthcoming British vid and for her there is no better way to warm up than with a couple of switch flips on the banks.
Sadie’s history runs along the lines of: grew up skating with the Death boys in her native town of ‘arlow, Essex, the place where you need a dictionary to understand anything anyone says: “OI OI webbats me eye-eels, I’s from Saffend tan innit.” Sadie first appeared on the girls’ scene when she blew away the competition at the Girls Skate Out event at Epic, Brum in 2003. After that she placed 1st countless times at the Girl Skate Jams, was in the top 3 at the Urban Games and at various international comps. Further to that she has made appearances in the Motel 6 and Death vids. She was one of the first British girls I ever saw do a handrail, and has such an envious array of flip tricks it makes you want to cry!
Back at Southbank, with Sadie’s legs in full flip mode we were in the middle of filming her switch half cab flips when a guy clutching at his alchopops approached us – appreciate this is nothing new for Southbank. But completely oblivious to the fact of what we doing, he proceeded to recount his life’s tale of how he was shot in the head and left with brain damage… what happened sounded bloody awful but some days I really think this film should be renamed “Rogue Skateboards meets Little Britain!”
A couple days later saw a trip to MK with Laura Goh (formally Gallaz sponsored nee Crane). Laura is a Telford born and bread street skater – that’s the place where quite possibly the dodgiest garage music stems from and which she insists on playing at any given opportunity shabba. With her making such a long journey, we thought it only fitting to get there stupidly early to cram in as much as possible, which always seems like a good plan when you’re making arrangements. That is of course until the actual day when the alarm clock screams at you to get up! The Bus Station was (not surprisingly) completely empty apart from a couple of nicely placed shopping trolleys. All started off pretty darn respectably with Laura clearing them comfortably with her huge ollie though things did soon disintegrate into extreme trolley surfing around the plaza. It admittedly did seem pretty funny until local girl Zeta Rush, who’d unfortunately never seen another girl skater before turned up! After convincing the poor girl we hadn’t just been let out of the “special” hospital for the day she took us to various spots dotted around the city, with a quick battery recharge stop off at Bucks Boarding Company – cheers guys. Ben, Laura’s husband, motto to her is “Go(h) faster Laura Go(h)”, which was very kindly shouted at her at every given opportunity. It’s great being able to hassle someone else to do crazy tricks down a set of steps whilst you can stand back and explain just quite how difficult it is to film – hmm!
Helena “battery legs” Long was the last rider to be captured on camera this month. This incredibly enthusiastic and talented Vans rider has written a whole itinerary (on a scrap of her dad’s Guardian newspaper) of about 2000 different street spots that she reckoned could be filmed over a five-day period!! However after spending a couple of hours wandering the streets of South East London to find an “amazing spot” she’d once seen from the DLR in 2006 (around the same area they had shot The Football Factory and Little Dorrit) – it turned out that it was so good that we spent several hours there – the list then may perhaps take a little longer than was first reckoned.
In the middle of a slightly dubious looking housing estate, part of the Rotherhithe Boys territory where you’d definitely not want to be seen hanging with the wrong crew – there was a somewhat bizarre looking wavy block in the middle of a grass patch which ended in a pavement gap to road. Helena cleared it easily with kickflips, inward heels and switch heels. On leaving the spot she realised that we could have missed the long two hour mission walk there, as there was a station 2 minutes away – oh well! A couple of other spots hit up that day included a tailslide on a block near London Bridge and a backside 50-50 on a wavy block at the Thames Barrier.
The first few weeks are out of the way and I think it’s really just sinking in quite what we have taken on although with Nikita’s Maria Falbo relocating to Barca for 6 months, filming prospects are definitely looking up!
– Cheers Jenna @ Rogue Skateboards
