The Oral History of the Making of The Search for Animal Chin

The Bones Brigade tells all about the ultimate skateboard flick.

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Complex Original

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Skateboard videos don't need plots (they're a little like another Southern Cali VHS product from the '80s in that regard). You watch them, over and over again, for the action, not for the storylines. But given the repeat viewings inherent to the genre, when there is a plot—cheesy, asinine, or otherwise—it tends to have an impact.

In the late 1980s, Powell-Peralta was the preeminent skateboard company in the world: bigger, better, and cooler than any other brand on the block. Led by co-founder and creative visionary Stacy Peralta (himself a skating legend) their team, made up of the core Bones Brigade of Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, Tony Hawk, Mike McGill, Tommy Guererro, and Rodney Mullen, dominated competitions; the marketing and advertising won design awards and took gleeful shots at their detractors.

Naturally, Peralta and his company were pioneers in the burgeoning world of skate videos as well, beginning in 1984 with The Bones Brigade Video Show. From the start, the videos, directed and produced by Peralta, emphasized the the personalities of the Bones Brigade along with their skating prowess. They also featured original soundtracks and mocked mainstream culture's view of the skateboarding "fad."

Peralta added interstitial skits in the second Powell-Peralta video, Future Primitive, in 1986, but it was with the third Bones Brigade video that Peralta and his team committed to a storyline throughout. The plot—a crew of skaters who embark on a quest to find a mysterious skate master named Animal Chin—was minimal; the acting was amateur (as you'd expect from amateur actors), but the movie struck a chord and is beloved to this day.

The Search for Animal Chin doesn't resonate because of its plot alone; it's remembered because it features five of the greatest skaters of all time, in their prime. But the storyline opened a window into those skaters' personalities, showing that they were as goofy as the kids who idolized them, and the mechanics of the plot, particularly the travel, showed that the core appeal of skateboarding—exploration, experimentation, adventure, fun—went beyond the sport itself.

Twenty-six years after its release the film still stands as a classic of the genre. We tracked down the original team to get the untold stories behind the making of the ultimate skateboard flick, broken bones, bruised feelings, bacterial infections, and all.

THE PLAYERS

Stacy Peralta- Legendary skateboarder in his own right; founder, creative force behind Powell-Peralta

Steve Caballero- Named "Skater of the Century" in 1999 by Thrasher magazine; musician; Bones Brigade team member

Tommy Guererro- Transworld Skateboarding "Legend" award recipient; recording artist; Bones Brigade team member

Tony Hawk - The face of modern, vert skateboarding; ranked the second most influential skater of all time by Transworld Skateboarding magazine; Bones Brigade team member

Mike McGill- Inventor of the McTwist, founder of Chapter Seven skateboard company; Bones Brigade team member

Lance Mountain- Inventor of the finger board; founder of The Firm skateboard company; artist; Bones Brigade team member

Intro

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Wallows

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WALLOWS

Peralta: We always tried to show every format of skateboarding. We tried to show vertical skateboarding on big ramps; we tried to show skateboarding on small ramps; we tried to show street skating. We went to Wallows because it was one of the few remaining bank wall terrain places that skateboarders could go, and it enabled us to show a different form of skateboarding, and it enabled the guys that we featured to show themselves riding a different form of skateboarding.

Guerrero: Wallows was so fucking gnarly. It leveled the playing field for all of us. You had to know how to approach it because there were so many cracks that you didn’t know. Most of the time you had to follow a local to learn the lines, so you stay away from all these huge cracks that will just take you out. You have to skate it pretty fast because otherwise you won’t make it over the hits.


 

That place looked amazing, but it wasn’t as good as it looked. We compensated by putting softer wheels on, and if you could find the right path through there it was pretty fun. You definitely didn’t want to scrape your knee, or elbow, or anything on it because you’d get some kind of bacterial infection.
—Mike McGill


 

McGill: That place looked amazing, but it wasn’t as good as it looked. We compensated by putting softer wheels on, and if you could find the right path through there it was pretty fun. You definitely didn’t want to scrape your knee, or elbow, or anything on it because you’d get some kind of bacterial infection. [Laughs.]

Caballero: That place definitely wasn’t easy to skate. It was super rough, like extremely rough. The speed we took, the gaps in between, the transitions, and how rough it was, you could’ve really gotten hurt. I think Tony actually got a staph infection, and had to spend a night in the hospital. McGill broke his jaw going up one of the walls in one of the sequences. I remember either Tony or Tommy was kind of scared to go down it at first.

Hawk: The Chin Ramp was the first thing that we shot. From there, I think we went to L.A. and shot the sort of Hawaiian eating scenes, then we shot most of the hotel stuff in Hollywood, then we went to Vegas, or the other way around, and the very last scene was Hawaii. The first and last scenes were completely swapped. I think Stacy did that because he was trying to give us a vacation at the end and we were looking forward to it, but the vacation was cut short because they scheduled this big competition at the same time. So after we shot Wallows we had to get off in Hawaii, and then we flew straight back to Phoenix for this event. We actually flew in the day of the event, literally the day of the competition. I got a staph infection from Wallows [laughs], which is the first time that ever happened to me, so I spent the entire day off in Hawaii in bed thinking I had the flu. Meanwhile I had a staph infection from this cut I got on my arm at Wallows. When we flew to Phoenix I had to stop in L.A. and go to a hospital to get emergency antibiotics, so I had a bit of a crazy time at the end of shooting that. I participated in the contest and I won, so I guess it worked out.

Mountain: The first scene was the dinner party at Hawaii, and then we went to Hawaii at the end. We were acting at the dinner party as if we had been to Hawaii when we hadn't. That was the beginning of the laughter and jokes about how we were supposed to talk about somewhere we hadn't been yet, and we were mocking it and being stupid. Stacy used it, but he was like, “Hey guys try to be serious here, we're trying to make this work.” I would always goof around. There's a scene in there, like, “Where do you wanna go next?” We were like, “Wallows!” That's why it's so funny because we hadn't been there.

San Francisco

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SAN FRANCISCO

Peralta: The one real artistic challenge we faced with the first videos, especially Animal Chin, is that we could not afford to shoot with film, so we were shooting on three-quarter-inch video tape, which is a separate camera and video tape. The lens selection that we had was super limited, so the quality of the picture was really limited and for the most part, not a very pretty picture. Video itself at that time was not a pretty format. And so, it wasn’t pleasing to look at, and because of the limitations with the lenses, the skating wasn’t as dynamic and cinematic as it could have been. That was something that always bothered me.


 

Everyone was a bit concerned that Mike was not the most adept street skater, so we couldn’t go down stairs and stuff like that. It wasn’t unspoken because he and Stacy spoke about it, but he said that we’re gonna have to say something in the video like, ‘Oh, Mike got hurt, that’s why he can’t skate San Francisco.' 
—Tony Hawk


 

Guerrero: It was great when everyone came to San Francisco because that’s kind of my stomping grounds. I was showing them around to different spots.

McGill: I didn’t do much street skating in Animal Chin because I had a dislocated shoulder. That whole jump ramp scene though San Francisco with Tommy through the park, I had to cruise around like I was fine. [Laughs.] I had gotten a lot of crap from people and they’re all like, “How come you didn’t launch off that?” So I have to tell this story over and over. We street skated before we rode ramps because we couldn’t go to the street park every week. When we had the opportunity to go to skate parks that had their own ramps I was like, “This is for me. I don’t have to play around on loading docks anymore.” [Laughs.]

Hawk: Everyone was a bit concerned in the beginning that Mike was not the most adept street skater, so we couldn’t go down stairs and stuff like that. It wasn’t unspoken because he and Stacy spoke about it, but he said that “Look, we’re gonna have to say something in the video like, "Oh, Mike got hurt, that’s why he can’t skate San Francisco.” Then when we went to Wallows, and it all kind of played out perfectly the way the scenes wound up, because there’s one scene where Mike hits a hole in the bank and his truck breaks. He went down pretty hard, it’s on camera, and Stacy, I remember him saying, “Oh, that’s it. That’s where Mike gets hurt.”

Bakersfield

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BAKERSFIELD

Peralta: There was a rider on our team named Chris Borst. He had a ramp and we said, “Hey, can we do a sequence here?” He said, “Yeah, my dad’s cool with it. He’ll cook food, and you guys can have as many people as you want here.” The idea was to create this situation that just looked like kids were skating and partying all day long. So that other kids around the world could say, “Wow, we can make a scene like that in our neighborhood.”


 

My 11-year-old son said, 'What’s that video you’re in dad? What is that, that crazy ramp and all? You never showed me that.' And I said, 'I didn’t know you wanted to see any of that.' Seeing it stirred up a lot of good memories, but also some difficult memories of guys like Ray Underhill. We were all a pretty close-knit group, and Ray passed away about four years ago.
—Mike McGill


 

McGill: I hadn’t seen Animal Chin for a few years 'till I’d seen the Bones Brigade Documentary, and my 11-year-old son said, “What’s that video you’re in dad? What is that, that crazy ramp and all? You never showed me that.” And I said, “I didn’t know you wanted to see any of that.” Seeing it stirred up a lot of good memories, but also some difficult memories of guys like Ray Underhill. We were all a pretty  close-knit group, and Ray passed away about four years ago and never got to see any of the later-on stuff that all of us are doing. It was difficult to see some of that stuff.

That was Ray’s scene. Anytime any of us hurt ourselves we were like, “Ray I got shit going on right now man. I don’t know what’s going on.” [Laughs.] That was his famous quote there. I don’t where these guys get ’em.

Hawk: Ray would do more subtlety, and that’s kind of what Stacy was going for. He wanted to highlight everyone’s personality, so as soon as he heard Ray say something like that, he’s like, “Ray, we’re gonna make a scene like that just for you.” I thought it was funny, but at the same time, it didn’t seem that far-fetched to me.

Pink Motel

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THE PINK MOTEL AND JOHNNY RAD’S

Peralta: The Pink Motel is out in Sunland, which is the deepest part of the San Fernando Valley, the eastern-most part. It’s still there. Tony Alva said the greatest thing about that pool a couple years ago. He goes, “That pool is skateboarding’s oldest whore.” And I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “There hasn’t been one pro that hasn’t gone there and skateboarded that woman. Every pro has spent time with that female pool, every single one, and she’s welcomed all of them. She’s just like an old whore.”

With the skate calisthenics, I would see the guys doing stuff off to the side as a joke, and I’d say, “Oh my God, we have to put this in here. We have to work this in.” In so many of the sequences in Animal Chin, I would see something and go, “You know what guys? This has to be on camera.”


 

Tony Alva said the greatest thing about that pool a couple years ago. He goes, 'That pool is skateboarding’s oldest whore... There hasn’t been one pro that hasn’t gone there and skateboarded that woman.'
—Stacy Peralta 


 

Mountain: We were sitting bored in the hotel or whatever, and you put your board on your feet and you start trying to flip your board or do a trick, and Stacy notices, like, “Hey, we need to do that thing that you guys did.” We film it and Stacy's like “One more time. Maybe a little bit more. Hey do that one more.” It gets pushed and pushed to the ridiculous. We don't actually sit around doing that. You sat on your bed and you put your feet on your board, and you tried to flip it or see what leaner or a different way to tweak the leaner, and all of a sudden Stacy saw it and moved it into, “Oh yeah, do calisthenics with it,” like yeah, “these guys do calisthenics every morning.” It got pushed to such the extreme that it was so stupid that, to me, it's funny. It's funny that it's stupid. Everyone could go, “Oh, that's so fun, and it's so cool.”

Hawk: That was all Lance. The thing that was funny about that scene but was cut out, was we actually did kick-flips, and I think one of us missed it. I might have missed it. And the board came down right on my shoulder. I said, “Oh, it’s OK, I got it,” and Stacy pauses and he’s like, “Look you guys, we can’t encourage kids to do this, they’re gonna get knocked out trying to stick their boards above their heads like this. Let’s just not do that.”

Guerrero: I put my foot down. I was like, “I’m not doing that, that is so corny. I’ve already done so much corny shit that I ain’t doing that.” Stacy, I think at that point was like, “Ugh, whatever Guerrero, fine,” and didn’t fight me on it, so that’s why I’m just laying there. I think even in the doc when they showed that outtake from the film and you could hear me in the background, I’m like, “So stale,” or something. I just wasn’t having it.

Las Vegas

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JOHNNY RAD'S

Peralta: Johnny Rad was a really good friend of mine, an actor in Hollywood. His name is Rob Fitzgerald. Shortly after the Animal Chin thing, he got a big contract with Budweiser. He was the Budweiser “I Love you Man” [guy].  That was him. Then he’s been on a million TV shows. He’s on commercials all the time now. He was a regular on Vegas with James Caan.

That club was a car body shop in west Los Angeles that we outfitted to look like a club. We put Johnny Rad in [the skateboarding video] Future Primitive just as a lark, to see what would happen. He was such a hit and people liked him so much, we decided, “Geez, you know we should bring this guy back.” So we figured, “OK, well where would he have a club? It would either be in Hollywood or Las Vegas.” It was like, "Let’s get out of California. Let’s put him in Vegas.” The absurd idea that skateboarders could have their own club in Vegas was just ridiculous, and so we just added to the absurdity. Then it motivated the guys to have to travel further in their search, and the fact that they’re gonna see Johnny Rad will give us an opportunity for an older figure to kind of give them a clue to Animal Chin.


 

It was really late, like three in the morning, and he really wanted us to go and I refused to go. [Laughs.] He pulled me over like, 'If you’re not gonna go, just leave the set,' and I just walked off the set.
—Stevie Caballero


 

Mountain: Stevie and Stacy came to a real conflict the night of the party, the jump ramp scene. Stacy's tired; we're tired; no one wants to skate. As much as we didn't want to skate or film anymore, Stacy had to film too. We don't care what Stacy's going through, like he filmed for nine hours. We're like, “We don't want to skateboard.” No one's thinking about what Stacy's doing. He's laying underneath the jump ramp like, “OK, we're trying to get this shot. Let's hurry it up and pack it up. Let's get outta here, we're done.” Everyone's like serious, “Oh, I wanna get my good jump ramp shot.” Seriously, like we need this. Stacy's like, “C'mon let's go.” Everyone's going like, “Eh, that's a bad angle,” and Stacy says, “Just go.” So, everyone goes, and Stevie refuses to go, just refuses. “I'm not going.” [We were like]
“Stevie we need you.”

“You go, I'm not going. It's a bad angle, I'm not shooting from there.” It was an argument with Stacy laying out on the ground, underneath the jump ramp, and Stevie 100 yards away, not going, to the point where they're like, “Either you go now or you're off the team.”

[He said] “Well I'm quitting.” He quits. He sits down. I don't know if they're gonna talk about it seriously, but I remember the words, “I quit.” [And] "Well OK, you're off.” [Laughs.]

I don't think Stevie has a shot going off the jump ramp in that scene. You won't notice it, and I don't know if anyone else will even admit or even talk to that happening, but it happened. Tony knows. Tony and I were baffled, like, “Whoa, this is heavy.” After that we drove to Vegas for the Chris Borst ramp, and Tony tells a story where we're doing a scene where we're driving in a car and it's up on a trailer. We're supposed to be driving and Stacy is in the front car with Walkie Talkies, we're in the back with Walkie Talkies, and he's filming these scenes of us driving to the desert, and our car is on the trailer. We're losing it. Tommy's singing a rap, and we're jumping on the hood. We were so tired and so irritated, that's where all the funny stuff comes. Tony tells us, “Hey, remember that time we were driving and Lance was like, 'Hey lookit guys, we gotta settle down. Stacy is doing this film for us. He's the one laying on the ground saying 'Hey, let's film.' He doesn't have to do this, he's doing it for us. Just as much as we're tired, and we're annoyed, what is he doing? He's filming. Like, we gotta lay off him, you guys. He's doing it for us.” Tony was telling this story to Stacy, and he said I got on the Walkie Talkie and said, “Stacy” and Stacy said “Yes,” and we're like, “We're sorry,” and he goes “What?” and he didn't even know what we were talking about. Stacy was like “That happened? Really? You did that for me Lance?” No one really remembered that. Tony was the one who remembered it. We go to Vegas, skated, and it was like a it never happened.

Hawk: Stacy wanted to shoot right under the jump ramp. Steve thought it was lame because it was an extreme cam angle, and it was the kind of thing that we used to not like because it was what news crews would do to us, you know, like trick the camera sideways and whatever. I was always like, “Why do you have to try to make it more than what it is? Isn’t this enough?” Whatever Stacy was doing, whatever angle he had, Stevie’s like “I’m not going, I’m not gonna go.” It was just this standoff like, “No, just go. We need you in the shot too.” Then it escalated, I think because everyone was so tired, it escalated to the point of Steve saying, “I quit.” Then it’s “Well fine, then you quit. Someone else go.” We were on both sides of the fence, but at the same time we trusted Stacy’s artistic sense, and he wasn’t even gonna use it if it were that lame.

Caballero: We would film hours, hours, and hours, and we would get pretty frustrated that we had to do things over and over in the late nights and stuff. There was this one scene that Stacy wanted to shoot—it wasn’t really a scene it was more of an angle that he had set up for a sort of launch ramp. It was one of these shots where we’d just be flying over again, and we’re pretty particular how skating looks and we’d always make fun of shots like that where you couldn’t see guys coming and going, just kind of going straight to the end. I was pretty adamant about not shooting something like that. It was really late, like three in the morning, and he really wanted us to go and I refused to go. [Laughs.] He pulled me over like, “If you’re not gonna go, just leave the set,” and I just walked off the set. It was just one of those things where I didn’t feel like they really needed me in there, you know. Just part of me being stubborn and late night irritation. It wasn’t really a big deal. We were over it the next day. [Laughs.]

Legacy

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THE LEGACY

Hawk: I’m really amazed that people took the meaning so much to heart. I guess for us, it wasn’t a steady premise, it was one that just got us through to show all these different spots and different types of skating. I understood what the message was, but it just didn’t suit me. I feel like that inspired people to follow their own path and I think that’s huge, that something could motivate someone to chase their dreams, or to realize that you can do something different and be successful, or be happy.

Guerrero: Back then you never even thought there’d be any impact other than a negative one because it was so retarded what we were doing. It’s just one of those things that you’re only aware of 25 years later, like, "Wow, we really made an impact on people and how they relate that moment in time and that era to something really special and unique in their lives." And I do too. It’s interesting to have that connection with a lot of people, like, "Aww man, that was such a great time. We used to go skate with our friends, our crew." Now everybody is grown up and has jobs, families, and responsibilities and shit, so they definitely have an affection for that time in their lives. That's what I think so many people want to have in their lives. Whether it’s buying old skate crap to hang on their walls or just getting out there and cruising around the parks—not that there’s so many of them. Whatever it is, their kids are getting into it. It’s great. I think it’s pretty interesting. 


 

We were just skateboarding, and we were just doing what we wanted to do, and for some reason it taught everybody that you can be just disrespectful, and adolescent, do whatever the heck you want, and you're free, and F society and everyone else. Which is not anything we were trying to do.
—Lance Mountain 


 

Caballero: It was fun. Like I said, it was a new experience for us. We had always gotten to skate new places. It was exciting because every place that we went to go skate was a new place that we never skated before. Every place we went to go film, It was a new experience. That’s what made the film fun, because we were searching for this mysterious character, but we were having a good time everywhere we went.

We were definitely a little bit leery of what people thought because we did act in it. We weren’t actors, but we try to make light of it. We wore more of our personalities, and sometimes people let their skills talk for themselves. We were putting ourselves out there where people would get a little bit more than just us skating and who we are as people, and how we interact with one another. When we went to the premiere we definitely were hoping that people didn’t think of it as cheesy—not trying to make skateboarding look bad. But people had a kick out of it.

Mountain: This is one of the things that helped me be able to do this for the rest of my life, for the life of my family, and have a home and a job that I enjoy. It's selfish. I had friends on that team who were as good or better than me, that weren't able to parlay this into a full life. I still get to skateboard and make a living off of it ever since—cool. But I don't look at it as anything deeper than personal. If I start looking at it that deeply, I start freaking out. I start looking at it as, "You know what? We were doing what we did and this cultural thing happened." In my opinion, people's understanding or version of what we did as a cultural thing is not what we were doing. We were just skateboarding, and we were just doing what we wanted to do, and for some reason it taught everybody that you can be just disrespectful, and adolescent, do whatever the heck you want, and you're free, and F society and everyone else. To me, that's what people had turned it into, which is not anything we were trying to do.

If I look at it that way, I start looking at it way more cynical, like, we're part of the problem of kids not knowing how to get out of adolescence. They don't know how to get out of age twenty so at age thirty-eight they're still at their parents' house doing drugs thinking that they can just live the lifestyle. I don't want to be a part of that. That's what people think that we taught them. No, we didn't teach them that. We taught them to work hard, go for your goals, do something. So I start tripping on it way hard. I don't even want to go down that road. I think that the legacy is positive. I don't know. People take things differently.


 

When we were growing up, we did it because our parents were going, like, 'Don't do that, grow up.' It was our outlet. Now parents want the kids to do it, like, 'How much can my kid make?'
—Lance Mountain


 

I think the majority of people have a different take on what was really happening. This skateboarding as a culture and a lifestyle or whatever, is awesome in itself, but not if it becomes a problem for the rest of your life. Not everyone can be Tony Hawk, not everyone gets to make a living off of this. It's something you can enjoy, but if you don't put it in its right place there's lots of guys that have gotten nothing from it. If you get nothing from it and you're bitter, that's not a positive thing. If you think it's a way to just rebel against society, it's not a good thing. There's no intention to rebel against society. The intention is to do something positive. It's so different than what people's interpretation of it became.

I think America has a huge problem of adolescence, which I don't think even existed before our culture. In the past you're 14, 15, you're almost ready to get married and go to work. Now we're like, “I'm just gonna be a kid and skateboard, and do whatever I want till I'm 40.” [Laughs.] I don't look at it that way, I look at it more as selfish for me is what I'm saying, like, “Man this was positive for me that I was blessed. I'm one of the lucky ones that was able to turn this into something.” It didn't put me in a situation where I'm crippled for the rest of my life physically, spiritually, mentally, or any of that stuff which anything in life can do if we put it in the wrong place.

Stacy always had a great, positive way to look at it. I think most people think if you succeed at it it's positive, if you don't, you did something wrong. There's a lot of guys who are gonna just do it for the enjoyment sake, and they're taught that if you don't reach Tony Hawk status, then you failed. There's only one of those guys in the world. There are thousands and thousands of kids that skate, and only a few are going to make a living off it. I think back when we were doing what we did it was teaching kids more of this is a fun life. Now it's a such a sport that everyone is focused on making a living off it. When we were growing up, we did it because our parents were going, like, “Don't do that, grow up.” It was our outlet. Now parents want the kids to do it, like, “How much can my kid make? What's the sport?” That's a whole different pressure on kids. That's a whole different outlook on it. There's a whole business behind it. There's livelihood, everyone's shooting for that goal of “My kid can make money on this.” It's so different now, that message that Stacy wanted to give is a harder message to give and understand at this point.

Chin Ramp

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THE CHIN RAMP

Peralta: When we were in the initial planning stages, we asked the guys, “What do you guys want to do now?” A lot of them said, “We want to make a ramp that no one’s ever seen.” And it was like “OK, what do you want to do with that?” Lance starting drawing on a napkin what they wanted to see, and we said “OK, let’s do that.”

Mountain: At that time, ramps were 24 feet wide, so we were like, “We're gonna make it twice as wide.” That right there in itself was far above what had been done. We broke rules, and we had no understanding that you could make corners and stuff—that would be incredible. We didn't even go in that direction. We're like, "Just do it twice as wide." Like, “You know what, what about ramp for ramp?” It wasn't even built before. It wasn't even built on a small ramp before. Go with a vertical spine first, like “Will this work?” Who knows? As soon as we did that, it opened the door, like now that ramp just warped. A big, big channel, things like that, ramps weren't wide enough to put a big channel in, and huge extensions. Now in the scheme of things, it's like, “Really? That was a special ramp then?” That ramp was crazy then. It just opened the idea and the box, which can be way more.

McGill: Stacy said, “If you can find a place to put this ramp you can have it Mike.” I was like, “Great!”


 

I was going up the wall and he was going down it, and we just missed a cue. I hit him and did a flip going up the wall. I hit him with my leg really hard. I thought I fractured it.
—Tony Hawk


 

Peralta: None of us had the property to build a ramp like this. We knew we were gonna build it: we had the builders to build it, we had the money to build it, we had the wood to build it, we just didn’t know where to build it. So everybody was searching for a piece of property. It was getting down to the minute, like we had to start this film, and if we don’t have this place. We’re never gonna be able to make this ramp, and if we don’t make this ramp, we’re not gonna have a climax for this film. So Mike McGill calls me one day and he says, “Hey, I think I might’ve found some property.” And I go “Where?” He goes, “Well, it's in the eastern ocean side, and it's between two freeways. It's just this gigantic piece of land. I never see anybody on it and there’s a dirt road on it, but I never see any cars on it.” So we went down there and took a look at it, and it was like in the middle of nowhere. You could barely see it from the highways. So we just decided "OK, let’s do it."

We had about $10,000 worth of wood dropped there. We had these guys over a two-week period build the ramp. Totally illegally. Completely illegal. Didn’t ask anybody’s permission, had no idea who owned the land, but we did notice one thing: across the field from where we made the ramp, there were these really strange little white boxes. They looked like bird cages, but they weren’t bird cages, they were enclosed. Didn’t know what they were, but they were fastened to the ground.

So anyways, we get the ramp done and the day we get there to shoot, we see a car coming down the road. I’m like, "Wow that’s weird, there’s been nobody out here for weeks." This brand new Ford Sterling pulls up and this guy gets out, this really official looking guy and he looks at the ramp and he just starts screaming, “Who in the hell...? What is this? Who built this? Who are you people? You need to get out of here.” All of a sudden I see my life pass before my eyes. I’m going “Oh Jesus Christ. I just spent $10,000 on this ramp, and its gonna be torn down before we can shoot it.” We have the cameras there ready to shoot. I’m thinking fast, like, “I have to figure out something to tell this guy to let us shoot here because he’s gonna kick us out.” And so he’s screaming at me ‘cause he knows I’m the point man here. He’s screaming at me and threatening us.

Finally I say, “Do you think kids should take drugs?” and it completely stopped him. He goes, “What?” I go, “Do you think it's ok for teenage kids to take drugs?” He goes, “Of course I don’t. How could you ask me a question like that?!” I said, “We’re here making an anti-drug film,” and I pointed to all the skateboarders and said, “These are the best skateboarders in the world and they’ve donated their time to this film, and we’ve built this ramp to show kids that are on drugs that there is an alternate way to get high in life. We’ve got to be able to do this because if this ramp gets taken down, we can’t make this film. This film is gonna help kids get off drugs.” He was so confounded by what I said that he paused, and he goes, “How much time do you need?” I go, “We were hoping to shoot this in a week.” He goes, “I can’t give you a week. You got three days. This ramp better be outta here in three days.” He got back in his car and he left. We shot that sequence in three days.

McGill: I worked on it, and some surf shop owner and his dad ran this yard that had all these warehouses and he gave me permission so to speak. [Laughs.] We went to work for two weeks from dusk till dawn and dawn till dusk. Lance of course, and Tim Payne built it. I was the number one gofer; I got everybody burritos and drinks, and pounded some nails when they told me to. We skated for about three days, went on tour for a couple weeks, came back, and the thing was gone. I was flipping out. I was, “What? Somebody stole the ramp!” [Laughs.] I guess the guy’s dad’s boss came and saw it and said, “You gotta get that thing out of there.”

Caballero: My favorite part was making the Chin ramp just because it was super narrow, and just taking the time building the ramp, no one’s ever built something like that before. It was really cool how we built the spine. We hadn’t had a spine built this way. We had the top through it as well. We were doing a bunch of doubles, and triples, and quadruples. Everything we were doing was all spontaneous right then, at that time. It was a very exciting time to film all these different moves flying off the extensions, and there was a tiny mini ramp on top of that ramp. It was very neat seeing all the other guys come out with all their tricks and being inspired to do their best as well. It was the first time I’ve ever seen Tony Hawk come into his own right after that video. Just showing how really good you are, just where he was coming from, you know? Trick after trick after trick. And I couldn’t believe that the bag was that full of tricks, like, it was no ending.

Hawk: It was huge and crazy that we could ever make it stretch that big, that everyone could afford it and put it into action. I liked it. I thought it was done pretty well, but when we considered doing a spar that sounded super fun, and that’ll unlock a whole new library of tricks. Once I got there and realized that going from vertical to vertical, that’s one of the suckiest things ever, all I wanted to do was get over it. [Laughs] All of those plans went out the window.

It was the first 720 that I ever made like properly standing up, so I was super stoked to get that on film, and the 360 varial, that was the first one ever on camera. I thought that stuff was super cool. Well the last day, when Mike and I did all that doubles stuff, I ended up running into Cab on one of his runs; I was going up the wall and he was going down it, and we just missed a cue and I hit him and did a flip going up the wall. I hit him with my leg really hard. I thought I fractured it. So I went home, and that was the afternoon where they shot all the stuff with the tunnel, the deer crashing. That’s why I’m not in that scene. You don’t see me at all. Once that channel comes out, I’m not there.

Guerrero: I grew up skating in skate parks, but all the parks closed, so then we would skate in the street. So for me, it was very intimidating, and it was a much bigger ramp that I was accustomed to skating. Back then, ramps were small. It was definitely intimidating, but those guys, they’re professionals. It’s what they do. They rose to the occasion; it was incredible to watch.

McGill: That was the very first vertical spine that I’ve ever seen, or was ever built. Nobody had ever rode something like that. So when you look at it, you’re like, “Maybe, maybe—I guess we can just transfer like a little tiny spine?” But it doesn't work that way because it’s vertical. I had a tough time at first because if you go over and you just go over a few inches too far, you’ll bottom out. You’ll pretty much go thirteen feet down to your knees onto the flat bottom, and that hurts. [Laughs.] It was a learning curve and we picked it up within just a few hours. I think I was one of the last guys because it was just so new and exciting. It just takes a little bit of thinking to try to figure it out, which is a lot of the fun in skateboarding.

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