A video by Travis Cooper.
Photos by Jordan Galiano. Interview and words by Danny Landers.
I first started skating with Travis around 2011. We were both filming for a skate video, The Meadowlands, produced by our friend Steve Mastorelli. During the filming process I began to gather from Travis’s skating that he was a no bullshit, straight-shooting, genuine kind of dude. Skip ahead six years later and now Travis was on the other side of the lens producing his own skate video, Mainline. As a filmmaker, the ability to pinpoint what looks cool and what doesn’t is vital to making a different kind of skate video. When he approached me around the end of 2019 to come out and film a few tricks, and eventually a part in his video, I was hyped. Everyone involved was excited to see on the night of the premiere what Travis would come up with. I sat down with Travis and asked him a couple of questions about Mainline and the creative process behind it.
What are some skate videos that have had an influence on the making of Mainline?
An inspiration of mine is Jim Greco and his new adventure in making skateboard videos. Definitely a guy I looked up to in Baker2g and his glory days in skating. I appreciate that he tries to do things differently, and take risks and see where it goes. He just lets the camera roll for a long time, on stuff that was happening before or after the trick to really just kind of sink into what his life is like as a skateboarder. Giving you that extra stuff might not be appealing to everyone, but I appreciate it because it makes the trick that much more special. In my teenage years, I grew up watching Transworld videos from the ’90s and 2000s and really appreciated their intro pieces with voice overs to each part, as well as the super 8 montages. That inspired me to create little snippets for certain people in my video. I feel that if you just see a person’s skating and nothing else, you don’t really get to know them. The intros and b-roll footage are crucial to building a personality around skating.
Where did you guys mostly skate and film?
It was challenging to find the right spots because everybody in the video lives spread out. I avoid spots that are blown out and also try to avoid overlapping spots between people. Some weekends I would be filming in Queens, and the next weekend I would be with a different crew filming in Bucks County, PA. However, it led the way to having a wide variety of spots to showcase in the video. And everyone involved started skating together more and grew tighter as the video developed, which one of the best things about making a skate video.
Did anything about the making of the video evolve over time?
So, I would say about halfway through making this video I met this guy CJ through a mutual friend. I was looking for someone who really takes skateboarding to a gnarly level, and this guy seemed like he really did. He was the one that was interested in checking out all these abandoned places, like the airplane hangar with the full pipe, the abandoned pool, and abandoned resort with a bowling alley you see in the video. Typically this type of stuff wouldn’t be that appealing to skate to me, but with this guy’s approach to skateboarding I started looking at things a little differently. And it started turning things in my head to sort of look at this process as more about finding these bizarre spots to skate at. I feel like the spots we skate is what made this video different in one way for sure. So, I would say that if it wasn’t for meeting this dude CJ, I don’t really know if we would’ve ended up at a lot of these places.
What do you think of CJ ?
You never know what you are going to get with this guy. The dude could be rocking a mohawk and pink track pants, or a shaved head-skullet with a shirt so ripped it looks like a rag. I’m blown away by his commitment to a trick. He is willing to get completely destroyed for a clip. I wanted to show that in his part, to see the battle a trick takes sometimes.
What spot/clip stands out the most to you in CJ’s part?
Definitely impossible to roof drop. The spot was located in an abandoned military town, with a neglected air force runway, and houses and apartments with boarded windows. The place had a sort of apocalyptic feel to it. Part of the challenge that day was finding a roof that was in good enough shape to ride on. So, we walked through all the streets and finally found one, and he started going for the trick. A lot the roofs were sketchy and unsound. The only way of figuring out if it was going to work was to just go for it.
Outside of skate videos, where did your inspiration for Mainline come from?
So I saw this documentary called Dark Days, and it focuses on these people that lived in the underground tunnels in NYC back in the ’90s. It has a really raw kind of feeling that is really appealing to me. The overall aesthetic of the documentary has a guerrilla style to it. You just go out with the camera and see what you can capture. I could relate that to the process of making a skateboard video. It’s key to keep the camera rolling to capture the good, candid moments. Those moments help define a person’s style. I also appreciate offbeat film makers; I follow directors like Harmony Korine, Werner Herzog, and even older filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick.
In the process of making a skate video with your friends it can become all too easy to lose sight of the reasons you set out to do it. Each time you go out filming the intentions start out pure and communal. Everyone’s catching up, talking skate rat talk, and eagerly anticipating the tricks that will go down. Next thing you know you’re in the middle of battling a trick, wondering where the hell the positive energy disappeared to. When it becomes insular and ego-driven like that, skateboarding ceases to be skateboarding. Skating with Travis and the Mainline guys, I was constantly reminded about what was important about skateboarding: community. I am sure that this skate video, with its eclectic mix of skaters, its sneak peeks into their personalities, and Travis’s tasteful approach to film-making, will remind you of that as well.
