Words and video by Austin Smith
Photos by Chris Dale and Austin Smith
No one likes a time limit. Eventually we always have to set one for ourselves, otherwise videos will never see the light of day, but working within constraints out of your control is a recipe for stress. Filming a video part in 45 days is no easy task, but Max Williams was able to pull this off between April 1st and May 14th of this year.
I moved to Melbourne from Seattle in January. Max jumped at the opportunity to visit me for a bit and see how much we could film. He had been traveling South East Asia for six months and decided to wrap up his travels with a trip to Melbourne, followed by meeting some friends in Seoul. We decided to split the time with four weeks in Australia and two weeks in South Korea.
Anyone who has traveled to film before knows that local knowledge is the key to stacking. Our success during our short time in these two cities was due in no small part to the amazing people we had showing us around. Gatekeeping of skate spots may take place in some parts of the world, but in my experience it was never an issue in Melbourne or Seoul. Locals were happy to send us pins, take us to spots, and then bring us to their houses to share home cooked meals and their favorite local beer. I’ve got to give a huge shout out to Blaize Gray and Shayne Gurski for the hospitality and always hyping up the session, and to our UK mate Chris Dale for filming, shooting photos, and always being the chillest person around.
Melbourne is an easy city to skate. There’s spots everywhere, amazing public transit, and we were rarely kicked out. The challenge during our time filming in the largest city in Victoria was that the days were getting shorter. Each day we had a little less time, and Max’s legs were a little more sore than the day before. At the start of a project like this, you stack a couple clips and your confidence is high. It’s easy to think “we’ve been filming for three days and I’ve got three clips, I’ll finish this part no problem,” only to be confronted with a very different reality three weeks later when you’re exhausted, have done all your go-to tricks, and still don’t have an ender yet with only days to go before you leave the city.
Korea was a different battle entirely. It’s becoming a bit of a hot spot for traveling teams, and we could instantly see why. Perfect plazas everywhere, smooth ground, marble ledges, the list goes on. The Gyeonggi Region, which includes Seoul and Incheon, is one of the largest metro areas in the world with roughly 26 million people. Seoul proper has 9.6 million, and a population density that is twice as much as New York City, with about 46,000 people per square mile. So even though there are amazing plazas everywhere, there are often just too many people to make them viable to skate, let alone film at. We quickly discovered that filming in the heart of Seoul is just too hectic, and with some help from locals, we ventured out to spots in surrounding areas such as Incheon, where the plazas were empty and the list of ABDs was effectively zero. Even though we were lucky enough to find quiet places to film in one of the world’s largest cities, Max had a rough go of it. He got food poisoning for the first few days, but made a quick recovery. The final week of filming, however, was cut short in a much more dramatic fashion.
On one of our last nights partying in Itaewon, we were bombing some mellow hills and having the time of our lives. Walking back up to our Airbnb, Max and our friend Willem Steenstra couldn’t help themselves but bomb one last hill. In retrospect, I think I’m really to blame here. I was at the bottom and neglected my duties as spotter because I was glued to my phone, trying to make sure I filmed the hill bomb as well as my drunk self could manage. Long story short, none of us saw a small box truck driving up the lower half of the hill. It popped around a corner and slammed on its breaks just in time for Max and Willem to come careening into it. Willem slid on his side and barely managed to avoid the grill of the truck. Max was behind Willem and made a split decision. Either slide out and fall on top of Willem, or put his foot down and hope he slowed down in time. Out of fear of hurting Willem, he opted to put his foot down, but couldn’t slow down nearly quick enough. The end result is a viral video that made South Korean news and now has over 3 million views on Instagram.
In the end things were ok. Max went to a hospital and got an x-ray for a fraction of the price it would cost in the United States and was back on his board about a month and a half later. Willem got some road rash, and a funny video to show to girls at the club throughout the rest of his trip.
Going viral for a traffic accident was not how we intended to wrap up our time in Seoul, but everything before that moment was amazing. Thank you to Josh Lee for introducing us to all your friends in Seoul, Hoon Lee for filming and being a gracious host, John Finucane for shooting photos and sharing the secret spots, Jason Choi for keeping the vibes high 24 hours a day, and all the other skaters that showed love. We’ll be back soon.
