Ski-Boys

July 27, 2013 2:15 PM

With a Super 8 camera and a keen eye, young “Deek” Deekma documented himself, his brother and their neighbouring friends in the summer of 1971 as they created new forms of raw stunts daily. Using 8ft toboggans fitted with rollerskate wheels they sledded and surfed the rolling pastures of their family farms. Other inventions include a flying squirrel suit, a fleet of unusual home made bicycles and the ‘road ski’.

posted by edgeways (16 comments total)

"Presented as found footage by the Zenga Bros"--does this mean that it is, in fact, not found footage, but a recreation of same, a la The Blair Witch Project?
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:35 PM on July 27, 2013

Well if it's a film made by modern kids, made to look old, they went to pretty humongous efforts to make it look like the early 1970's. Those were very new looking old helmets and bikes, for one.
posted by Dreadnought at 2:45 PM on July 27, 2013

does this mean that it is, in fact, not found footage, but a recreation

There are several anachronistic giveaways, not least among them the many polyethylene skateboard wheels, which weren't released until 1972. The two-tone Chucks are a bit suspect, everyone's pants are too low, there's a very Bieberesque haircut in there... Those TVs -- smashed -- seem like they'd be 10 years old at most, if not brand new or not yet released.

And if it was indeed shot on Super 8 (which I doubt very much), they must have used a really freaking expensive camera with a variable-speed motor, because there are a lot of slow-motion shots in there. The film would be way more faded, and you'd see tape on the cuts.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:53 PM on July 27, 2013 [3 favorites]

Putting my vote in for "not found footage." The stances these kids take toward the camera are decidedly new-looking...I've just never seen people from the 70s *look* like that. Also, as my husband pointed out, the focus on the subject stays the same while the camera moves a lot, which would have been impossible.

But yes, they did seem to go to humongous efforts, which seem to have paid off.
posted by nosila at 2:59 PM on July 27, 2013

A very good effort, but that's not 1971.
posted by davebush at 3:00 PM on July 27, 2013

The age of the guys is a bit of a giveaway.

I was a bored kid in small town SW Ontario in the early 70s and I remember the bikes cobbled together with big forks, jump ramps, metal wheeled rollerskates and skateboards, soapbox racers (pushed with hockey sticks because there were NO hills).....but I don't remember anybody over the age of 14 that would be caught dead doing this kind of stuff. These guys look college age to me.
posted by bonobothegreat at 3:00 PM on July 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

OK, it wasn't just me, then. It's still a pretty impressive technical accomplishment, but not in any way "an overlooked subculture in Ontario that had the potential to reshape youth culture as we know it." I can understand nostalgia for a time when kids did crazy stuff without uploading it to YouTube seconds later, but when my friends and I actually shot homemade Super 8 movies in the late seventies and early eighties, if we'd had something like YouTube, we'd have put that shit up for the whole world to see. (Now, of course, with some of us having teenagers of our own, we're too embarrassed by it to do so.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:20 PM on July 27, 2013

There are several anachronistic giveaways, not least among them the many polyethyleneurethane skateboard wheels, which weren't released until 1972.

FTFM.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:08 PM on July 27, 2013

Stop fake-artisanally commodifying my childhood, goddammit. (Lawn, harrumph, etc.).
posted by carter at 5:10 PM on July 27, 2013 [8 favorites]

What caught me was the mention of a "World War 2 movie camera". Super 8 didn't come along until the 1960s.
posted by cazoo at 5:53 PM on July 27, 2013

Yea....no.
posted by vitabellosi at 7:37 PM on July 27, 2013

One of the still photos to the right of the video (guy on bike posing) is just way too clear and the model is obviously a current-day person look at him (just look at him).
posted by user92371 at 10:26 PM on July 27, 2013

No one in the 70's would be caught dead wearing shorts that hit below mid-thigh.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:58 PM on July 27, 2013

I loved this video, even if the "found footage" angle is BS.

The giveaway for me was all the on-bike or on-skateboard shots. That kind of thing was nearly impossible then, but super easy today with a GoPro camera.
posted by mathowie at 7:50 AM on July 28, 2013

I saw this without context at Bicycle Film Festival and didn't quite know what to make of it, but I loved it.
posted by Juliet Banana at 4:40 PM on July 28, 2013

Well, the Scooby gang mythbusting has kind of harshed my mellow, but I really liked this. Somebody should do a Hardy Boys reboot with this esthetic.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:38 PM on July 28, 2013