"Your “Bound By Boards” documentary is the one I showed in class to spur critical discussion and to inspire. It is truly excellent. Not only does it nail many of the assignment’s technical and aesthetic asks, but it’s also full of heart and life. It’s a lovely, worthwhile piece of media."

- Jonathan Baltrusaitis

Find the link HERE.

My final project in GBDA 201, a 2nd-year film course, was to create a documentary with 3 partners. As the director, I was responsible for finding a subject to film, organizing our shooting and recording, and screening the doc with my group. Alongside my directing, I operated one of the 3 cameras during filming and edited each cut of the documentary.

Before we had even confirmed that we were going to film with the skate club, I had a vision for the documentary in my mind. I wanted the feel of a classic skate video but with more personal elements and emotions from our interviewees that you dont normally see in skate edits. To achieve the classic skate feel I made the intro a skate edit. This gave the skate club a proper intro as well as displayed their talents and style. The song for the opening edit was intentionally chosen for its themes of fun as well as hardships, which perfectly captures the spirit of skateboarding.

We used a camcorder as well as a fisheye lens to capture that classic skate video feel. The fisheye lens let us get visually interesting shots of the arena, as well as focus on the actions of each skater. The documentary takes several breaks for our interviews, which is where we established the personal aspect of the film. By prying into what skateboarding meant to the club execs and how its affected them, we were able to capture feelings that are unseen in other skateboard films. The cuts between skate clips and the interviews is intentional to keep the classic skate feel connected with the emotional aspect of the documentary.

Edited in Premiere Pro and After Effects.

I learned a multitude of things from my experience with the documentary. Firstly, the organization and leadership experience I got was extremely helpful. Having to reach out and cold call different groups of people to find someone to film gave me a boost in confidence and great experience for making connections. From the actual making of the documentary, I learned that having a vision for what you want to create is crucial before starting a project. By knowing how I wanted the doc to look before filming, I was able to direct my team in the right direction for camera shots and filming styles.

What I could have improved on was planning filming locations. Filming in the arena worked out, but the interview locations were decided on after we got on location. This turned out good and bad, we had an excellent backdrop for some interviews with the "no skating" sign in the back. However, a different spot had a reflection of us in the background which pulled the focus away from the interviewee.

Directed by Michael Gvozdek
Production Manager: Giancarlo Haidar
Producers: Michael Gvozdek, Giancarlo Haidar
Director of Photography: Charlie Cilla
Boom Operator: Giancarlo Haidar
Editing: Michael Gvozdek
Research: Haojia Sun

Special Thanks To:
Timur Khayrollin
Saira Hadi
Manav Vellore
Philip Stanoev

Shot in 1080p with:
Canon EOS R7
Canon XF100
Canon EOS D60