Filming Myself Skateboarding - Finding a Balance and a Reliable Video Editor Phone App

Nose slide in the driveway.

I like filming myself skateboarding. The problem is I'm not interested enough in the filmmaking process to film great shots or tell a compelling story each video to compensate for my lack of ability on a skateboard.

It's not that I'm bad at skateboarding, and I understand there is an audience of people who like to watch how other beginner (or aging relearner) skaters progress. I'm part of that audience.

As much as we love watching pro skaters video parts and competition runs, for many of us that level of skating isn't as relatable as watching someone going through the same struggle we're having with trying to land basic pop shove-its and kickflips.

I recently broke the drought of not making skateboard videos for the past six months by posting a new driveway skateboard session that I filmed, edited, and uploaded from my phone. You can watch it below.

This video would have had a bit more of a story had the bit in the middle, where I gave my initial thoughts on my new shoes, had not recorded without audio. I think I forgot to turn the external microphone back on. It's the first time I've used it with my phone, so it was bound to happen.

In case you're interested the $20 shoes with $5 insoles were really good to skate in. Comfortable right away. It'll be interesting to see how long they last the wear and tear of skateboarding.

As it stands the video ended up being more of the same. Though I did add a bit of sweeping and my warm up stretches for something completely new... oh, and I mentioned the Zazzle deck.

The reason I stopped filming videos is that it's no fun editing down skateboard footage to remove the boring bits between trying the same six or seven tricks over and over again. It's also not that interesting filming the same six or seven tricks over and over again. The tricks I'm trying to learn.

If I was more interested in filmmaking I know I could probably do a lot more but usually, when I go out to skate, I just want to skate. Skating is the one thing I can kind of do that doesn't require too much thinking outside the moment. All my focus is either on whatever trick I'm trying to learn or, just enjoying doing those few tricks I can do. As soon as I set up a camera it becomes about making content. Essentially I'm working and not really enjoying my skating.

Filming, editing, and uploading from my phone helps alleviate another issue, being tied even more to my desktop computer. It can be a little discouraging going out to skate knowing that I'm coming back with a few hours of editing being added to my workload.

Editing on my phone means I can be editing in the evenings while I'm watching TV or Netflix - which at least makes me feel better about my second screen activity being more productive than scanning social media. It's also nice to be more productive on any of my mobile devices because it shows I literally can work from almost anywhere.

It took a while to find some video editing software for my phone that was even halfway decent. Movavi makes the best app for one handed editing I've ever comes across. Unfortunately their app only lets you edit one project at a time. You can't save it, start a new project, save that, and then open up a previous project and continue working.

Worse is, that while you can keep a project open in the app, close the app, then come back to it later with your project just as you left it, on multiple occasions I reopened the app to be faced with projects I'd spent hours on just gone. Reset back to an empty document.

Movavi's app is a paid subscription. After losing all my work one too many times (another reason for why it's been so long for me making a new skate video) I cancelled the app and uninstalled it.

VlogU Video Editor.

The app I finally settled on is called VlogU. From what I gather it's a new entry into the field. It's not quite as good a user interface as Movavi's app for one hand editing but it's close enough, and it has more features.

What it does have going for it is you can save multiple projects. As well, it crashed a few times while I was making the video above - which wouldn't usually be a plus but each time I restarted the app, my project was still all there minus maybe the last one or two edits. Way better than losing everything for no apparent reason.

VlogU is a free app. It does watermark your video but this can be removed for each video if you take a moment to watch an ad. I was also able to upload directly to Youtube from the app too.

Anyway... this post is really becoming something of a rambling stroll...

The upshot is, that I'm hoping my new workflow of filming, editing, and uploading from my phone will inspire me to start making a few more skate videos again. I pretty much have my phone with me at all times so I can be a little more spontaneous, and film wherever I happen to skate knowing all the clips will be on my phone, ready to edit, without having to sit at my desktop computer.

The challenge is to find some kind of story so my videos aren't just you watching me running through the same batch of tricks video after video.

Comments

James Gunn's Social Media Monkeys Joke Was a Highlight of His Superman Movie For Me

B efore James Gunn's Superman Movie was released there was a whole rumor going around that the movie would feature monkeys on computers trolling Superman's social media, sparking much outrage. #supersh*t. I didn't know this was even a thing until just prior to writing this article. I did a search to see if anyone had posted a clip of the monkeys scene from the movie and got pages of discourse featuring videos and articles prior to the film. Most of it from Gunn detractors (let's say) seeing it as some kind of childish swipe at them... well not them specifically but, you know, those other people who have every right to hate on anything sight unseen. Anyway, I'm not going to give even one such example a link or air because it's kind of sad watching someone devote so much commentary to a throw away gag that is absolutely a nod to James Gunn's Superman trolls. The whole reason this post exists, is to say I loved the joke, because fourteen years ago, and I...

I'm Joining the Illuminati Brotherhood By Personal Invitation of Hiltom Rothschild... Wait, What?

How special am I to have finally come of age (53 years young) and am now eligible to participate in building the world alongside other members of the Illuminati Brotherhood... Yes I've received the call by way of an email, which I'm sure is real because I had to translate it from the Dutch language and it was personally written by Hiltom Rothschild, one of the non-existent members of the Rothschild family (or perhaps deep undercover because Google has never heard of them?). A Transcript of the email below: To: etourist From: Illuminati Brotherhood Subject: Illuminati Broederschap (Illuminati Brotherhood) I am Hiltom Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family, one of the 13 families of the Illuminati brotherhood. I'm here to let you know that you've come of age and are eligible to participate in building the 🌎 world. It is a calling and a privilege to honor him with pride and gratitude as not everyone will ever be chosen by the LIGHT, many are called but few are ch...

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de...

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...

Movie Review: A Complete Unknown (2024) No Spoilers

Y ou would think the Bob Dylan story would be 'wind-swept and interesting,' to quote Billy Connelly, however, despite A Complete Unknown being quite an engaging film, it feels like it missed the years that really shaped him as a song writer/performer. The film starts in 1961, with a then unknown, 19-year-old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arriving in New York City with his guitar. From there he forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates around the world. The problem being, according to this film, Dylan arrived in New York, for the most part, fully formed as a folk singer/song writer. In virtually no time he makes a very important connection that puts him on the trajectory of doing the work and becoming a name, before making his world changing performance. While there is some drama behind the scenes with his various relationships, none of it is particularly unique to any number of up and com...

Commodore Computers Are On Their Way Back With a New CEO and Many of the Original Team Founders

Commodore 64 Ultimate: Starlight Edition. An updated C64 for today. C hances are, if you grew up in the 1970s and 80's, the first computer your family owned was a Commodore 64 (or possibly the Vic-20, also by Commodore, that preceded it). I taught myself to code in BASIC on our Commodore 64 (C64), making ASCII based games (i.e. graphics made from the letters and symbols assigned to the various keyboard keys). I coded a Tic Tac Toe two player game, a simple shooting gallery game, and a flash card game to help me learn the Periodic Table, which (much to my... I want to say horror... got me bumped up to an advanced science class in high school). Later I'd go on to dabbling in true 8 bit, and 16 and 32 bit, graphical games, when we upgraded to the C128, Amiga 500, then Amiga 600, but I never actually finished anything because, by then I'd gotten into skateboarding, so I was trying to make my ultimate skateboard game - ambitious much? It was Commodore machines that showed me mak...

Movie Review: Superman (2025) No Spoilers

T he one thing I like about James Gunn as a comic book movie director is that he leans into the comic book nature of the world and the characters. He's not trying to do a realistic take on any of the characters. He's simply bringing the comics to life. It's still his take on the characters, but he doesn't shy away from their comic book origins. James Gunn's Superman is very much a comic book movie in every sense. Nothing is off the table because it's too 'comic-booky' and might look silly in a live action film. To me that's incredibly liberating. It lets James actually tell a proper Superman story that isn't hamstrung by reality, or tip toeing into the fantastical just enough to allow Superman to exist in the real world. Superman begins in the middle of a battle. Metropolis is under attack by a super powered being known as 'Hammer of Boravia', however everything is not as it seems, and Superman (David Corenswet) must work with other s...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog