After the success of the Dogtown and Z-Boys documentary years ago, we've seen some old school documentaries and videos come in the BMX and skateboard world. But the one I personally want to see made the most is now raising money on Kickstarter. In the clip above, we see the original BMX King of the Skateparks, Eddie Fiola. He's at the legendary Pipeline Skatepark that was in Upland, California. What many of you don't know is that the guy in this clip interviewing Eddie (in 1983? 84?) is Don Hoffman. Who's Don Hoffman? He's a surfer and skater from way back, and happens to be the son of Stan and Jean Hoffman, the people who built Pipeline Skatepark. Don's the guy behind the Badlands movie.
Don got into video in the early 1980's, making videos Wayne's World style with borrowed equipment. By the late 80's, Don had made more BMX freestyle videos, the King of the Skatepark series, than anyone. Don went on to start Unreel Productions, the video company for the Vision Skateboards/Vision Street Wear companies. I worked for Don for about 2 1/2 years there, and among other things, I was the tape librarian at Unreel. That sounds boring, and it would be to most people. When I started at Unreel, there were hundreds of betacam raw footage tapes in boxes. Most boxes had a label like "Savannah." Usually the tapes were numbered, but that was about it. So I got the job of going through and actually watching parts of every single tape, and going to Don or one of the other guys and asking, "OK, this is the Savannah skate contest. What year?" Then I would label the case of ever single tape. By the time Unreel closed, there were about 3,000 tapes, and I had hand written the labels on nearly every single one.
Why am I telling you this nearly 30 years later? Because I know what's on those tapes. I know all the footage that was never used, which is a lot, both in skating and BMX. I also got the "job" of going up to Pipeline Skatepark after it closed, and shooting video with Don of the pool skaters who were let in for those awesome private sessions. I called up Eddie Fiola and Brian Blyther, and invited them to come ride after the park was closed. Don was the main cameraman, but I was the second camera guy for many of those epic sessions. I also got to set down the camera every once in a while and ride myself. I got down in the Pipe Bowl with Eddie and Brian dropping in and zooming past me, so I could get different angles of their classic lines in the Pipe Bowl.
Pipeline wasn't just another Southern California skatepark. Pipeline completely changed the game in skateboarding in 1977, and about five years later changed the game for BMX freestyle as well. This movie REALLY needs to get made. I'm going to throw the weight of this blog behind this project for the rest of the Kickstarter campaign. The story of Pipeline and the Badlands is primarily a skate story, but it's a skate story that changed BMX forever. It would be well worth you throwing a few bucks into this project and help this get made. Check out the Badlands Kickstarter campaign for more details. As of this post, the campaign has raised $6,038 of the $149,995 goal. I'll keep tabs on it as I continue to tell my stories about Pipeline and the locals there.
Would you be more likely to contribute to the fundraising if I drew a picture of on of the classic photos from Pipeline and offered it to Don as a prize for donating? Let me know.
Blogger's note- August 12, 2023: I wrote this post back in 2017, and the Kickstarter campaign didn't raise enough money to fully fund the documentary, to the best of my knowledge. I don't know if Don is still trying to fund the idea or not at this point.
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