The History of Fingerboard Videos

Today we are going to cover the History of Fingerboard Videos. This video will highlight all the different ways #fingerboarding was presented on video from the earliest times until 2005. I chose 2005 as the endpoint for a reason. In 2006 we began to see a major shift in the style of videos, with the rise of YouTube as a platform. I’ll get into that for part 2 of this video.

Before we dive in, I’d love to hear what is your favorite #fingerboard video of all time. It can be a mini-video (30 seconds to a couple minutes), or even full-length. Let me know in the comments below! And while you are at it hit the like button for me!

Tina's Vimeo with a ton of old FB videos: https://vimeo.com/user190473
Kevin Hanrahan's (who is one of the most tech fbers all-time) also has a ton of old videos: https://vimeo.com/xkhx

We know fingerboarding has been around since the 70s. Unfortunately, we don’t have footage from back then, but we do have anecdotes from skateboard professionals discussing it. In possibly the oldest surviving footage of fingerboarding, Powell Peralta’s skate video, Future Primitive featured a how they train section showing Lance Mountain fingerboarding inside of a sink. The entire Powell Peralta team surrounded the sink watching, Tony Hawk, Mike Mcgill, etc.

While it was meant to be a funny intermission, it sparked the passion of fingerboarding in many.

Martin Winkler was one of those inspired. We have some footage from the late 80s and early 90s of Martin that shows him fingerboarding. His style that he became known for is recognizable then! Martin used a camcorder to film these.

Prior to diving into more fingerboarding footage, I think it’s important to share the technology used to capture video back in the 80s and 90s. VHS was the standard through the early 2000s. In the 80s, it was uncommon to have a built-in recorder which recorded to full size VHS tapes, and one would need to connect the camera to the portable video camera. These were cumbersome and expensive for your average household. Eventually, we saw compact VHS tapes (VHS C) which were considerably smaller, and could be placed inside of a standard VCR allowing for editing.

We later saw Compact Super VHS released shortly after, providing more video bandwidth and a higher horizontal resolution. In 1995 we saw the release of DV-ready camcorders, with the VX1000, a 3CCD camera which the skateboard industry quickly adopted. This included recording tapes such as DVCAM and MiniDV which made it so much easier to capture footage. I won’t get into the process of editing, as that is a whole other story. This is when we start to see much more footage of fingerboarding emerge.

As you can see, video media has been at the core of fingerboarding since the beginning of the hobby. As the ability to film and capture video became easier, we saw VHS tapes of fingerboard released. And once the internet matured, we started to see fingerboard clips begin to be uploaded to the internet. Thanks to a trifecta of an increase in consumer-friendly camcorders, the increase in average bandwidth, and the ease in which to host and share footage, we saw full-length fingerboard videos being shared to fingerboarders around the world.

Video has and will continue to play a central role in fingerboarding. I look forward to sharing with you part 2 in the near future, where I’ll build upon this video by sharing the evolution of fingerboard videos from 2006 onwards.

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Hope you all have a great day and go shred!