Learning From Documentaries

 

I have been a fan of documentaries for most of my life. One of the benefits of the plethora of streaming services are the variety of documentaries we are now offered across all categories. For this week’s assignment I randomly chose a new documentary and the selection was a new documentary on HBO Max: Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off.

Although I was not a skateboarder growing up, as a kid who grew up loving sports in the 90s, I was well aware of who Tony Hawk is and to some extent the amount of success he had gained. What I was not aware of, was the amount of resilience, pain and ability that Tony Hawk had to display in order to get to the mountaintop.

The major elements of the documentary are the upbringing of Tony Hawk, his rise to fame, and the demons he fought once we became successful. 

The documentary sets a grim tone right from the beginning. The audience watches current day Tony Hawk attempting to perform skateboard tricks at the age of 53. You seem him attempt a trick and fall painfully. Each time Tony gets up and goes right back to try it again. As my wife and I were watching this we winced in pain each time. We both felt that neither of us could stand up and repeatedly take that pain, and were impressed that he was even doing this at his age.

As the documentary steps into the upbringing of Tony Hawk you meet his family and understand that he had a tough time becoming popular in the greater skateboarding community due to his new style and his father having ties the skateboarding league. You then see Tony succeed at a very young age, however he wrestles with the challenges of newfound fame. The film strikes a tone of grit and determination, as the audience learns that Tony had to endure economic challenges, while he was one of the best at his sport, due to skateboarding losing popularity in the late 80s. Then, the documentary lightens up as in the 90s skateboarding experiences a revival and becomes popular again. During this time the X Games brings Tony Hawk worldwide popularity, which is then increased further when he releases his skateboarding game on gaming consoles. In the final parts of the documentary, you learn that Tony dealt with inner demons that impacted his relationship with his family. You then see current-day Tony and how he has leveraged parts of what made him a great skater into becoming a better family man. You also see him continuing to push the edge of skating at his age, as he sustains an injury leading up to the release of the documentary.

The filmmaker draws you in with raw emotion and videos of Tony Hawk and other skateboarders sustaining fall after fall, and then you learn about what skateboarding really means. Despite not being a skateboarding I empathize with their emotions and how they put their body on their line for what they love. For my next presentation, I may look to better leverage images or videos that would create shock value, as the filmmakers did by showing Tony Hawk fall again and again. This was an element where if used properly, pulls the viewer in with intrigue to understand what happens next.

Source: https://www.hbo.com/movies/tony-hawk-until-the-wheels-fall-off