Above by Brandon Terrell

Author:Brandon Terrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 9781434240842, 9781434261861, Brandon Terrell, Fernando Cano, Joe Azpeytia, Stone Arch Books, Tony Hawk, Live2Skate, Sports & Recreation/Extreme Sports, Readers/Intermediate, Film, Chicago
Publisher: Stone Arch Books
Published: 2014-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

7

IN BUSINESS

Over the next couple of weeks, Nate and Grant spent nearly every day at Infinity. The two teens who had asked him to make videos of them — Tony and Marco — made good on their promise. They paid him in cash to film them and edit together five- to ten-minute videos of the footage.

Now that he had a tripod, Nate discovered exciting new methods of filming. His pans and tilts were smooth. He would strap the tripod to his deck and roll it along the smooth cement like a camera dolly. Or he’d raise the tripod as high as it would go and shoot down from a bird’s-eye view.

Grant was Nate’s right-hand man. He helped during editing sessions, often finding the best take of a particular maneuver. He also designed a sweet logo of a phoenix with spread wings flying from a ball of fire. Underneath it were the words “Phoenix Videos.” Nate added the logo at the end of every video, and changed the name of his webpage. At the park, Grant lugged the camera gear around and made friends with the staff and skaters. It was a sweet little operation.

One day, while Nate was setting up the tripod to get a shot of Marco doing heelflips off one of the raised platforms, he looked over and saw Grant talking to the pretty girl with sleek black hair and olive skin.

It was the girl who had complimented his skating the first day at Infinity. Nate had seen her around, but hadn’t worked up the courage to ask her name yet. It seemed Grant had beaten him to it.

Nate walked over to them. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey, Nate, this is Ione,” Grant said.

“Hi,” said Nate.

“Hey. I’ve watched your work online,” Ione said. “You’re pretty sick in front of and behind the camera.”

“Thanks.”

“Ione wants to shoot a video,” Grant explained.

Ione added, “Yeah, I’ve got a couple of sponsors interested in signing me, but they want to see me in action. So I need to step up my game.”

“Cool,” Nate said. “What sponsors?”

Ione shrugged. “ReBoard, a recycled skateboard company from LA, and ShoveIt Shoes.”

“Nice. Yeah, let’s set up a time. You want to do the street course? Or the vert ramps? Or a little of both?”

“None of the above. You ever shoot anything at night?”

Nate nodded. “Yeah. It’s pretty tricky, but I can make it work.” He thought back to his bros in Chicago and how they would sneak out and shoot almost every night of the week. Man, that seemed like eons ago.

“Rad. I’ve got the perfect spot up in the city that I’d love to skate. You game?”

“Totally.”

“Should we say . . . tomorrow night? I’ve got a car. I can pick you up here.”

Nate looked at Grant, who shrugged. Nate nodded. “It’s a date.” He cringed. Oh man, did I just say that? “I mean . . . um, we’ll see you tomorrow night. Cool.”

Ione laughed, pushing off on her board and dropping into the nearest clover bowl.

Nate slapped himself on the forehead.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.