Adam Abada's Big Budget Video
Words and video by Adam Abada
Hey! Thanks for navigating here. Thanks for reading this and, hopefully, thanks for continuing on and watching the video.
Abada on a big budget set. Photo by Keivn Horn
I've been skating most of my life and of course have filmed a lot of that skating. I moved to Los Angeles almost five years ago and this video is the culmination of what I filmed in that time. It's always fun to do, despite a kind of pathetic rate of usable clips – I would personally do, what, 3 tricks a year I really liked? That's not to say the skateboarding is bad, by any means, it's just...ah, shit. You know, we're not professionals. We're not sponsored by anybody. We're not that great. I know no one cares! Skating rules. I don't think I need to explain that to anyone! I'm really happy to share this document with my friends and family! It feels truly fucking insane out there, in a way that is actually hard to wrap my head around, so I'm happy I got this thing to hold onto for dear life and, hopefully, extend to others.
Maybe not professionals, but pretty dang sick. Mike Fagan BSNB. Photo by Kevin Horn
What else...the title, right? Obviously this was not filmed on a "big budget" at all. To me it says something about the nature of big-name companies in skateboarding and how they allocate their funds and what that does for their content output, or something. I think I was also playing off the trope of the early-to-mid 2000s blow-out skateboarding videos that I grew up on. I wanted to make a video like that, something that felt more classic to me, a bit old but in a comforting way. And, having just moved to Los Angeles, there were all these big-time movie and television locations all around me, things super embedded in culture, and I was influenced to poke around in that realm, a bit. So this is dedicated to the blending of old and new and moving forward – or something like that. And, that I have friends with just as much, if not more, passion for skateboarding who maintain their own dope projects such as this here blog is the only way I would be able to get this seen outside of my immediate circle. So thanks for that, Village Psychic, and thanks all of you for watching this!
This spot doesn’t look nearly as bleak from this angle as it usually does. Marco Braunschweiler Crook. Photo by Mike Fagan
Mehdi Boukhalfa 360 Flip at a bit of a throwback spot. Photo by Mike Fagan
The LA sky really does look good in skate photos. Adam Facciolla Crook. Photo by Mike Fagan
It was literal years before I saw Danny Bezinovich wear a stripe-less shirt or shoes with laces. No-Comply. Photo by Mike Fagan
Curtains mon Graham Wallace drops in. Photo by Mike Fagan
Tim Penman left uptown to get a Wallride for the video. Photo by Mike Fagan
Mike Fagan does well on both sides of the camera, FSNS. Photo by Kevin Horn
Abada, thank you for finding the motivation to put together a sick project like this in 2020 and to Noseslide handrails. Photo by Kevin Horn