What goes around comes around: Roller skating’s retro appeal is hard to resist. With the release of its latest video, Skate to Heaven, skateboarding comes full circle with the iconic scene where skateboarders wear roller skates as their signature gear. This time, however, the footage and accompanying clip is all about the future. After being used as a prop-style tool in a recent ad campaign for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the video has a very futuristic appeal, with Skate to Heaven’s director talking about a “technological future” where people skate to music while in their seats.
The video was created by the skateboarding collective, the OPPO Slopes (Original Propeller Partners), which describes itself as “an independent collective of skate photographer and artists” that will release a new video every month, usually featuring skateboarders. The video’s director, Dave Hickey said that the idea for the video came from a skateboarder he had a convo with who asked him, “What are you gonna do in 10 years? Will people still be wearing roller skates?”
The initial idea for the video was for Skate to Heaven to be used in a piece of skateboarding art, but the team eventually decided to stick with the idea of the video being used in advertisements for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team thought that people were going to be seeing ads that looked like the one they were making after the video because people would naturally relate to skatboarding in a contemporary world, a world where people can skate without the need for safety gear because they’ve become accustomed to skating the way skateboarders do. In the video, Hickey, who was skating in his own video, said it was hard to skate in a way he’s familiar with because he’s been skating for nearly 25 years and most of the skateboarding he’s performed has been in parks, which are not as safe as they are today.
“I do believe that skateboarding is one of the most interesting human endeavors out there,” Hickey said. “In this day and age, you’ve got to take into account the fact that people are using skateboards more often than they ever have. And it’s really a great equalizer.”