Matt Harris is a UK based director of photography and creative director based just outside London in the UK. He is the director and cinematographer of the new upcoming documentary Rom Boys: 40 Years of Rad, released by 1091 Pictures in October and which recently won best feature documentary at the 2020 Paris Surf and Skate Film Festival. Rom Boys is the first feature length documentary to look at the early skate and BMX scene in London. Now married with two children (and three Staffordshire Bull Terriers), Matt began his visual image making career in the early 90’s whilst living in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific shooting underwater stills and video of big wildlife and WWII shipwrecks.
Now he runs a digital marketing and production agency but also shoots and directs anything from documentary to branded content, commercial and music videos for various production houses and brands around the globe. His first feature length film, Rom Boys: 40 years of Rad follows the story of the world’s only historically recognized skatepark and the eclectic group of skaters and riders who have kept it thriving for the past forty years. Following a devastating fire the story then highlights the struggle a dogged group of old school skaters, BMX riders and street artists undertake as they team together to fight to keep the park open. The film also looks at the wider influence the skate world has had on UK urban culture from street art to fashion, music and graffiti with interviews from some of the worlds’ biggest names in skate, BMX and street art from past and present from the UK and USA.
Matt, what was the motivation, initially, for you to do this production?
So, in 2015 I took my five-year-old daughter to Rom Skatepark on a hot, summers Sunday afternoon just to see if the place was still open. When I arrived there were a handful of blokes in their forties and fifties all skateboarding and no kids. I thought to myself, “well this is odd”. They were all really accommodating and friendly though and so we returned over several more weekends through the summer. During conversation one weekend I discovered the park had this grade 2 English heritage status which meant that it couldn’t be demolished and that the world leading expert on skateparks, Professor Iain Borden, happened to live in south London. It was at that moment I thought, “there’s a story in this…”
Is the area the film is set in local to you?
Rom Skatepark is about 20 minutes from my house. That really was part of the appeal in making the film, if it had been any further away I’m not sure I’d have taken it on as I knew I could easily pop down the road if I needed a shot at some time or another (or drop everything to go and shoot the world’s top skaters which happened once or twice).
Is it a place you’d visit often?
As a kid I went in the early 80’s – probably from around 82-85, I’m not sure how many times through that period but it was definitely a place I had fond memories of growing up even when I’d stopped going there.
Are you a skateboarder or BMX-er yourself?
I used to BMX and then skate through the 80’s then I stopped. It was only in 2015 when I went back to Rom and started on this film project that I thought I’d give it a go again. Although I’m nowhere near brilliant I think I’m actually a better skater now than I was back then, even though after two weeks of starting again I fractured my shoulder – which I can still feel today, five years later!
Who do you see the target market as the film for?
Obviously the skate and BMX crowd but I wanted to expand the appeal to a wider audience. That was always the approach at the outset. With the historical angle and that the characters are really interesting I hope it comes across as much a human interest story as it does a film about skating and BMX, with a bit of historical education on the side.
I imagine you had several stories in mind to tell, seeing there’s so many stories there, so was it hard to condense it all into a 90-minute movie?
It was really hard. I purposefully didn’t want to have a narrator, I wanted the story to flow from one soundbite to the next, from one character to the next. I think this made it harder on myself but I just don’t like narrated documentaries. I think the interviewees in Rom Boys are all strong enough to be able to tell the story themselves, if you know what I mean? And there were so many stories. I think in the end I did them and the park justice though.
What are you hoping audiences learn from the film?
Dogtown skater and Z-Boy Jay Adams once said, “you don’t quit skateboarding because you got old, you got old because you quit skateboarding,” and I think this film kind of embodies that principal. It shows the first generation of skaters and riders still going strong and handing over those skills to the next generation. It shows there’s a really strong community in these groups that are seemingly on the outskirts of more traditional sports and I hope it makes the type of audience, who might look down on skaters, look at it with a completely different mindset.
How hard was it to cut the documentary down? Much left on the cutting room floor?
LOADS left on the cutting room floor. I mean the Lance Mountain interview was around 2 hours and I think he’s in the film for maybe 10 minutes, Andy Ruffell, the old school UK BMX rider, was around 35 minutes and he’s probably around 7 or 8 minutes as well. I know the BMX and skate fans out there would just love to see these full interviews.
Where did you first screen it?
The Paris Surf and Skate Festival on September 26th. Right in the midst of the COVID madness. Then we have a drive in planned at the park before it hits VOD.
How do you think America will take to it?
I always through the film needed some big American names in it to appeal to a US audience, hence the reason for getting Lance Mountain, Bob Haro and Miki Vuckovich on camera as well as the current top riders Ronnie Sandoval and Pedro Barros. So with the distinctly quirky British characters I hope I’ve created a piece that really is an eye opener to the UK scene for a US audience.