The team at Masterclass reached out to me for design work on their class with skateboarding legend Tony Hawk. I was brought on board to create all the title designs and animations for each class chapter, highlighting the macro details of skateboarding through frame by frame scanography animation. Special thanks to Lauren Fundora for getting me involved and giving me the opportunity to join the Masterclass production team at Woodward West. It was a huge honor to work with the team and meet some idols like Tony Hawk, Chris Gregson, Axel Cruysbergh and Lizzie Armanto.
 

The main animation style I pitched uses a scanner to stretch typography and scan various parts of skateboards to create frame by frame sequences. Wheels, trucks, grip tape and bolts all made for interesting textures when they were pulled across the scanner. The goal was to create something that looked like skateboards passing right over a camera lens, warping with speed and kicking up dust.

In addition to the scanned frames, I also used various macro lenses and probe lenses to photograph details of my skateboard. The intent was to create some dynamic angles to intercut with the scanned elements. The Laowa 24mm probe lens allowed me to get up close to many of the skateboard features. Huge thank you to Deluxe SF skate shop for hooking me up with used wheels to scan.

The graphic animations were created using a technique called Scanography, which is the sequential scanning of objects while moving them across the scanner bed. I captured various skateboard elements, including grip tape cuts that were adhered to wooden frames in order to be scanned. All the chapter typography was printed on sheets of paper and scanned in, which allowed me to animate the text into frame using long warping strokes. The scans were graded in Lightroom and then combined in After Effects for the final look.

The largest highlight of this project was joining the Masterclass team on set at Woodward West. Woodward is a massive skate camp, which the team illuminated with massive spot lights. Four cameras were running at all times, capturing the tricks from handheld and bird’s eye angles. It was wild to watch all the cameras go into motion while Tony threw 540’s on the vert ramp.

I pitched several concepts for the titles, one of which used a process called photogrammetry to create 3D models of the ramps featured in the class. The models were created by taking several photographs from all around the skatepark and then running them through Agisoft Photoscan. The result was a very glitchy re-creation of the ramps, which felt very much like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater going haywire.

While on set at Woodward West, I photographed several texture elements from around the park to use on the titles. Many didn’t make it into the final graphic treatments, but the wooden architecture patterns are some of my favorite elements from the park.

Project Director: Lauren Hollingsworth
Creative Director: Lauren Fundora
Design & Animation: Peter Clark
Production & Cinematography: Masterclass