Hello and Welcome. This is the official blog of the The Mill Park Series, a series of skateboarding & long boarding short films, adverts, documentaries and videos to promote the newly constructed Gardens Skate Park, located underneath the Mill Street Bridge in Gardens Cape Town.
These are some images of how it looked like when Nammic Engineering and C2C Consulting Engineering first started building the park. They were taken in January when they just started breaking the place down.
The Mill Street Skate Park or the
Gardens Skate Park is situated underneath the Mill Street Bridge. I think it
started around October 2013 when a few young Urban Designers won the Play Scapes
Building Trust International Design Competition and started construction under
the Mill Street Bridge.
Ever since, we heard of the Gardens Skate Park, we knew we wanted to make a short film about
it, but it didn't stop there. We knew that there was something more to this
park than one simple video. This thing could go big. This park is a symbol
for our South African Youth and a greater campaign had to be put in place.
We took a few months deciding how we
were going to approach such a challenge and finally, we decided to launch The
Mill Park Series. A series of skating
short films with the skaters of Cape Town, for the skaters of Cape Town, with
the skating Industry and all its partners, spreading awareness about this
awesome skate park. A lot of production companies
have already started their projects around the Gardens Skate Park, but our
venture is different.
The Mill Park Series is a
collaborative team effort, targeting the mass media with an amazing short film
series that media agencies can be proud of. It’s a series of films that brings
only good for the Gardens Skate Park that resonates what it’s there for; To get
the guys skating again.
About the
Mill Park Series
Our aim is to
produce ten short films for popular skating brands of about thirty to sixty
seconds long, featuring a pro skater in each video.
Think of skating brands Like Butan
Clothing, Element, Technique, Selfish & Dope Industries. The short films
will be part of the overall marketing strategy and will be before the opening
launch of the Gardens Skate Park.
It’s time to create skating content with the cinematic beauty it deserves and that’s exactly
what we at Undiscovered intend to do.
The Play Scapes Building Trust international launches a
design competition every year and this year Cape Town took the prize. Since
Cape Town was named the World Design Capital for 2014, it has sparked major
interest from an overseas market. The project team consists of Gerrit Strydom,
Lwandile Gcume and Aline Cremon from The City of Cape Town; Errol Van Amsterdam
and Marvin Fester form C2C consulting Engineers and Nammic Engineering with
skate park design by Clive Crofton from Spyda Ramps.
The Grand Opening of the Gardens
Skate Park
There will
be an official launch day. I know it. We all know it. When the park is complete I really want to see
this amazing day of skating with competitions
and trick contests and just a great day of fun with banners and scaffolding and
media and camera operators everywhere,
filming the skaters do their thing. The launch day will showcase a few South
African Pro-Skaters who will be testing the park out showing everyone what they
can do representing his or her sponsored skating brand.
The aim of the launch day event is to
get all the brands together and market them to thanking them for their
participation in this amazing event. The brands will have their skating
ambassadors there who can showcase their skating talent. A marketing plan can
be set up weeks before the launch to get Cape Town Excited. Little things like
stickers, banners, pamphlets and social media can play a role here.
They say it’s happening on the 30th
of June and we all are questioning it, but let’s be hopeful and patient because
when the park is at its finest our, the launch will take place and the day will
be perfect. For the skater, the brand and the media and all of Cape Town to
enjoy.
With the Mill Park Series we are looking to focus on the relationship between the skater and the skate park, how certain situations can be juxtaposed and how this is their territory and no one else’s. A perspective that is often neglected is that of the skateboarder and the companies and associations that supported them for years. Our vision is to amend this and create a truly unique series of short films including a culturally relevant brand and locally based pro-skater.
The
Cape Town Skate scene has grown exponentially over the years from street
skating to skate parks resulting in massive local skating event. This skating
community has really tried to find its roots in Cape Town but it hasn't been an
easy road. It's easy to look into the
rough exterior that the skating scene presents; the graffiti art, the tattoo's
the cigarettes, the clothing. But underneath the hard & bruised shell, you
will find a true and honest community that's based on trust and love. A
community that is so overwhelmed by the essence of freedom skateboarding
presents, that it powers through their every action.
The
other day I asked a skater: “what are you doing at the Civic Centre on a
Saturday Afternoon? Is there a skating event happening here or something?” and
he replied to me: “Dude I don’t know man, I skate every day, and it’s what I
do.”
Recently,
the skateboarding culture hit a massive market increase when the Cape Town
Urban Design Branch won The Building Trust International PlayScapes Design
Competition, and started construction with the Gardens Skate Park underneath
the Mill Street Bridge in Gardens Cape Town. The skating community have been
sitting on the edge of their boards ever since, excitedly anticipating the
opening.
And this is where Undiscovered presents: The Mill Park Series.
The series will create awareness for
Gardens Skate Park by contributing more recognition to the urban subculture in
order to give them an exciting and sustaining platform for new skaters to
emerge from, and a skating community that can successfully sustain itself.
Over
the years, the skate parks in and around Cape Town have faced financial
struggle and limited support from the Western Cape government, which ultimately
lead to a slow decay. Without protection and assistance from The National Skate
Collective, The Cape Town Partnership, Africa Skate and many other passionate
skating companies.
We
at Undiscovered strongly believe that with your help we can provide
enough awareness to serve and protect this amazing prize from The Building
Trust International & the World Design Capital called The Gardens Skate
Park.
The battle of the benches
On the 16th of June, Baseline Studios & Adidas presented “The Battle of the Benches 2014”. The weather couldn’t have been better and the crowd was alive and skating. Undiscovered Media got some coverage along with many other production companies and photographers. The skaters impressed, like always and we were proud to be a part of it.
This was an eye opening experience for us, just to see how passionate and inter-connected these skateboarders are. They all know each other and of each other and it seems to me like they are a compassionate supporting industry.
We are not in this alone. We have been involved with The Building Trust International Organization, The Cape Town Partnership, The World Design Capital, The National Skate Collective, Africa Skate, Street Cred, Butan Clothing, Cape Town Skateboarding, Element South Africa, Selfish & Technique Skateboards, Redbull Cape Town and Sunshine Rental Company, Technique & Selfish Skateboards and many others.
And we couldn’t have done it without you guys. Thanks’ to all our partners and skateboarding associations in and around Cape Town, the Gardens Skate Park will be the beacon to a self-sustaining skateboarding industry.
The Mill Park Series will be distributed through our associated partners via digital media to create awareness among the skating scene in and around Cape Town to protect the Gardens Skate Park and the good it brings to the Gardens community and the City of Cape Town.
The Gardens Skate Park is a beacon for the Skateboarding Culture in Cape Town and I believe that the market for skating will grow larger in Cape Town due to this awesome park.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and I hope that all of you are as passionate about this short film series as we are. It’s not going to be an easy road to make these films, just like it wasn’t an easy road for the designers, the urban design team and the construction companies involved to make this park possible and our vision is for a group of filmmakers to collaborate into making these films possible and to have the best skating launch day Cape Town has ever seen.
For More Info & all Social Media, find us on:
BLOG: http://themillpark.blogspot.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/TheMillPark
INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/themillparkseries/
TUMBLR: http://themillparkseries.tumblr.com/
Or Contact us at any time at:
rowen.work@gmail.com
themillparkseries@gmail.com
Thanks for reading :)
Hello Cape Town and World. I know you guys are keen to go skating and I am keen to take sick photos of you guys. The Gardens Skate Park is almost there.
