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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Tic Tac 2 Heelflip: Australia's Skateboarding History (2001)

Tic Tac 2 Heelflip: Australia's Skateboarding History (2001)

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Released 1-May-2002

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Sports Menu Audio
Theatrical Trailer
Featurette-Slammed
Featurette-Hawk Talks
Gallery-Photo-5
Featurette-Canvas
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2001
Running Time 51:41 (Case: 113)
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Mike Hill
Studio
Distributor

Stomp Visual
Starring Dustin Dollin
Matt Mumford
Chad Bartie
Ben Pappas
Tas Pappas
Jason Ellis
Tony Hawk
Case Click-Opaque
RPI $29.95 Music Adam Starr


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

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Plot Synopsis

    Tic Tac 2 Heelflip: Australia’s Skateboarding History is a documentary put together to showcase the history of skateboarding in Australia. What we get is various pieces of footage from different time periods, spliced together with some appropriate music, and interviews with skaters of past and present, all edited together into one neat little package.

    Some of the footage is pretty old and it shows, but this is a historical account of local skating so it cannot be labelled as bad, merely aged. Having seen this film in various other formats, I can say that the DVD holds up very well, only suffering from the source film quality. But don’t let the scratchy footage of years gone by deter you from viewing what is possibly one of the most entertaining documentaries of our time.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    Being a historical document of skateboarding, the feature is compiled from footage shot on home cameras from the 60s to the 90s and the quality reflects the technology of the time. Footage from the 60s, 70s, and early 80s seems to have been shot on Super 8 film; it is dirty and blurry, suffering from a lot of film artefacts. Footage from the late 80s onwards steadily improves with improving camcorder quality but it is still a little blurry. The footage from the late 90s seems to have been shot on MiniDV digital video cameras and is clean and crisp. This is how the feature is supposed to be presented and, having compared it to the VHS and televised versions, I can say that the transfer to DVD is pretty much flawless.

    The feature is presented full frame, as this is the way it was shot (on video cameras).

    Rating the video on this DVD is difficult because it embodies footage of skating over the last 30 odd years and most of the older footage is very rough. You can see tracking errors during some of the sections (e.g. 1:26) but these are isolated to the specific clip as they are from the source material, not a disc fault. During the opening credits there seems to be some telecine wobble. The still photographs used throughout the feature suffer from some minor aliasing.

    Most of the footage is in colour, although there are some black-and-white clips from the earlier time periods. There are no obvious colour errors relating to the authoring of the DVD, but the source material has been affected by the type of equipment used, and the age of the footage.

    There were no MPEG artefacts specific to the authoring of the DVD. MiniDV footage used for the later film clips contains some macro-blocking (such as 1:36) but this is from the use of a digital video camera, not a DVD flaw.

    There are no subtitle tracks on the disc, and no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio is much the same as the video; the quality can only be as good as the time period it came from (although the older audio has fared better than its video counterpart).

    There is one audio track, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s), which does the job nicely. Anything else would have been overkill.

    Audio errors due to bad authoring of the DVD were nonexistent. At 5:32 there was a glitch/crackle in the audio but this is due to the age of the film clip (circa 1975).

    Dialogue is easy to understand but again it depends on the time period the footage is from (older audio can be slightly muffled). There were no problems with audio sync.

    The soundtrack is very appropriate, as the makers of the documentary have used music that reflects skateboarding depending on the time period, making this a nice touch.

    The surrounds were not used during the film. The subwoofer was active to give the music some well-deserved kick.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Menu

    The menu consists of the static cover shot of Dustin Dollin and music, with selectable links to the feature and extras.

Theatrical Trailer

    30 second trailer for the feature, presented in full frame with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s) soundtrack.

Featurette-Slammed

    What good skate video doesn’t have a slam section? The Slammed extra is actually the bails section near the end of the main feature plus Jason Ellis’s injury report from the credits. It is presented in full frame with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s) soundtrack.

Featurette-Hawk Talks

    One of skateboarding's most recognizable people, Tony Hawk, tells us about various trips of his to Australia and his opinions of the local skate scene. It is presented in full frame with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s) soundtrack.

Photo Gallery (5)

    Five selectable slideshows comprising the still photographs from the main feature and others from certain time periods, accompanied by music and commentaries from various skaters of that time.

Featurette-Canvas

    Canvas was another skateboard documentary brought out in 1998 as a stand-alone VHS title. And we get it for free on this DVD. Not as good as Tic Tac 2 Heelflip but a great extra nonetheless. Having seen the VHS version a few years ago, I could not pick any differences. There are no chapter stops in Canvas, which is annoying - it makes getting to a particular scene a pain. It is shown in full frame with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s) soundtrack.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    Being an Australian documentary about skateboarding pretty much ensures it is kept local. There does not seem to be an R1 version of Tic Tac 2 Heelflip.

Summary

    Tic Tac 2 Heelflip: Australia’s Skateboarding History is a great documentary, covering skateboarding's history from an Australian perspective. Always interesting and entertaining, this is one film that sets out to break the stereotype that documentaries are boring. Any person who has interacted with a skateboard in their lifetime, be it simply to stand on and roll around, carved during a heated pool session, or even backside 360 flipped twelve stairs, should have this DVD in their collection.

    The video quality varies due to the time period.

    The audio quality is also affected by aging sources.

    The extras are plentiful.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Mitchell Healey (Biohazard)
Wednesday, September 04, 2002
Review Equipment
DVDOmni SL-P3003D, using S-Video output
DisplayNEC FS8001 (80cm).
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver.
AmplificationKenwood KRF-V7050D
SpeakersJensen SPX-9 Fronts, Jensen SPX-15 Centre, Jensen SPX-5 Rears, Jensen SPX-19 Subwoofer

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