Tic Tac 2 Heelflip: Australia's Skateboarding History (2001) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Sports |
Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer Featurette-Slammed Featurette-Hawk Talks Gallery-Photo-5 Featurette-Canvas |
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Rating | |||
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 |
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.
Being a historical document of skateboarding, the feature is compiled from footage shot on home cameras from the 60s to the 90s and the quality reflects the technology of the time.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.
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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.
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The menu consists of the static cover shot of Dustin Dollin and music, with selectable links to the feature and extras.
30 second trailer for the feature, presented in full frame with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s) soundtrack.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Review Equipment | |
DVD | Omni SL-P3003D, using S-Video output |
Display | NEC FS8001 (80cm). |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. |
Amplification | Kenwood KRF-V7050D |
Speakers | Jensen SPX-9 Fronts, Jensen SPX-15 Centre, Jensen SPX-5 Rears, Jensen SPX-19 Subwoofer |