Filming with a fisheye: how far from the trick? The Video Days lesson with Mark Gonzales

Why do your fisheye clips look like surveillance cam footage, even though you used the same gear as the pros? The trick looks tiny, the spot looks far. The issue is distance. In 1991, Video Days set a way to film the street, with Mark Gonzales in front of the lens. It gives the right distance, and we nail it.

A lens that bends the world

The fisheye is a super wide‑angle lens. In the center, the image stays pretty straight. On the edges, lines curve. Walls bend, rails stretch, the floor rounds. It’s not a flaw: that’s what gives skate vids their vibe.

Watch Classics: Mark Gonzales in Video Days

That look comes at a cost. The farther an object, the more it shrinks, and with a fisheye the effect is brutal. A rider five meters away turns into a tiny character in a warped backdrop. A rider one meter away fills the frame. He looks faster, heavier, higher.

Read also: Mark Gonzales at Wallenberg in 1991

Video Days, 1991: the street filmed up close

In 1991, Blind released Video Days, directed by Spike Jonze. Mark Gonzales, Guy Mariano, Jason Lee, Rudy Johnson and Jordan Richter each had their part. The video became a benchmark, and we’ve talked about why it invented everything. Here we see how it was shot.

What hits hard is the proximity. The camera follows the riders at ground level, no pull‑back. Gonzales’ street lines and apparently improvised tricks get full play. His style was already there, but the tight frame makes it readable. You see every foot move.

The VX1000 set the rule

A few years later, in 1995, Sony dropped the VX1000. With a Century fisheye screwed on front, it became the skate reference for over a decade. The duo enforced the rule Video Days had already announced: film up close, super close. We talk about it in our piece on the VX1000.

The cam rolls beside the rider, about a board length away, sometimes less. The lens gets a few dozen centimeters from the tail at the pop moment. That’s what gives those shots where the trick explodes in the frame. The curved backdrop behind does the rest.

The right distance, finally

Here’s the answer. With fisheye, you film about a board length from the rider, roughly 80 centimeters, and never beyond two meters. Too close and you risk collision. Too far and the fisheye crushes everything and your buddy shrinks. That’s the lesson Video Days set and the VX1000 etched.

Two tweaks complete the distance. First the height: keep the phone low, between knee and ankle. Shooting from below makes the trick look higher. Then the center: keep the rider in the middle of the frame, where it’s not distorted. The edges are for the spot.

Also read : Yuto Horigome, 2019: why he left Blind for his idol’s brand?

Your first fisheye shots

Start safe. Film your buddy pushing, a board length away, rolling beside him. Learn to keep the distance steady. Once you’ve got it, move to simple tricks: ollie, shove‑it, manual. The big stuff comes later.

For gear, a clip‑on fisheye for phone is enough to start. Grab one with no big black corners on the edges, and clean the lens before each session. A finger mark ruins more shots than bad framing.

And keep Video Days’ vibe: nothing feels staged. Film what happens, not what you want to see. Gonzales set the tone in front of the lens, you keep it behind. Fisheye forgives a lot, except distance.

You, with the fisheye, how far are you filming from your buddy? Drop it in the comments ↓