The Treat: Tadashi Nakamura

0:00KCRW sponsors include Netflix. Presenting Big Mistakes, Emmy Award-winning creator Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega star as two deeply incapable siblings blackmailed into the world of organized crime. The Telegraph gives it five stars and hails it a glorious comedy. For your Emmy Awards consideration. Welcome to The Treat. I'm Elvis Mitchell. Director Tadashi Nakamura learned about the art of documentary making from one of its foremost talents at the breakfast table, his father, Robert, who's the subject of Tad's most recent film, Third Act. So it makes sense that Tad's Treat would be a documentary about an exploding culture made by someone from the inside.

0:38Tadashi Nakamura:Hi, my name is Tadashi Nakamura, and this is The Treat.

0:47Tadashi Nakamura:The film I wanted to talk about here is Dogtown and Z-Boys, directed by Stacy Peralta.

1:01Tadashi Nakamura:So I'm also from the west side, from Culver City, Venice area. So when I saw Dogtown and Z-Boys, it was about the pioneering time that modern skateboarding was born. In 1975, the second issue of the recently reincarnated Skateboarder magazine would feature aspects of the downhill slide, the first of what would become known throughout the skateboarding world as the Dogtown articles. These feature articles chronicled the adventures and exploits of Dogtown's Z-Boys. But really, aesthetically, it was the way they used archival photographs, Super 8 film, and the way they used music with those archives really, really inspired me.

1:47Tadashi Nakamura:So I literally every morning would watch that film and then cut my first film, Yellow Brotherhood.

2:01Tadashi Nakamura:My first three films were all about the Japanese-American social movement in the late 60s and early 70s. So same aesthetic, long hair, 8mm film, music of that time. And so that's really how I started falling in love with documentary filmmaking. For me, it was the aesthetics of the visuals. The content is the main reason why I was making film, but the fun part was the hairstyles, was the cars, was the music. And for me, it became a form of time travel because I was able to live and be taken back to a time when I wasn't old enough to remember or when I wasn't even born, but I was able to time travel and experience that moment.

2:48Just to be there standing on the deck was hardcore because you were privy to something that you don't readily see anywhere else. If you were in the pool, standing in there, getting ready to take a run, you were even battered. But if you were an actual player, you know, busting moves and pushing the limits of the session going on, you were straight out punk rock star. I mean, big time.

3:12Tadashi Nakamura:Growing up as a filmmaker's son, there was a certain style that my parents had, which was very kind of old school style. So when I saw Dogtown and Z-Boys, again, the jump cuts, just the energy, that made me realize that I could bring something to the table, not only as a family business, but as part of this legacy of Asian American documentary filmmakers. Freedom, that's what I want now. Freedom, that's what I need now. Freedom, to live. Freedom, so I can give. Thoughts from third act director Tadashi Nakamura on skateboarder-turned-director Stacy Peralta's 2002 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys.

4:10The Treat is produced by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist. Down here in the bowl, I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treat. I don't need it now. I'm just trying to slap it out of my hand. Freedom. Freedom. So I can live. Freedom. So I can give. Freedom. Yeah. Freedom. That's what I need

4:43You don't have to Say that you love me If you don't mean it You better believe If you need me Or you just want to bleed me Better stick in your hand And someone else So I can leave Set me free

5:07KCRW sponsors include Netflix, presenting Big Mistakes. Emmy Award-winning creator Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega star as two deeply incapable siblings blackmailed into the world of organized crime. The Telegraph gives it five stars and hails it a glorious comedy. For your Emmy Awards consideration.