First of all, that was an incredible clip. Loved every second of that. Filming, coloring, even the film grain all are really unique. Never seen this spot skated like that either.
I'm of two minds on the homeless footage.
On one hand, I do agree that tossing in some "street life" footage in a youtube clip to "harden up" your clip is really wack.
On the other hand, I don't think that's quite what's going on here. I almost feel like its dishonest NOT to acknowledge how fucked the homelessness situation is in DTLA. That clip of that person lighting up the pipe at the spot was NOT comfortable or anything like that. It was sad. It was saying more "take 10 seconds to acknowledge your surroundings and how fucked society is", rather than "damn bro look how gritty these spots are".
Was there the same debate when there were all these down and out people getting in fights in Sabotage LOVE park clips? I mean that was a very large part of the image, and to me it didn't feel explotative. It felt like what it is like to Skate at Love, and some sort of statement on Philly.