Stacy Peralta
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
. Peralta was previously a professional skateboarder
Skateboarding
Skateboarding is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard.Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an art form, a job, or a method of transportation. Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report...
and surfer
Surfing
Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...
with the professional skateboarding group, the Z-Boys
Z-Boys
The Z-Boys was a group of skateboarders in the mid-1970s from Santa Monica and Venice, California. The aerial and sliding skate moves that the Z-Boys invented were the basis for aerial skateboarding today.-History:...
.
Early life
Peralta was born in Venice, California and is of Mexican-American descent. Stacy attended and graduated from Venice High School in 1975. At age 15, he began competing with the Z-Boys, a group sponsored by the surf shop "Jeff Ho Surfboards and Zephyr ProductionsJeff Ho Surfboards and Zephyr Productions
Jeff Ho Surfboards and Zephyr Productions was a surfboard manufacturing facility and surf shop located in Santa Monica, California, that opened in 1973 and closed in 1976...
". His second sponsor was "Gordon and Smith".
Innovation and success
Peralta can lay claim to the invention of the frontside flip to fakieLip tricks
Lip tricks in skateboarding are performed on half-pipes, quarterpipes and mini ramps. They are tricks that require different varieties of balance on the "lip" of the ramp. The first lip trick done was by Jay Adams.-Lip tricks:-Inverts/Handplants:...
, although this was on the rolled-over lip of skatepark bowls—it took the young Alan Losi to take it to the coping
Coping (architecture)
Coping , consists of the capping or covering of a wall.A splayed or wedge coping slopes in a single direction; a saddle coping slopes to either side of a central high point....
at the Upland Pipeline skatepark. To help skaters ride this maneuver in, Stacy came up with a device called a "lapper" which was essentially a tough polyethylene flap that bolted to the front of the board's rear truck. These are rarely seen nowadays. Part of his gear line also designed the first "mini-ripper" skateboard.
At the age of 19, Peralta became the highest-ranked professional skateboarder. Soon after, he joined with manufacturer George Powell to form the Powell-Peralta skate gear company. With the financial backing of Powell-Peralta, Peralta formed the seminal Bones Brigade, a skate team composed of some the best skaters at the time, many of whom revolutionized modern skateboarding. He also began directing and producing the first skating demo videos for skaters such as Tony Hawk
Tony Hawk
Anthony Frank "Tony" Hawk , nicknamed "The Birdman" is an American retired professional skateboarder and actor. Hawk gained significant fame for completing the first 900 as well as his licensed video game titles distributed by Activision...
.
Stacy Peralta is also credited in the 1985 movie Real Genius
Real Genius
Real Genius is a 1985 satirical comedy film directed by Martha Coolidge. The film's screenplay was written by Neal Israel, Pat Proft and Peter Torokvei. It stars Val Kilmer and Gabriel Jarret....
with Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer
Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...
, William Atherton
William Atherton
William Atherton , born William Atherton Knight II, is an American film, stage and television actor.-Early life:Atherton was born in Orange, Connecticut, the son of Roby and Robert Atherton Knight...
and Gabriel Jarret
Gabriel Jarret
Gabriel Jarret is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the young genius Mitch Taylor in the 1985 comedy film Real Genius in which he co starred with Val Kilmer....
. Stacy played commander of a fictional space vehicle delivering a deadly laser toward an unsuspecting criminal during the film's opening scene.
Behind the camera
In 1992, Peralta left Powell-Peralta to direct and produce for television full-time. His lingering love of the board manifested itself in the film, Dogtown and Z-BoysDogtown and Z-Boys
Dogtown and Z-Boys is a 2001 documentary film directed by Stacy Peralta. Using a mix of film the Zephyr skateboard team shot in the 1970s by Craig Stecyk and more recent interviews, the documentary tells the story of a group of teenage surfer/skateboarders and their influence on the history of...
, a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
regarding the legendary skateboard team known as the Z-Boys, and Riding Giants
Riding Giants
Riding Giants is a 2004 documentary film directed and narrated by Stacy Peralta, a famous skater/surfer who helped define modern skateboarding. The movie traces the origins of surfing and specifically focuses on the art of big wave riding...
, a 2004 documentary of the history of modern big wave surfing
Big wave surfing
Big wave surfing is a discipline within surfing in which experienced surfers paddle into or are towed onto waves which are at least 20 feet high, on surf boards known as "guns" or "rhino chasers". Sizes of the board needed to successfully surf these waves vary by the size of the wave as well as...
and tow-in surfing
Tow-in surfing
Tow-in surfing is a surfing technique which uses artificial assistance to allow the surfer to catch faster moving waves than was traditionally possible when paddling by hand.-History:...
. Dogtown won an award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. Peralta also wrote the screenplay for the dramatic retelling of the Dogtown days in Lords of Dogtown
Lords of Dogtown
Lords of Dogtown is a 2005 biographical film directed by Catherine Hardwicke, written by Stacy Peralta. The film is based on the story of "The Z-Boys", an influential group of skateboarders who revolutionized the sport...
(2005). His most recently released film, Crips and Bloods: Made in America
Crips and Bloods: Made in America
Crips and Bloods: Made in America is a documentary by Stacy Peralta discussing the unique circumstances and factors that led to the creation of Crips and Bloods, two of the most violent gangs in all of United States history. The documentary goes beyond the general background of and discusses the...
(2008), focuses on gang violence in south-central
South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, often abbreviated as South L.A. and formerly South Central Los Angeles, is the official name for a large geographic and cultural portion lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central, and is still widely known...
Los Angeles which provides insights into the origins of the infamous Crips
Crips
The Crips are a primarily, but not exclusively, African American gang. They were founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969 mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams...
and Bloods
Bloods
The Bloods are a street gang founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. They are identified by the red color worn by their members and by particular gang symbols, including distinctive hand signs...
with a look at the social injustice of 1950s and 60s L.A.
In 2008, Peralta directed a series of television commercials for Burger King in which the Inuit people of Greenland, Transylvanians of Romania and Hmong of Thailand, known as "Whopper virgins" in the ads, were offered their first taste of a fast food hamburger and asked to compare the Whopper to McDonald's Big Mac. Peralta subsequently came under attack for what some deemed exploitation of native peoples.
Peralta's experience as an entrepreneur and skate demo filmmaker was adapted for the video game Tony Hawk's Underground
Tony Hawk's Underground
Tony Hawk's Underground, abbreviated to THUG, is a skateboarding video game, available for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Xbox platforms released in 2003. A PC version was released exclusively in Australia as a budget release in 2005. This version was ported by Beenox. In 2004,...
. In 2003 Peralta also did cameo work in the game where he played himself.
Divorced in the 1990s, he has one son, Austin Peralta
Austin Peralta
Austin Peralta is a musician and composer He had two CD's released by CBS/Sony in Japan by the age of 16.Peralta is a piano player, devoted to music from his very young years when he started taking piano lessons at age 6, and continued his music studies with Eleanor Lindboe and Sara Banta at...
, he remarried in 2001 to Gemma Vizor; together they have one child named Willow.