For years, underground skateboarding documentary The Search for Animal Chin made the rounds on VHS, carried on the wheels of deck-riders everywhere. Now filmmaker Stacy Peralta is releasing his 1980s skate-culture touchstone as a free download through BitTorrent.
The film, which came out in 1987 and features interviews with now-famous skaters like Tony Hawk and Tommy Guerrero, is being released as part of a bundle on the file-sharing service to commemorate the release of Peralta's latest documentary, The Bones Brigade: An Autobiography.
The new film shredded Sundance this year, and Peralta is now releasing Bones Brigade online. Coupling his new documentary with a free BitTorrent release of his '80s cult classic seems only proper – if not a downright perfect complement to the skate-punk roots of both films.
"I decided not to do a traditional distribution network around this film to help control the copyright and maintain ownership of the asset," Peralta said in an email to Wired. "I opted to partner with BitTorrent as it's more in the independent film world and it comes with a great audience base."
Downloaders of the bundle will also get the HD Bones Brigade trailer, an Animal Chin stencil (like the one above), an MP3 from Guerrero and other cool stuff. The torrent, along with a direct online download from the AnimalChin.com website, is the first time the film has ever been made available in digital format online (officially, at least – parts of it naturally live on YouTube).
Tuesday's release is the latest in a series of deals BitTorrent has made with creators to distribute content. For instance, the file-sharing service's partnership with DJ Shadow led to the release of a handful of songs from his Total Breakdown: Hidden Transmissions From the MPC Era, 1992-1996.
Matt Mason, BitTorrent's executive marketing director, said the company is "committed to working with the most imaginative creators out there," and called working with Peralta "a true honor."
"Animal Chin was my favorite film as a kid who grew up obsessed with skating," Mason said in an e-mail to Wired. "Many of us here are skaters and were psyched for this project. The universe and mythology the Bones Brigade created was so incredible, and to be able to reintroduce so many aspects of that to the world as a digital mixed-media experience was fantastic."
Bones Brigade is currently being screened at select theaters and will next be shown Sept. 27 at the Oakland Underground Film Festival.
