Stacy Peralta (born in 1957) is an American director, as well as a former professional skateboarder, team surfer and entrepreneur. He is one of the original Z-Boys and is well known in the skateboarding community as the one of the pioneers of the vert, or vertical, style of skateboarding, as an adaptation of typical surfing style.
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, and began directing and producing the first skating demo videos for skaters such as Tony Hawk. The videos he directed for Powell-Peralta were partly responsible for the third skateboarding boom and are widely regarded as one of the best skateboarding videos ever made.
In 1991, Peralta left Powell-Peralta to direct and produce for television full-time. His still-lingering love of the board manifested itself in Dogtown and Z-Boys, an award-winning documentary and autobiography film regarding his early days as a skateboarder, and Riding Giants , a 2004 documentary of the history of modern surfing. Dogtown won an award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.
Peralta's experience as an entrepeneur and skate demo filmmaker was adapted for the video game Tony Hawk's Underground; Peralta played himself in the game.
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