Film work
In 1984, Peralta also directed and produced the first-ever skate video, the Bones Brigade Video Show.
Peralta is also credited in the 1985 movie Real Genius, playing the commander of a fictional space vehicle delivering a deadly laser blast to an unsuspecting criminal during the film's opening scene.
Peralta served as the Second Unit Director and Skating Technical Advisor in the 1989 film, Gleaming the Cube, directed by Graeme Clifford and starring Christian Slater. The movie featured a number of skateboarders from the Powell-Peralta team after screenplay writer Michael Tolkein became impressed with the skaters' abilities. As Peralta stated in 1987: "[Tolkein] never realized how into skating he would become. And he really has captured an authentic feel of what skating is about."
In 1992, Peralta left Powell-Peralta to direct and produce for television full-time. His love of skateboarding manifested itself in Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary film co-written with CR Stecyk III, regarding the legendary skateboard team known as the Z-Boys. The film, produced by Agi Orsi, reinforces the conviction that in the 1970s, much of the attention of the skateboarding media centered on Dogtown. Dogtown won Director's and Audience Awards for documentary at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, Peralta's experience as an entrepreneur and skate video filmmaker was adapted for the video game Tony Hawk's Underground. Peralta also did cameo work for the game in which he played himself.
Peralta also directed Riding Giants, a 2004 documentary of the history of modern big wave surfing and tow-in surfing. Following that, Peralta wrote the screenplay for the dramatic re-telling of the Dogtown days with Lords of Dogtown (2005). His 2008 documentary, Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008), focuses on gang violence in South-Central Los Angeles. This film provides insights into the origins of the infamous Crips and Bloods street gangs, and also offers a look at the social injustice in Los Angeles in the 1950s and '60s.
In 2008, Peralta directed a series of television commercials for Burger King in which the Greenlandic Inuit, 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 Burger King's Whopper to McDonald's Big Mac. Peralta subsequently came under attack for what some deemed exploitation of native peoples.
In 2012, Peralta produced Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, which chronicles the Powell-Peralta skateboarding team of the same name. It includes interviews with Rodney Mullen, Craig Stecyk, Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, and Peralta himself, among others.
In 2013, Peralta co-produced, along with Paul Taublieb and Agi Orsi, a documentary for the ESPN series 30 for 30, entitled Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau. The film chronicles the life of famed big wave surfer Eddie Aikau, who died while attempting to rescue his crewmates after their Polynesian voyaging canoe capsized in 1978. In 2014, the film won an Emmy Award for Best Sports Documentary.
