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Flipping through last month’s Transworld reminded me of this video that I never really heard too much about. Which is wierd because it has footage from Dennis Busenitz and Silas Baxter-Neal, two guys who manage to make pushing look amazing. That’s in addition to comback trail rampager Pete Eldridge and ridiculous am Lem Villemin (I suspect he’ll be a full-on Chocolate am when the Chocolate video comes out. For his sake, I hope its not a protracted five-years-of-filming-Fully-Flared type deal.)

Anyway, this HD video tracks the Adidas team as they hit different cities for premiers of the Adidas euro video Diagonal. Tour videos are usually a nice diversion for 5–8 minutes, but these guys actually stack legit clips (with very little park footage) from Silas’ backtail on a waist-high Barcelona rail (just before the 4 minute mark) to Lem’s general willingness to throw huge flip tricks wherever, Pete Eldridge just doing his switch ollie thing and Dennis’ inability to not catch a legit clip regardless of trick or spot. Oh, and there’s actual footage of Tim O’Connor on a skateboard, plus some other Adidas cats catch wreck. I can’t find the credits but the filming and production are up to the standards of everything that Adidas has been doing lately. My guess is the creative direction is by Matt Irving and Juice Design and Eric Noren is on filming detail.

All said, a good way to spend the next 5 minutes.

You can also download the video here.

Following up on our last post, here’s a quick interview Seu Trinh of Transworld did with Debacle director Jason Hernandez on naming, filming and uh, yeah, that’s about it. Oh, and how to avoid getting tickets.

Nike SB’s HD video project Debacle (watch it after the jump) is clearly in the running as 2009’s best video for pretty much for all the reasons that its not their 2007 video Nothing But The Truth (the reviled SB debut that was so bogged down in ambitious but ultimately irritating sketches that the actual skateboarding seems to have been stricken from the collective memory of skateboarding even though you had sick parts from Omar Salazar, Todd Jordan, Lewis Marnell, Chet Childress and Stefan Jonaski amongst others. Considering that the packaging was pretty beautiful, maybe they just need a re-issue minus the sketches…). Lean and mean clocking in at just 23 minutes with full-parts from Nike ams David Clark, Daryl Angel,  Shane O’Neill, Grant Taylor, Justin Brock (the last two since been made pro) and a Theotis Beasley cameo, its all high-energy gnarliness with no clear stand-out—definitely a good thing.

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A couple of months ago, Nike unleashed the first extras footage (check it out after the jump and actually better than the newer batch) and now they’ve dropped another 4 minutes worth and its great stuff. First off, they’re properly edited pieces and not just a bunch of clips collaged together and second, it shows just how hard these guys went after footage. Justin Brock just stacks footage—that smith grind to gap out at 00:48 is killer; Daryl Angel continues to prove why he’s so talked about (and its clearly more than the oft-cited “he’s a d**k”), I love the jersey barrier line at 1:39, and Grant Taylor is just ill—he’s up there with Alex Olson for having a bag of tricks and a style that puts him more in league with Julien Stranger than Sean Malto (whom we also love over here at jnhdotcom, albeit for different reasons.)

Bonus footage #1 and full Debacle vid after the jump.

Nike Debacle: bonus footage #1

Nike Debacle feature

Nike Debacle from mike on Vimeo.

I haven’t been to Providence since Donny Barley moved to town and opened Fountain of Youth, the first skate shop in Providence since Lunasea closed in the mid-90s (I think that was the last one) but watching this video makes me want to move back to Rhode Island. You can just see that crisp Fall air in this footage.

In all honesty, its not terribly exciting, just a competently filmed bro-tage with a few highlights like Grandison Taber’s (sp?) over-all steez and the step-hop wallride, any Donny Barley footage, my homie from wayback (and Solstice skate shop proprietor) Jay Vasconcellos (looking a bit like this guy) with that chain ollie to manual and Kevin Lynch’s lipslide. But the real money is on this:

Yeah, you read that right. Eric Pupecki. Two clips at about the half-way point. Judging from the huge and fast wallride dude still has it. Can we get this guy on Chocolate and back on a skateboard-related payroll or what?

Fountain of Youth: Fall Fun montage.

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DVS always bring heat when it comes to video projects and after winning last year’s Skate & Create they created another stunning piece. But, that’s not what we’re talking about today. Here’s a behind-the-scenes edit showing what it took to make this thing happen replete with nerdy info-graphics and what it looks like when Andrew Brophy is skating 100mph behind you. (via Club Mumble)

I honestly don’t have much to say, as of 11:30 am this guy is my favorite skater around. At five minutes this part is long but its worthwhile footage through-out—the whole thing is a f**king highlights reel but I guess the stand-outs are the impossible tail-grab (1:55), the super f**ked up parking lot gap at 2:10, kickflip into the bank (2:40), the manual step-hop out (!) at 3:06 followed by that insane wallride, the lipslide to noseblunt at the Bobby Puleo spot (3:55) and the big-three step-hop at 4:39. And there’s all kinds of bonkers s**t between those.  He kind of reminds me of Ron Deily or the late Van Wastell for his ability to bring weird s**t to the level of completely legit. Every day I like Organika a little bit more.

This part is from Grant Yansura’s “Cosmic Vomit” and if the rest of video is as good as this I’m gonna be pretty stoked when it comes in the mail (just ordered it and the t-shirt 5 minutes ago).

Seriously, watch this one a few times.

Another video (by Kevin Horn) showcasing next generation Twin Cities talent including jnh.com favorite Tom Rohrer. Premiering December 19, 2009.

There’s a ton of footage (New Flavors and otherwise) at Kevin’s YouTube channel. (A big chunk of which begs the question of why do you kids keep filming in shorts? Its ok to wear shorts, just stop ruining clips with them.)

One of the things I love about the indie skate video movement is that its evidence that skateboarding is a sub-cultural activity and not a sport. When I first started skating, people only filmed when they were seriously trying to get sponsored, and if they were sponsored it was because they needed footage for a video. Now kids begin filming as soon as they start skating and while they may want to get sponsored that isn’t the primary motivation. It parallels music more than anything else—a garage band may not expect (or want) to get picked up by a major label but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to play shows and make records. It excites me how much skateboarding has changed in the 22 years since I first got a board, I can’t wait to see where all this ends up 10 years from now.

48blocks just put up an interview with Brian Wenning that unlike all other 48blocks interviews doesn’t ask (mostly, that is) about growing up skating with (insert legend’s name here) and instead deals exclusively with his post-Plan B/DC descent into obscurity. In contrast to the You Tube videos that were making Wenning look mad douche-y and seemed to be contributing to his falling off, Wenning seems pretty rad in this interview and had me pretty stoked on him. Apparently, he’s getting flowed from the Kayo Corp and hungry—“I am more motivated now to skate everyday and try to push myself and progress in different areas of skateboarding.” I’m not entirely sure what that means (old guy bank skating?) but it sounds good. Wenning on DGK seems like a good look; a video with the Love Park OG’s—Wenning, Stevie and Kalis would be pretty sick.

He also released some unseen footage (seen above)—its clearly from Plan B filming missions so there’s no real surprises but he’s a fun dude to watch. His switch tre on flat is a thing of beauty and the switch back-tail 360 shuv-it out is one of the best around. Here’s hoping the comeback is on some Pete Eldridge style epic-ness and not just a teaser.

I remember seeing a photo of Davis Torgerson FS blunt-sliding a block of ice last winter but never seeing the video that it was a part of. Well, two weeks ago local skate filmmakers Benji Meyer and Darren Limvere premiered their Red Bull Skateboarding produced HD video and its pretty amazing. Presented in four seasons, Meyer and crew built ill spots that celebrate the joys and pitfalls of Minnesota living (its true, spring in the midwest is just nasty). The cinematography is absolutely stunning as well. At roughly two minutes a season, they also don’t over-do it making sure that all the footage is worthy. The cast is a who’s-who of midwest skating including Davis, CJ Tamborino, Dan Narloch, Tabari Cook, Gregg Clover, Steve Nesser, Seth McCallum on a motherf**king boat, Tom Rohehr and the absurd Luke Hampton who kickflip front blunts the ice hubba at 1:58. Yikes.

Check out the other three season after the jump or download the whole thing here: Feelin’ Minnesota

Spring

Summer

Fall