Midsummer Video Roundup: Deja Vu

Make it reign

I’m kind of 50-50 on the videographer-as-skate celebrity thing that really got going around the “Chomp on This” era. I mean I’m all for mission-specific wheels and 20-stair switch firecrackers, but filmer shoe colors and grown men throwing junior high-grade tantrums at security guards gets a little “ehh…”

Howevers, I do think it’s cool and a long time coming that skate filmer/editor types be recognized as legitimate auteurs of a sort, which Cliche is doing with their new Deja Vu project, having a bunch of well-known dudes edit together old footage of the French company’s team. (I really like Cliche’s skaters and their art, but between packaging “Freedom Fries” as part of a box set and now getting a whole new video out of recycled footage, Daclin & co. definitely know how to milk the skate video.)

So, part-by-part:

RB Umali/JB Gillette: amis in initials, Umali provides a serviceable East Coast take on a JB career retrospecticus, including a heavy helping of tricks from JB’s sadly overlooked late-period 411 profile. Gothamist he is, Umali subs in some New York rap for the tongue-twister French linguistics we know and love from JB Gillette video parts. Nice sampler plate from a dude who came up with a mid-90s World pedigree and now matches his XL sweatpants with the mantle of a Euro legend.

Greg Hunt/Ricardo Fonseca: Hunt cobbles together a solid part’s worth of Fonseca footage, and I appreciate the all-around burliness and the fact that he has love for nollie hardflips in the 1990s tradition. But I always got the impression that Fonseca’s skills translated better in person than on video, kinked hubba k-grinds notwithstanding.

Roger Bagely/Joey Brezinski: I’m not sure what Boston/Adio alum Bagely has against young Jojo but between the Nelly Furtado and the fast-motion I found this part hard to watch. It seriously seemed like half the tricks were sped up, and not just like a few seconds of pushing in a line. I dig this sort of thing when done tastefully but this part really puzzled me.

Scuba Steve/Cale Nuske: It was nice to see Cale Nuske’s Bon Appetit part again, it’s been a while.

Mike Manzoori/Javier Mendizabal: Mike Manzoori is for my money (generally not more than $8 American) one of the best working skate videographers out, with his pal Jon Miner, and Mendizabal can be counted on for some of the best shit in any video he graces, so this part is definitely one of the best remixes here. It’s cool to see a younger Mendizabal gliding backside noseblunts on street along with his current assortment of alley-oop lip tricks.

Ewan Bowman/Charles Collette: Kids in E-France-ica. The radio wave music mix is interesting I guess.

Dan Wolfe/Jeremie Daclin: Dan Wolfe does his best to punch up a few minutes’ worth of Jeremie Daclin footage, who in recent years looks like he belongs more behind an actuary’s desk than on a handrail. The part gets more interesting toward the end when it gets back to Daclin’s old days charging beefy hubbas, though the clip of him carving the tanker thing still trips me out.

Dan Magee/Andrew Brophy: Brophy Getts Off with his inhuman pop and pavement-cracking landings, massive 360 flips and Prince guitar squeals. Probably the best section, song-wise if nothing else. Where was the humongous switch heelflip at Southbank though?

Ty Evans/Lucas Puig: I’m interpreting this part as a big slow-motion high-def middle finger to Ty detractors globally, which I guess would include me at times. Entirely in slow-mo, techno-tinged piano twinking as the only sound, it really works in an arty way for a while. But even with a kid as gifted as Lucas Puig, eight full minutes of slow-mo one-off tricks gets boring. The rumor is that Ty sent over the section all in HD or something and the Cliche guys couldn’t properly rip the footage, and ended up having to film the thing off a TV, and while I have no idea if that’s true or not the grainy video does add to the whole effect. But if artsyness was the goal, they missed out on a prime opportunity for a Gonzesque touch by filming the TV footage with a Canon Elph or something.

The video’s up now on the Cliche website along with Puig’s new ad, which is ridiculous as usual. JJ Rousseau and Jan Kliewer were much missed.

Tags: Cliche, Dan Wolfe, freedom, Frenchmen, JB Gillette, Lord Tariq, Lucas Puig, middle fingers, RB Umali, the Gunz family rap dynasty, Ty Evans