dedleg.com

Skateboarding sure loves fire. The Girl camp in particular has formed a bit of a pyrotechnic legacy at this point, between the board-on-fire skit in Hot Chocolate, the explosive intro to Fully Flared, and now this, Lakai’s blazing inferno of an entry for this year’s Transworld Skate & Create contest.

The part has the level of quality you would expect from a Girl Films production with Ty Evans at the helm, and god damn if the 50-50 on the rainbow rail wasn’t impressive, but I’ve got to say I’m a little disappointed with the concept. And god, it’s dark. Like, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem dark.

Compared with DVS’ entries from years prior, which had a different look and feel from your typical skate film, this is all just a bit too familiar. Considering this is a contest that’s supposed to promote creative skateboarding video projects, I just wish it had been a little more, well, creative. Sure, Lakai’s team has talent leaking out of their vulcanized insoles, and setting shit on fire is always at least pretty cool, but I’ve gotta say, doing something we’ve never seen before would have been a lot cooler.

Am I just a jaded grump? Probably.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, folks! The time the Transworld Skateboarding Skate & Create contest’s entries are revealed! And while TWS might not be much more than a bloated collection of ads, their contest has certainly delivered the content — DVS has created spectacular, jaw-dropping short videos for the occasion two years in a row.

Combine free-spirited creativity, excellent skating, and beautiful cinematography, and what more do you even need? I mean besides weed.

The concept for the 2009 entry is just awesome… the mirror effect theme running throughout… the color.… all the surreal shots… the extremely talented feet of the DVS team riders. Fuck. That sums up all I have to say, really. Fuuuuuck.

And check out their entry for 2008 if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s very different, but it’s also very good:

Shit man, after watching all this awesome footage you know what I wanna do more than anything? That’s right — SKATE AND CREATE, BROS!