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The Story Film Makers Guild presents…Kolma

I recently got an email from Mark Baines explaining Sheffield’s premier skateshop, The Story Store’s initiative to promote skate videos from all over the place. The first instalment for the Story Film Makers Guild would be Kolma – a Finnish video hailing from Vaukaus, a small town in the Sevo area of southern Finland. I was pretty stoked by the idea and awaited to see what Kolma had to offer. I wouldn’t be disappointed.

I don’t know if it’s the long winters the Finns have to suffer, but they definitely know how to put a good video together. I mean, this is DVD is clean, precise, flowing and funny. Add to that Dan Magee’s talent for motion graphics and you have a winner. That’s pretty damn good considering I’ve never heard of Vaukaus or any of the riders featured. Luckily a helpful introduction à la Filming Crazy explains everything. A strange man named Pekka Puupää has a bit of an attitude as he talks about the local scene. It’s funny, but the excessive swearing gets a bit long after a while.

Anyway, without further a due, Eesu Lehtola is the first skater to demonstrate his skills, and I must say he’s got a lot. Eesu has a very pleasant flow to his skating that matches tech and simple like milk into a warn cuppa – Lovely. He also gets to skate to The Kinks’ “Lola” which is a bonus.

Next up is Tero Airaksinen who is obviously gets all the lavish ladies if we are to believe the introduction. Tero skates to a bizarre duo between Macy Gray and Ol’Dirty Bastard, but there’s nothing strange about his smooth skating and big pop.

Our narrator returns to bitch about little Pete a.k.a. Petteri Räisänen, the youngest of the crew but the biggest of mouths apparently. Pete’s a good little skate rat who promises to get better and better if he keeps at it. No complies and Coldplay go well together.

Homeboy Jussi Väntinni rolls up after Pete and shares a part with Nostalgia Pomm. The way these two share a part is pure genius editing wise. Why? Well, neither of them are groundbreaking skate trick wise, but obviously Jussi is the younger of the two and works his board to the beats of Andre Nickatina, then halfway through a carpark line, he skates off and Nostalgia Pomm comes across and gets all old school on the spot- with a Sonic Youth track to boot! Then it’s back to Jussi and you’re thinking that was a pretty rad edit!

After those two we have another tag team: Tuomas Pöllänen and Jussi Turunen. These two keep it smooth despite the utter shite surface they have to skate on the regular. Tuomas pulls out a very nice nollie 50-50 pop up to manual frontside shove it out which I think is a fun little bit of imaginative skating. Both of these guys went to London recently, so expect to see some familiar spots get worked with Finnish precision and style.

Finally, the hometown hero Ville Pietiläinen gets the closing part. His section starts off with a spoof rap video that is sure to have you laughing even if you know that Ville’s probably taking it seriously! Then it’s strictly sick street tech all the way through a club banger Three Six Mafia track Get Fly. Ville is a ledge technician who has some crazy combos and lines that’ll have you wondering why you had never heard of this little wigga before??? All I can say is Ville has a mean frontside shove-it nosegrind. Word!

So there you have it – Kolma, The Story Store’s first Film Makers Guild instalment. I know videos are dropping like flies at the moment, but this one is definitely worth trying to get a hold of. When you see how tight knit a scene can be and how high the level is in such harsh environments, you know you’re going to get hyped to skate after a viewing.

For info and orders visit www.thestorystore.co.uk

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
13/07/2006