Rewatch Review: Elementality Vol. 1

The full-length skate video is dying.

Endangered Species

Skateboarding, or rather the act of professional skateboarding, has always been in a constant state of flux. The path one takes to make a career out of riding a skateboard has, in many ways, been entirely dependent on technological accessibility. For a good fifteen years or so, the pattern was pretty well set: sponsor-me video, amateur part, pro part, and by that time, you'd have made it. The rise of the internet, and of youtube, however, has for better or worse, changed the game. Sponsor-me tapes shot by mom or dad with the family camcorder have been replaced by whole youtube channels filled with clips shot on your best friend's iPod. Getting on a team now involves a web-exclusive welcome part, and provided you spend enough time at the Berrics, you're liable to have your board sponsor turn you pro, only to film another web-exclusive clip. The few companies that do release full-length videos now spend upwards of five years on a project. At this rate, it will not be long before full-length skate video releases are a thing of the past.

One of the last videos I got in hard copy that predates the rise of web-exclusivity was Element's Elementality: Volume One. The video was released in 2005, around the time Element had its tightest stranglehold on the skateboard market. I felt compelled to re-watch it the other day while doing my ankle exercises, and though it had been a while since my last viewing, it holds up as a solid video. While I'm not sure if I'll make this into another monthly segment, every now and then I may re-watch an old video in my collection and share some of my thoughts on it.

Regardless of what kind of skateboarding you most entertaining to watch, you find a kind of variety in Elementality that really hasn't existed in skateboard teams since the early 90s. Most companies have a tendency of adhering to a particular image, and build their teams around said image (see Baker, Anti-Hero, Creature, DGK, Girl..... okay, most of them). What made, and still makes this video so great is the fact that the only image it is trying to convey is skateboarding. Some of the street parts feature handrail skating, but not all of them. All of the skaters stand out in their own unique way, and each full part is memorable in its own right. Even the pros who didn't have full parts (Mike Vallely and Chris Senn), had plenty of footage, all of which was of a high enough calibre to remain memorable.

All told, I could very well give an in-depth critique of every part in the video, but rather than bore the lot of you with such, I do feel an obligation to talk about what, to this day, remains the most surprising part of the video: Bam Margera.

the first skate magazine I ever got featured an interview with Bam back when he was still on Toy Machine. The interview featured good skating, but nothing particularly mind-blowing, and in the five-year gap between that interview and the Element video, most, if not all of the footage Bam released was Jackass related. In instances like this, one feels inclined to assume the obvious; that the guy who releases more footage of inflicting bodily harm on himself than of actual skateboarding has probably fallen off the wagon, so to speak. His face is on the cover of the video because his antics make for good board sales, and his part will probably be just that: more antics than skating.

The first time I watched the video I had to pick my jaw up off the ground for the explicit purpose of eating my own words.

Dude, he skates?

Are there shenanigans? Of course, but they manage to not overshadow the skating. Skating which is not just good, but great. Bam's inherent reckless abandon comes through in his Elementality part, which brings a kind of power to his skating that is matched only by the awe-factor of a few of his more technical tricks. While I cannot say that I've always been a fan of Bam, I can at least say that I appreciate his skating.

All in all, I still rank the video among one of my top 10, and recommend it to all of you out there....

...even if you have to watch it on Youtube.