CITY SERIES: CHICAGO
Despite being the third largest city in the USA, Chicago produces relatively few skateboard videos. Most videos that are billed as coming from Chicago videos are the products of "Chicagoland", an area that extends well past the city limits and often crosses state lines in its ambiguous definition. Being the purists that we are here at VP, we asked Chicago native Brian Dennis to give us his a few of his favorite videos filmed primarily within the city of Chicago.
All City Showdown Chicago 2013
Uprise & Converse's All City Showdown is included solely for the spot porn factor. For those unfamiliar with the ACS series, the video includes almost an hour of Chicago skateboarding, all filmed over the course of one day. If you're looking for a fast paced barrage of Chi spots, then this is it. Between the length of the video and the fact that it is the product of a "contest", I won't expand this one any further.
Chity
2011's Chity is the typical independent full length: Short, sweet, "artsy" intro; solid skating from relatively no-name dudes; fitting song selections; minimal amount of hijinks (mostly reserved for the credits section); and most importantly, it gives you a feel of what Chicago skating entails. A few of the guys in the video could have closed it out, but Dalba's ender section might be the most unique/fun/so-hot-right-now full part out of the Chi to date.
(708) Volume 2
Corey Henderson's (708) Volume 2 is a project that's equal parts "homie" video and dead serious skating. Navarre Brown has found a way to make both varial kickflips and double kickflips look good, and Timmy Johnson's smoothness is worth the price of admission by itself. DJ Brown and Colin Commito's shared ender part was recently posted on Ride Channel and is chock full of "WTF" and "How he do that?" moments, and makes the 65 minute video worth sitting through.
Uprise Skateshop - Chicago's Finest
An Honorable Mention goes to Uprise Skateshop's 2006 production, Chicago's Finest. Although this video suffers from a lot of "that spot's way sicker in person" (Picasso drop-in aside), the diamond in the rough here is Josh Kalis' all-Chicago section. As mentioned before, most Chitown-based videos head well outside the city to get clips, this video included. So the fact that an established pro with the ability to travel anywhere (during the heyday of Barcelona trips, no less) chose to film a whole section here is worth mentioning. Some tricks are obviously leftovers or double angles from The DC Video, but c'mon - it's Kalis. And seeing as a recent copy went for $40 on ebay, this video is still well sought after.