Zak, Credits

Tonight I have the honor of talking about Zak and his amazing part. I've known Zak a couple years, but before I knew him, I knew he was a ripper. The first time I saw him my brother pointed him out to me and told me that the kid with glasses was really good and could do frontside crooked grinds and back smiths on the tall boxes at the teen center. I think Matt had seen him there when I was on my mission. So I saw him there a couple times and he even showed me how to do front blunts down this box, which I never landed. I'd run into him maybe once a year at a skatepark somewhere and just be blown away by how good he was. Then Matt showed me this video of Zak on youtube where he hardflipped this big set of stairs and all this other crazy stuff. So I always had this image of Zak in my head as this mega ripper with a little red afro and glasses. So when I officially met Zak and got to know him, I was surprised to hear him tell me that he was getting too old to be pushing himself and was slowing down on his board. I think it's safe to say by the end result of Zak's part that he definitely sped things up rather than slowed them down, and he went all out for this part.

What I love about Zak's part is that he filmed quite a few tricks for this one that he wanted to get for past videos but never did. Like the switch frontside and backside flips over the rebar gap. He tried those last year when AJ did the full cab flip but never got them. But this year he practiced for a while on flat ground and got both tricks in not too many tries. He did the switch backside flip 4 times, three of them in a row, just to show us all what's up. So it was really cool to see him try really hard and come out with the part and tricks that he had wanted to get.

I will say it, Zak definitely deserved to have last part. I think he has the most diverse tricks in the video, and he makes everything he does look so good. With a healthy combo of style, trick selection (switch and regular), topped with a serving of steez (the doctor recommended DV of steez is at least half a serving a day. Zak's at 3, keeping himself healthy and limber as a cat), he has what I see as the most well-rounded part in the video. He landed quite a few really hard tricks and did them over again because he wasn't completely satisfied with the first one he got. Some examples of these include, but are not limited to: 360 flip and switch flip over the flat gap, switch backside flip over the rebar gap and grass gap at the end of his part, 360 over that rock gap, the line with the smith grind on the flat bar ended with the front blunt down the bench, the line with the nose grind up the ledge and nollie frontside nose slide, the line with the tailslide bigspin out at the end, a 360 over the euro gap which we didn't end up even using in his part, the hurricane and nollie boardslide down the rail, nollie noseslide bigspin out, and the nollie 360 to end his part. I know there are others that I missed, but those were a couple off the top of my head. With a bunch of those, I thought he did it just fine the first time. I can't do most of those tricks anyway, so I would be happy to land any of them with toes dragging and hands touching the ground, so I couldn't imagine trying to get them so many times just to get it perfect. So he'd try it a few more times until he got it perfect then pull it off again, and sometimes 3 or 4 times until it felt just right. I couldn't tell a difference, they all looked the same to me, but when I'd go home and watch the different lands on my computer, I'd see what Zak was talking about. The other times he landed it were not quite as good looking as the one he was happy with, and I'd always be glad in the end that he put forth a few more tries to get the one he really wanted. So because of that, his part ended up being one of the cleanest, smoothest parts we've ever put together.

I had a hard time picking a song for Zak. It was Matt's idea to have the song we ended up using, and I am really happy with it. I think it's a perfect way to end the video, and I think it goes really well with his skating. I like most of our music choices (especially this video, I really like the music in this one), but I think this was an especially appropriate song choice for Zak.

Zak did a really good job of filming for his part over the 5 or so months that we filmed, but he really picked it up at the end. He had filmed quite a bit of stuff up until the last couple weeks of filming, really the bulk of his part, but he didn't have any obvious ender tricks. Even up until the last week I was hoping he'd film something that would really end his part well. So then the last week he filmed pretty much all of the last tricks in his part. It was in the 100s every day, and we were all out filming, so it was pretty intense, and the last day I filmed Zak and Coleman for like 8 hours straight, and that was the time that Zak got all of his best tricks. He got the nollie 360, frontside 360 and switch backside flip over the grass gap, nollie backside flip up the euro gap, and frontside hurricane grind on the out rail all in the last week and even last day of filming. It was like he realized we had no time left and just went out and filmed all these crazy tricks he'd been wanting to get with relative ease compared to how hard the tricks are, and he finished his part off perfectly. I loved seeing everyone's reaction to his part during the premier, especially his last tricks, because that seemed to blow everyone's minds. Especially the frontside hurricane on the rail, because it's such a crazy and unexpected trick to get on that thing. Watching his part (and the video in general) at the premier was definitely one of the highlights for me of the Bolts of Thunder video franchise. I wasn't expecting as big of a response to his part as we got, so I was really happy with that.

I'm so proud of Zak, because he really got in the zone for this video, and he totally made Bolts of Thunder 4 the awesome that it is. Not that everyone else didn't do that, but I think his part was the perfect ender for the video, and it really gets me pumped up to go out and skate. I want to tell Zak that his part is inspiring and fun to watch, and that it was one of the funnest projects/parts I've ever been able to work on. The way that he did his tricks made filming them a lot of fun, and the huge variety made putting his part together even more fun.

As a final note, Zak is a rad person in general. Skating with him always gets me pumped up and makes me try to skate harder, and I seriously was able to film more tricks just because he was out there and trying so hard. He really pushed me and motivated me to try and get stuff, and I wouldn't have gotten a lot of stuff that I did if he hadn't been out there killing it and motivating me. But off his skateboard, Zak is one of the coolest and nicest people you'll ever hang out with. He can quote Seinfeld episodes word for word and tell the funniest getting jumped by crack head stories that you'll ever hear, and I always get a really good laugh hanging out with him. Along with the entire Bolts of Thunder crew, I definitely miss hanging out with Zak, and I hope to see him again soon. So Zak, keep killing it, and good job on your part!!!!!!!!

For the credits, I liked the credits in our first video so much that I just decided to do the exact same thing. It's a way of honoring Bolts of Thunder's accomplishments, ending the video saga right where it started with some good old fashioned fun and laughs.