Eric Woods recently dropped his newest full-length video “Honestly”, which features full profiles on Young Juise, Taylor Nelson, Tom Leong, and Eric Woods, himself along with mini-views on Ian Hutchinson and Jeremy Spira.
“Honestly” also features montage appearances from some of the United States best talents such as John O’Donnell, Keegan Smith, Jeremy Raff, Collin Martin, Remo DiTullio, Carlos Galvez, Jared Cahill, Hakeem Jimoh, Joshua Brennan, Eric Thompson, Matt Ragone, Kevin Borth, Brian McCrary, Andrew Nemiroski, Timothy Kelly, Ace Kieffer ,Brian Long, Mike Torres, Malcolm Heard, and Matthias St. John, among others.
Our editor-in-chief Kevin Little sat back and soaked up the video after several viewings and came back with this review detailing what he enjoyed from the video. And Eric Woods was nice enough to provide us with some incredible photos from the “Honestly” filming process to enjoy as well. Check it out!
From the small teasers I had seen of Eric Woods’ new video “Honestly”, I was very excited to see the full project as it looked to be exceptionally well filmed and featured a diverse cast of OG skaters all hailing from various areas of the US, from the East Coast metro areas of Boston and New York, but also Midwest cities such as Chicago, the central states such as Colorado and even a few from Seattle.
The first skater featured in the video is the butter-smooth gentleman known famously as Young Juise. Now Juise is one of my personal favorite skaters hailing from the East Coast and I was very excited to see him come through with a very proper section to open up the video. His tricks are reminiscent of that classic 2000’s era of blading and his penchant for vintage skates and baggy fits definitely highlight his clean and laid back vibe. Juise came through with arguably his best and most varied profile to date and set the tone perfectly for the rest of the video.
Ian Hutchinson had a very impressive mini-view in Honestly and Ian’s improvisational and creative approach to spot and trick selection was evident from the very beginning. His unconventional approach to his tricks made for an entertaining watch and it definitely left me wanting to see more from him.
Taylor Nelson brought out the hammers from the very beginning with one of the single greatest mono-rolls I have ever seen. What followed was a very clean profile that surprised me quite a bit with its high level of fluidity. Nothing Taylor did was half-assed or sloppy and his landings were almost always textbook perfect. Rather basic tricks were made to look exceptional and his “less-is-more” approach is a great example of not what you do, but HOW you do it.
“Honestly” videographer Eric Woods compiled a ton of quality footage for a proper section as well and showed he is as capable being in front of the lens as he is behind it. Mr. Woods has a very wide-ranging trick vocab including some incredible regular and switch negative tricks that boggled my mind. His first musical selection complimented his smooth and refined style and then he followed up with a faster paced cut that also showed his more daring and stunt-driven side as well.
“Honestly” also featured tons of great cameos from some of our favorite Colorado residents such as Jimmy Kobryn, Greg Schlosser, Mykel Fatali, Dennis Illingworth, Howie Bennett, Chris Burlingame, and Zac Burlingame and then kicks off into another solid mini-view on the legendary Jeremy Spira. Jeremy’s section shows his consistency on some awesome ledge spots, as well as rounded it off with a pretty wild roof gap over a couple of menacing handicap rails. Spira’s section was rather short, but it was definitely sweet for its duration.
Tom Leong was the last featured profile in the video and in my opinion, Tom is criminally underrated and I am always anxious to see new footage from him. His style is very compact and composed and evokes certain comparisons to the EscoZoo icon Louie Zamora. Now granted, that is a pretty heavy compliment, but Tom’s skating is especially polished and Eric does a great job in showing Tom’s talents on various obstacles, from gaps, ledges, intimidating handrails and everything in between. Tom’s profile was a great selection to wrap up the video as it got me super hyped and made me immediately want to drop what I was doing and go out for a quick skate session afterwards, which is probably one of the best feelings you can get from a video. All-in-all, “Honestly” delivered the goods and it was thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. Eric has a keen eye for cinematography and knows how to perfectly highlight the intricacies of the spots, as well as creating an ambiance with the music choices that showcases the particular skater’s style or the difficulty of the tricks chosen. I loved it! Kudos to all involved and I can’t wait to see what Eric and the boys cook up next time around!
Eric Woods provided us some great photos taken by Tucker Horan from the Honestly video premiere. Check them out below!
Video Review: Editor-in-chief: Kevin Little, @kevinmlittle
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