Thrasher Magazine

The Vans Scene Attack video contest is a friendly community competition that gets a city's local skaters and filmmakers together to hit the streets for a chance to cop some cash and engage their culture. In the fall of 2019, the 35th shops in Seattle got six talented crews to participate. All that they needed was a little incentive, like the possibiblity of getting a piece of that $10,000 prize purse. Each crew had three months to put their best foot forward and come up with a five-to-ten minute edit of pure Northwest stoke. Needless to say, every single squad knocked it out of the park, which undoubtedly made judging this group of videos especially hard.

Along with familiar faces like Simon Bannerot, Lukas Miller, Jesse Lindloff and Griffin Gass, there is also huge cast of less familiar men and women who are worth your time getting to know better. Whether it’s VX, HD or what looks to be somewhere around 16K, there is a video with a style for everyone. Homie vibes, hammers, skits about gentrification and session-closing ecstatic moments fill the timeline from start to finish. This isn’t just a hodgepodge of throwaway clips and story-post-worthy park tricks. It’s a must-watch collection of superlative skateboard videos from truly dedicated scene skaters.

The videos were judged by an all-star cast of media titans from the region: Jordan Sanchez, Shane Aukland, Kurt Hayashi (RIP), Brandon Jensen, Tom Carter, Marshall Reid, Kyle Steniede, Ben Ericson and special guest judge Ryan Lovell. 

Cash prizes were given for a diverse array of achievements with awards like: Ripper Filmer, Best Creativity, Spot Hunter, Best Editing, Best Filming and Best Skoach. Some loot was also kicked in for highlighted tricks in each edit and as well as a $1,000 Filmer Appreciation Award that gave the whole scene reason for applause. 

Congratulations to each of the hard-working, creative minds who participated in the Scene Attack: Kevin Stake, Josh McLaughlin, Ian Ostrowski, Alex Cooper, Jake Menne and Will Douglas. 

The Scene Attack full length was edited and produced by Ben Ericson and Ben Kaplan with graphics by Dane Nomellini. 

Thank you again, Vans and 35th.