[ JAPANESE / ENGLISH ]

Special thanks_Kukunochi

VHSMAG (V)：　To start off, what's the story behind the title, You Got It My Boy Jamie...?

Sirus Gahan（S）：　It's not much of a story, really. The title comes from a quote from our previous video. Not the last one, but the one before that, Sounds Like You Guys Are Crushing It. There's a scene where a little kid says, "You got it, my boy Jamie," while he's trying an ollie in LA. This entire project came together because of Jamie. If you watch the video, you'll see it's really focused around his footage. Using that quote as the title also felt like a nice continuation of what we've been doing, since our last few videos have all been named after memorable quotes.

V：　So you started filming after Sounds Like You Guys Are Crushing It?

Jamie Platt（J）：　Not exactly. I'd say about seventy percent of my footage was originally filmed for a Converse video. Then I left Converse and started skating for Vans, so all of that footage ended up going to Polar instead. That became the foundation of this video. Once we had that base, we started building around it. Nathan began filming for a part, and everyone else gradually started working on theirs. Originally, the idea was just to release a solo part, but Pontus quickly lost interest in that because he prefers making films rather than video parts. From there, the project naturally grew into something much bigger.

V：　Was there a particular spot that became a personal obsession during filming?

J：　Yeah for sure. There's an ollie I do over a fence into a bank. It wasn't so much that I was obsessed with the trick, it's more so the process of getting that trick. The spot is over an hour outside of London, so just getting there takes time. Then there's the landing. The bank runs straight into a stair, so you need a perfectly sized piece of wood to put it up the stairs in order to roll out without plowing your body into the stairs. Every time you would go, you'd have to find this piece of wood. Randomly finding usable wood in London isn't exactly easy. The day we finally got the clip, I went to a DIY store, found the perfect piece, and carried it what felt like five miles to the spot.

S：　And it's up a huge hill (laughs).

J：　Yeah. By the time I got there, I was covered in sweat, carrying my board and this huge plank of wood. I don't know if I'd call it an obsession, but you definitely have to be obsessed with a spot to go through that much just to make one trick happen.

V：　What was it like working with Sirus? Did he ever push you to try tricks that were outside your comfort zone?

J：　I wouldn't say he pushes me to do tricks that are outside my comfort zone. It's more that he has a way of making almost anything look good. If I had an idea that maybe wasn't quite up to his standard, he'd find a way to film it so it felt special. That's one of the things I really appreciate about working with him. We've also known each other for more than ten years. We've been filming together since we were kids, so making this project felt like a full-circle moment. We went from filming tricks in parking lots and random spots to working on a full-length video like this. There's definitely pressure when you're making something on this scale, but at the same time it's comfortable because I know him so well.

V：　One of my favorite tricks in the video is the nollie 360 shuv over a gap to 50–50. It's not something you see very often.

J：　It's funny that you asked that right after the last question, because this is probably the one time Sirus actually pushed me into doing a trick. Back when we were filming my first Polar part in Sounds Like You Guys Are Crushing It, we were putting together a line where I ollied over a bench, did a nollie 360 shuv, and then wallied into a grind. We were throwing around ideas for what could go in the middle of the line, and out of nowhere Sirus said, "Just do a nollie 360 shuv. That would be cool." So I tried it, and everyone seemed to love it. Since then I've just kept doing it and tried to upgrade it as much as I can, but I think I might be taking it too far now. I don't think I'll ever do that trick again. Maybe one more time... down a twenty stair or something (laughs).

V：　This one's for Sirus. Beyond the skating itself, what did you want to capture about Jamie?

S：　The main thing I wanted to capture was how good Jamie is at skating in such a diversified way. He can skate almost anything. But because of injuries, the amount of footage he's put out over the years, and how long projects have taken to finish, people haven't really seen the full picture. When you watch Jamie skate in person, you immediately feel how powerful he is on a board. Video doesn't always communicate that, so my biggest goal was to make sure people finally saw him the way I see him.
　But aside from that, this is where the visuals of the little boy and the old man came from. Jamie and I have known each other since he was a teenager. Even now, part of me still thinks of him as that kid. So the boy in the red shirt represents Jamie. He's always disappearing somewhere. Half the time I have no idea where he is. He's just... gone. Always moving. That became the visual of the kid running in the video. There's another shot, mostly during the credits, where the boy simply walks in circles. I actually filmed a lot more of that than what ended up in the video. To me, that represents the way Jamie thinks. He's constantly thinking about skating. Thinking about doing a trick better, skating a bigger spot, pushing himself further. His mind just keeps going in circles. From the outside, I just want to tell him, "You already skate the way people love to watch." That shot of the boy walking in circles became a visual representation of that mindset.

V：　What about the old man in the suit on the beach?

S：　Jamie and I have always talked about skateboarding, our careers, and what life might look like after all of this. Jamie grew up in Bournemouth, a small seaside town in the south of England. I went to university there, and that's where we first met. We've always joked that one day we'll pack everything in, leave the skate industry behind, and move back to that quiet little beach town. The old man on the beach is basically Jamie in the future. He's retired, back home by the sea...

J：　...still dreaming about pole jams.

S：　Exactly. Still dreaming about pole jams (laughs).

V：　I loved the visual connection between Jamie and the boy. Both of you wore the same red shirt and black tie when you ollied over that fence you mentioned earlier.

J：　 It doesn't really come from anything to do with our lives. It was more about the culture we both grew up loving. Emo, nu metal, and that whole CKY era. That look always felt really cool, and I think both of us have always been drawn to it.

S：　Jamie actually came up with the idea of skating in that outfit first. We'd wanted to do it for a while, and when we found the ollie into the bank, it felt like the right moment because it ended up being one of the last major tricks we filmed. Once we had Jamie wearing the outfit, it made sense to dress the boy the same way. That created the visual link between them.

V：　Did you ever disagree over the final edit?

J：　Not really. I genuinely love the way the video turned out. The only thing I wished was different was that there were a few tricks I wanted to include that didn't make the final cut. Some of those clips meant a lot to me because I remembered everything that went into getting them. But when Sirus and Pontus looked at them, they were judging the footage on its own. They weren't there for the process, so naturally those clips didn't carry the same emotional weight for them. Looking back, I understand why they didn't fit. At the end of the day, I'm not the filmmaker. I trust their judgment, and I don't really have any complaints.

V：　Sirus, were there any influences from outside skateboarding that shaped the way you approached the video?

S：　Nothing directly, most of them were subconscious. There was one direct influence that comes to mind. There's a Super 8 shot of Nathan pushing down the street that I filmed from the top deck of a bus. That idea came from a clip I'd seen of a man sprinting through a city while listening to music. It wasn't from a commercial or a film. Just this strange, beautiful piece of footage of someone running at full speed. Something about that perspective really stuck with me. I remember thinking, What if Nathan was pushing as fast as he could instead? That became one of my favorite shots in the video. I don't watch much skateboarding, so all of my references come from outside skateboarding.

V：　Polar videos often pay tribute to classic skate videos. I noticed a couple of references in this one as well.

S：　Yeah, there are quite a few. The references to the old Plan B video, Video Days, the Cure song, and even the opening track from G&S... all of those came from Pontus. His brain permanently lives somewhere between late-'90s and early-2000s skateboarding. He'll play me a song and ask, "Remember this one?" And I'll just tell him, "I wasn't even born when that video came out." He absolutely loves that era. He's stoked for Mike Carroll and all those videos.

V：　You've known each other for a long time. During the making of this video, did you learn anything new about one another?

J：　Definitely. Sirus spends a lot of time working outside of skateboarding. He directs commercials, music videos, documentaries... projects where everything moves much faster. On those shoots, you usually get the shot within a few takes and move on. Skateboarding is the complete opposite. Over the years, I think Sirus has become more accustomed to working at that faster pace, so one thing I noticed is that he gets over it when a trick takes too long. Which is a good thing for both of us because it means I try harder to get the trick quicker and he doesn't get as bummed out by a long process.

S：　More than anything, I realized just how much Jamie cares about skateboarding. I'm not constantly thinking about skateboarding anymore. I'm not obsessing over tricks or wondering what the next skate video should be. Jamie is. He's always thinking about new tricks, new spots, and new possibilities. He's constantly looking at places and figuring out how to make them skateable. Seeing how much thought and effort he puts into every clip made me appreciate his commitment even more. By the end of the project, it was obvious that all of that dedication had paid off.

V：　It's a classic question, but what do you hope people take away from the video after they watch it?

J：　Honestly, I just hope it makes people want to skate. It feels like we've reached a point where people watch a skate video without really feeling anything. There's so much content now that it's easy to move on to the next thing. I'm not saying this video changes everything, but I hope people will watch it and actually get hyped to go skate. That'd be cool.

S：　That's always the goal. The best compliment a skate video can receive is that it makes someone want to skate. That's what skate videos are for. But if people take the time to sit down and watch it, and maybe reconnect with that inner child that remembers watching their first skate videos, getting stoked, grabbing their board, and just skating flat ground outside... That's what I did as a kid after watching the DC Video or Mind Field or whatever. That would be sick.

V：　Looking back now, what's your favorite moment in the video? The one that still makes you smile every time you watch it.

J：　For me, honestly, it's all of Nathan's footage. Especially those bird's-eye-view shots of him pushing. That really gives me the feeling Sirus was just describing. Being young, being hyped, and wanting to go out, push as hard as you can, and do whatever you want. Nathan just has such a pure character, and he's so genuinely hyped on skating. I think that really comes through in his footage. Every time I watch those clips, I don't know... they just make me smile.

S：　I'd say the same. The video came together with footage from a lot of different filmers. Jamie's part spans many years and was filmed by a bunch of people, but Nathan's part was really just the two of us working on it for about six to nine months. There are maybe one or two contributed clips, but other than that, it was all just me and him. We'd been there from the very beginning, when he first started getting flow boards. Jamie and I found him on Instagram and started sending him boards, so it felt really personal to both of us. He wasn't even supposed to be in this video at first. Then I went out and filmed a few clips with him and showed them to Pontus. Pontus got really hyped because the footage was so good, and Nathan just ran with it. He ended up filming his whole part in a really short amount of time. Knowing Nathan, seeing how stoked he was, how grateful he was for the opportunity, and how excited he was to film... It just makes me really happy that we got to do that together. I think that was really special.
　Other than that, the old guy on the beach holding the pole jam makes me laugh every time. He was probably about 85 years old and had absolutely no idea what he was doing. We were just like, "Yeah, it's a pole jam. Don't worry. Just hold it like this." That still makes me laugh.

Sirus F Gahan @sirusf

A London-based photographer and filmmaker. His distinctive visual language continues to push the cinematic aesthetic of Polar Skate Co.

Jamie Platt @jamie_platt_

Hailing from Bournemouth, England. A Polar pro recognized for his powerful skating, fluid style, and instinctive trick selection.