To shine a bit more light on the recent CAFE video Allegro, we spoke to Rich Smith, the man behind crafting this release, to get his insights on a selection of clips…
Words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. The CAFE “Allegro” video explored below by Rich Smith
The way we digest skateboarding media nowadays no longer hinges on the anticipation that added to the lore of many seminal releases; it is more of a rabid feeding frenzy to stay up to speed. There are still many highlights, earmarked videos to dedicate more time to, but they are often quickly submerged by an avalanche of other clips requiring our immediate attention. There has never been a better time to enjoy the latest high-grade skateboarding every time you open a device, but there is so much of it that new releases are often usurped the same afternoon, and quickly disappear into our feed. This means that we can miss many labours of love unless they are explored or redirected to, after their initial moment in the sun. We thought we would pay some deserved extra attention to the excellent “Allegro” video from CAFE, which recently hit our screens, to make a little more of some moments filmed and assembled by master lensman Rich Smith for this Bristol-born institution.
We knew how much time and attention had gone into making the video, a process that dates back two-and-a-half years, and wanted to honour that by expanding on some tricks selected by Rich that tell a little of this story. Rich himself, acutely aware of the fleeting nature of what he had worked so hard to create, managed to slow the roll a little this time around. Instead of simply releasing “Allegro” into the ether, he bought out two weeks once it was finished to hold premieres before it hit screens. The premieres took place in Bristol and London, reminding him of their importance, for himself and everyone involved. It was amazing to connect with Rich once the dust had settled to hone in on some specific tricks, their significance, and the process behind them.
Read on to learn about the inspirited perspective of Bristol resident, and new CAFE pro, Shaun Currie, and how his fresh eyes and motivation have unlocked long-overlooked spots. Discover more about Dan Clarke’s approach and how his diverse bag of tricks and high standards have opened Rich’s mind to wilder possibilities. Learn about a last-minute Ollie Lock trick with a sage attached, that almost missed its place in his shared part with Layth Sami, but graced the timeline thanks to a Will Miles assist. Finally, delve into some Lewisham ledge magic from Korahn Gayle, two more tricks not only captured in the nick of time, but also learned during filming. Take some time out for the stories behind the aforementioned clips and then soak in Allegro one more time. Clicking on the name of each skater below will transport you straight to their corresponding parts.
Shaun Currie – Slappy Tailslide
Shaun moved to Bristol halfway through filming this video. So if you watch his part, he’s got quite a nice mix. Anything that was in Sheffield would have been early on in the process, and anything that was in Bristol would be towards the end. Shaun moved to Bristol at a time when a lot of us had already moved to London, and he definitely still sees Bristol with a relatively fresh set of eyes compared to a lot of us. He has made spots work that have just been unskateable forever. He spent many hours fixing up spots that had never even been looked at before. He was fixing spots with no intention to skate them as well. He went on a bit of a rampage at one point with a rub-brick and some tools. Shaun has been injured a lot, and I think he was finding the enjoyment of skating from going out and fixing spots, getting that same feeling.
His last trick is right next to Temple Meads station. Growing up, we would always end up in that area, and we would always look at that place, it’s like an amphitheatre sort of thing. From a distance, it’s one of those spots that look super skateable, then when you get closer, you realise that nothing slides. It’s one of those spots that looks amazing from a distance, but it isn’t. To my knowledge, nobody has ever filmed anything there. Shaun put the work in there, he rub-bricked the hell out of that ledge, he lacquered it up too, and made it work. He filmed two tricks there, a ride on 50-50 and the slappy front tail. I just thought that both tricks were really interesting. He hasn’t given up on Bristol for streetskating like some of the rest of us. A lot of us are inclined to just go to Lloyd’s because we’ve kind of skated the rest of the city to death. To us, it feels like everything’s been done, or it’s skate-stopped, or the spot isn’t there anymore. Shaun still has the motivation to find spots outside of Lloyd’s and fix them up and whatnot. It’s really cool, he’s kind of keeping that going for us. Besides him, no one in the video is really hitting any other spots apart from Lloyds, so it’s cool to see Shaun with that optimism.
“He spent many hours fixing up spots that had never even been looked at before. He was fixing spots with no intention to skate them as well”
The Temple Meads spot is a bit of a bust as well. I thought we were going to get kicked out at any minute, so that was a little bit nerve-racking. He would slide a little bit of it, then slide a bit further. He kept waxing it until it worked. I think that the one in the video is the first one he made it to the end. There was a little wooden ramp we found around the corner that he used to get speed, a piece of wood that was conveniently on the other side of the fence near the spot. I thought that was a nice touch, too. It kind of makes the clip more enjoyable, him ollieing into that bit of wood just before slappying down, I think that’s like the cherry on top of the icing, making it happen. Another notable Shaun moment with a wooden ramp is at Southbank. It’s a really simple line, but to find a route that hasn’t been done at Southbank is hard to come across. That gate was just open that day. It was so random, I had never seen that gate open before, so we had to utilise it. At first he was ollieing into it, and we were just filming it on the phone, but then we realised it could be a sick fisheye clip because you just don’t expect him to go there. He ollies in, pretty simple, kickflips on the bank, where’s he gonna go? Then boom. It’s a simple trick, but it got a good reaction at some of the premieres. Stoked on that one too, unlocking the corner.
Another trick worth mentioning is a crooked grind that he did in Madrid. That was a mission because during our time in Madrid, there were police everywhere. We found it so difficult to skate because it was some kind of national holiday, meaning heightened security and police everywhere. Shaun tried that five different times, maybe. He would get to the end, get close, and then we’d have to stop because the Police would show. He took some crazy slams on it, too. He worked hard for the one. You see, at the very end of the clip, he hits some sand and starts to fall. It’s a make for sure, but he was trying to get that roll out through the sand. It was filmed on the very last day of the trip. It was the day after the only day I drank on that trip. It was almost the last day of the trip, and we went out, and I wasn’t really drinking much at the time. But we went out and had quite a heavy night, leaving me with the worst hangover the next day. Shaun was keen to go and get that crook, but I literally couldn’t get out of bed because I was throwing up, having a rough time. Shaun went back there without me, and Korahn [Gayle] took the camera and filmed the trick.
It was closure for all the work he put in; he took some savage slams on it. I don’t know if you can tell from the footage, but there’s like a skate stopper on the edge at the end, which is really sharp. There’s a hoodie you can see on the ledge covering that. He came close to cutting himself on that. He had all the slams, he fell into the bank, and he fell down the edges of the stairs. He took so many slams and got so close before each kickout. The run-up is terrible, too. I think the worst thing was knowing that the police would roll past every sort of 20 minutes. We would have to stop, and then Shaun would be out of the zone and have to hype himself up again. The photo you can see Adrian Rios taking was used as an ad in Free Skate Mag. In the end we used the clip where Shaun slips out onto the sand anyway because we both preferred the filming being a little tighter. Definitely appreciate Korahn stepping up anyways.
Dan Clarke – 180 Switch Manual to Switch Backside Noseblunt slide
Dan’s last trick was a spot we found in Copenhagen, and it happened on the very first day of a little trip. It was just Dan and myself; we went out to stay with Dom Henry, and it was one of the most productive days I’ve ever had. It was one of those magic days, I think Dom filmed three things, and Dan filmed a couple of things too; everything was just working that day. We cycled past this spot on the way to something Dom wanted to hit. I kind of saw it from afar, and Dan later mentioned wanting to go there. He explained the trick he wanted to do, and Dom and I sort of looked at each other like… “what’s he talking about?” I couldn’t really wrap my head around what he meant. We kept cycling, we went to Dom’s spot, got his trick, and then we went back the way we came. When I first saw the spot, I couldn’t see from a distance that there was a part of the ledge which was risen up. I could just about make sense of the trick when we got closer to it. I guess at the time I just thought it was such a wild suggestion, but the spot is perfect for it, you couldn’t really do it on any other spot. It’s like it was designed for that trick. Where else are you going to do a 180 switch manual to switch back noseblunt? In this scenario, it made sense, the perfect trick for the perfect spot.
This is also just such a good representation of Dan’s bag of tricks. I’d always wanted to film a switch backside noseblunt with him because he can do that trick so well, and I think it’s the coolest trick there is. A backside noseblunt is the coolest trick, and then you can do it switch. To find a way to 180 switch manual and dip into switch back noseblunt seemed impossible, but he pulled it off. I wasn’t sure if it was possible or if it was going to happen. I also didn’t know if the spot was a bust. It just felt a little bit too good to be true. How is this working? That might have been one of the first tricks we filmed together for the video, and it ended up being his last trick. It’s always good to get something like that in the bag early on. It wasn’t too much of a battle either, maybe we were there for twenty minutes, he did another one, but it wasn’t locked in so well, then he tried it again and got the perfect one.
“That might have been one of the first tricks we filmed together for the video, and it ended up being his last trick. It’s always good to get something like that in the bag early on”
Dan has the craziest bag of tricks, and it’s such a tasteful selection. His nollie double flip into the bank at Southbank represents that too, on paper that trick should be stinking, but he did it with such finesse. He was doing that trick on the flat quite a lot, and I was trying to capture a good one on the phone. I initially just wanted to film one for an Instagram story or something, but then one day we got to Southbank and discussed what could be done with this nollie double flip. The idea of doing one down the stairs came up, but I remember Dom [Henry] being on that session and saying that doing one into the bank would be classier. Once again, the one he did was just perfect.
The trick in Copenhagen was such a crazy one because I couldn’t make sense of his suggestion at the beginning. Also, it rarely happens that you stumble across a spot spontaneously, think of an idea, and then execute it that same day, film it, and get it perfect. There was something in the air that day. Dan has really high standards, which is great. In the past, though, I would sometimes think he was aiming a little too high with certain suggestions, and I would want to bring him down to earth a bit, like let’s be realistic and just get a clip. But ever since he did that, I just shut the fuck up and let him do his thing. You know what I mean? It’s like, okay, you’ve proved me wrong now. If he suggests some mad trick after doing that, I believe that he can probably do it. At the time we filmed that, I would have been more than happy with a regular switch backside nose blunt, and he exceeded my expectations. Because of that, I now have to entertain all of his ideas with full support.
Ollie Lock – Frontside 50-50 Backside 360
I think I’ve been to the black marble ledge at Old Street with Ollie, maybe five times, to try and film this trick. It was just one of those missions; you never know when a saga is going to strike. When he first started trying it, it seemed quite fun, a very cool trick that seemed like it was going to happen quite easily. What we kept going through was that early on in the session, the trick would work super good. Ollie would have fresh spring, and it would be whipping around. It seemed like the less stress he was under, and almost the less effort he would be putting in, the more it would work. He would get really close on those sessions early on, within the first 10-15 minutes, it seemed inevitable that it would be going down. Then we would start to get two hours in, three hours in, four hours sometimes. It just became harder and harder. Obviously, the legs get tired, but I think your mind does too. By the end of some of the sessions, the spin just wasn’t there.
This ended up being one of the last tricks done for this video. We had pretty much given up on getting it for this video, at least I had run out of time to film, which is why I actually didn’t film this trick in the end. It was filmed by Will Miles. I clearly remember this day they filmed this. It was really close to the premiere, and I was in the trenches editing. I needed to re-edit Ollie [Lock] and Layth [Sami]’s part because the music I had picked for them was a Slowdive tune, but it had just been used in Eetu [Toropainen]’s Pro Passport part, which came out about a week before our video. I was kind of freaking out trying relentlessly to find another tune, which I personally find is such a hard part of the process. This was a couple of days before the premiere, and I was completely back to square one with this part. I think I struggled with Ollie and Layth’s part the most because it’s a shared part. I would often find a tune that works really well with Layth and not so much with Ollie, and vice versa. So yeah, I was in the trenches, and I had to turn down filming with Ollie that day. I told Ollie I couldn’t do it, although I wanted to; it’s such a special trick, and I wanted him to get it for the video, but editing took priority. Thankfully, he was able to go out with Will [Miles].
“as soon as he sent the photo of him and Will Miles, with the pint of Guinness, I knew it was good news”
I think at the point I heard from Ollie, I had listened to music for about six hours straight that day, trying to find a tune. I just got a text with him and Will in the pub with a pint of Guinness. I looked outside, and it was pretty much dark already. I thought there was no way he could have gone out filming, let alone gotten that trick. They really brightened my day, though, as soon as he sent the photo of him and Will Miles, with the pint of Guinness, I knew it was good news. He got it, so I was super happy about that. It reminds me of something you would see Jason Dill do in a Workshop video or something, a high-caliber trick. I think that last visit was a battle as well; it nearly happened again in the first ten minutes, and then he kind of lost it. You can tell by how dark it is that the one they got was in three more tries territory. It just worked. I think he had stopped focusing on where his feet were so much and just did the rotation wherever he landed. I am super happy with that trick and grateful that Will stepped in and saved the day. I was on a downer at the point they captured that. I’d run out of time, and I had no music. I had gone outside to get a coffee, having listened to so much music, when I received their text. I was instantly in a good mood and motivated to go back and edit their part, which was so nice.
Korahn Gayle – Switch Backside Tailslide 270 & Clyde Slide Kickflip
These were pretty much the last two tricks filmed for this edit. Korahn has traditionally always filmed most of his parts in the last sort of month or two weeks, even with this. These two nearly didn’t happen as well due to bad weather. We were filming in November, so it took a few visits to this Lewisham ledge to get those tricks. What I thought was really cool is that he had never done either of those tricks before, the switch back tail 270 in particular. He is still doing new tricks, man, it’s amazing. I think it’s a perfect ledge for the trick because of the slight curve, which throws you out a little bit. It nearly didn’t happen because of the rain, but also because Korahn’s busy; he has a lot going on, so we have these really small windows to get tricks. We would meet at like eight in the morning in Lewisham, and then he would have to be out of there by like ten. We would get there, the spot would be wet, and we would get some tissue from Sainsbury’s, dry the spot, and try to make it happen. So it was nearly not in the video, but I’m really glad it made it in there in the end.
“We were filming in November, so it took a few visits to this Lewisham ledge to get those tricks. What I thought was really cool is that he had never done either of those tricks before”
They were filmed on two separate days. I was also quite happy with how the part ends with the Clyde [Singleton] slide flip and then finishes with the nollie back tail in Shoreditch. They’re kind of similar looking; one goes one way, one goes the other. They’re both fisheye, and he kind of glides past. He couldn’t have done any of those tricks any better. As I said, traditionally, everything is always pretty last-minute with him. So his part was unfolding as I was nearing the end of editing. I’d say the majority of it we got in the last two months. It’s funny how it works out. Two months before the premiere, I was almost thinking Korahn’s not really going to have a part in this. Then he came through yet again, and in a really tasteful way too. Like I was saying about those two tricks just flowing really nicely together, it’s just funny how it kind of always works out somehow. He’s still getting better, learning new tricks, it’s great, man. We’re working on a solo part; we started this year, but then this video took over. We’re gonna get back on that in the new year. It’s so nice to be there and be part of him pushing it and learning new tricks, good to be there to document it.
I’m really happy with the nollie backside tail slide clip, actually. I spent the whole session filming that long lens to help show the curve; it accentuates that, but doesn’t show the length so much. He actually did one that we filmed long lens. It took him quite a while to do the trick; he had to work for it, so we were filming for a few hours. He landed it originally for the long lens angle. The whole time I was filming, though, I was so curious what the fisheye angle would look like. I’ve seen this ledge filmed long a bunch of times, so I was aware I was kind of playing it safe. I wondered how cool it could look fish, but I didn’t want to interrupt the session, so I just stuck with the long lens. As soon as he landed one, I was like, “Got one more in you?” I really wanted to try and film it fisheye. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, really. I didn’t think he would do another one because it was quite a battle to get one in the first place. While it was super fresh in his mind, I got a second one, and I filmed it fish. I was so happy he did it again because I feel like it really showed the spot in a different light. You could appreciate the distance more than the curve. That’s the trade-off, I guess. Fish, you lose the curve, but you can see the distance really clearly, and then long lens, you see the curve but lose some of the distance. It all worked out in the end.
The full CAFE “Allegro” video filmed and edited by Rich Smith which premiered on December 9th
We would like to thank Rich Smith for speaking to us about some magical moments from Allegro. Be sure to follow Rich Smith, Skateboard Cafe, Shaun Currie, Dan Clarke, Ollie Lock, and Korahn Gayle.
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Related Reading: Visuals: Korahn Gayle , Rich Smith “Ben + Pat” Interview , Ollie Lock Interview.
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