Make You Smile Longboarding DVD Review

Make You Smile is a creative longboarding DVD produced by Loaded longboarding company. Created by Adam Colton and Adam Stokowski (Adam Squared), Make You Smile is a fun, relaxing, bizarre ride through the world of innovative longboarding and “longboard dancing”. This video should greatly expand your ideas and understanding of what it is to ride a longboard. You should walk away from this DVD thinking of new things you can try, with your mind more open to all the possibilities that longboarding has. Or, you might just walk away thinking that the video was fun, and funny. And that’s ok to!

Chapter 1 of the DVD is called Home Made Boards, and explains how Adam Colton and Adam Stokowski first started on their journey of longboard dancing and film making. Home Made Boards has two video shorts that show the Adams riding, carving, and dancing on their longboards. Their style is smooth, active and relaxed. They cross step, manual, cut deep, ride the board’s nose (like in surfing), and a whole host of other crazy longboarding tricks. The second section is a goofy short video of Adam Stokowski riding around his neighborhood, getting a little girl angry, and eventually being attacked by an angry horde of kids, who tie him up and ride off on his board. It’s a fun video, and packed with the same crazy creative longboarding you see throughout the DVD.

Skate Across America

Chapter 2 is all about Adam Colton, Shayne Rivers, Chirs Gregory and Byron Levy longboarding across America in 2005. Other skaters joined and left the team along the way, and a big blue bus came along for support. The trip took from August to October, averaging 50 miles a day.

This is my favorite part of the whole DVD. First off, I’m just amazed that they did it! But beyond just being amazed at the difficulty, the footage is also flat out awesome. The team started in my area of the world, Oregon, and skated East through the Cascades (3000 feet). You see them riding through Douglas Fir forests, by rivers, under rich open skies. Slowly you see the passage into Eastern Oregon where the trees thin out, and the terrain opens up to fields of red and brown.

They skate next though Shantian Pass at 4817 feet, getting blisters and foot breaking down steep grades. They skate through the high desert, see rattle snakes and cattle, and ride over rough highway. They continue through canyons of red brown earth and fields of grass. Even further East, past crop fields, riding under dark storm clouds, and in the pitch black of night.

Unfortunately, the video footage of the trip ends in Utah, but it is a great ride to watch. Very relaxing, and epic. Somehow those two meshed together. You get to see some of the people they meet, some of the amazing natural beauty they pass (that people pass every day in cars, but with a wall of glass cutting them off…), and you see their rich friendships. If this was all Make You Smile had on it, I would still recommend it (read more about this trip).

Longboard Larry

Chapter 3 is called Longboard Larry (LBL), who is one of the two major longboarding companies that Adam and Adam worked with throughout the DVD. The bulk of this section are Adam and Adam’s videos they put together for people who want to know what Longboard Dancing is, and learn how!

These sections are cool, but you do feel like you are watching advertisements for Longboard Larry. Which, you are. So, if you get over that and enjoy the show, you should find a lot to sink your teeth into. As you watch you begin to understand that these guys in no way think of longboarding as purely a method to get from point A to point B. Adam and Adam apply a whole heap of freestyle skateboarding style to longboarding, and create something new.

Surfing moves like cross stepping, street skateboarding moves like manuals, freestyle moves like body varials – really, anything and everything you can think of – Adam and Adam do it on their longboards. Manualing up onto curbs, then nose manualing back off, all in one line … this is pretty amazing stuff.

The best part is, this isn’t everything. Not by a long shot. This is what Adam and Adam have come up with – the world of Longboard Dancing is wide open for fresh creativity and fresh blood. If you enjoy longboarding at all, but are looking for something to spice it up a little, I highly recommend you watch this DVD. It should open your eyes to what can be done, and it should also inspire you to come up with your own crazy moves. Why not? For example, one of the parts in Chapter 3 is called On the Farm, where the Adams use a bunch of hay bails to create things to jump off, jump on, jump over … whatever. If they can incorporate hay bails into their longboarding, what can you do?

Loaded Boards

The 4th chapter is all footage of the Adams riding on Loaded longboards – mostly the Loaded Vanguard (read the Loaded Vanguard review). This section also feels like a collection of ads, and it also has a pile of great inspiration and fun included. These video clips have more editing, more imagery, and are the most fun on the Make You Smile DVD (except maybe the earlier part with the angry mob of children).

One of the videos is called Get Loose, and features a guy in a suit with a briefcase (the guy is Adam) sitting in a park reading the newspaper, when along comes a Loaded Vanguard longboard up under his feet. The businessman’s mind wanders, and he finds himself riding the board through Washington DC, past fountains and monuments, shedding his staunchness piece by piece. It’s a fun video, and again, full of great longboard dancing inspiration.

Chapter 4 has other videos as well; one of Adam Colton dressed like a very buff girl, one of tricks on the Loaded Fish, and one of another insane longboarder named Louis Pilloni who likes to ride his longboard at the skate park.

Does it Make You Smile?

The Make You Smile DVD also has a huge Bonus section, with all kinds of footage and photos. The DVD has about 150 minuets of stuff to watch!

Like I said at the start, Make You Smile is a one-of-a-kind DVD, and I have no reservations at all about recommending it to anyone with interest in longboarding. However, if you are used to other skateboarding DVDs, be warned that this one is different – the music is soft and relaxing, or maybe fun, but never raw and harsh. There’s no cussing, nothing foul, and hardly any rudeness. Which makes Make You Smile even easier to recommend!

You can check out a trailer for the DVD on the Loadedboards website. Make You Smile is available from several online retailers; Loadedboards, Longboard Larry's, Extremeoutdoorsupply, The Longboard Store, Black Diamond Sports and many more!