Looking Back #4 - Samhain

[PtRvY]

On the 4th episode of Looking Back, we'll be looking back at one of the most hard-hitting releases of 2008: Arnax's Samhain.

Possibly the first words that comes to mind after watching this solo could be 'interesting', 'extraordinary', 'creative', 'amazing experience'... list goes on. The stunts were most certainly the kind you'd rarely see those days. Creative? You could say that. More creative than most of the stuff that came out back then anyways. The stunts were varied very very much, with different kinds of stunts hitting you every moment of the video. Not only the main stunter pulled a lot of weight here, the guests (a team composing of kr3mlin, DaredevilX & Souzuk) did an amazing job as well. There were a few stunts that could easily be singled out as 'standouts'. In my book those would be the triple infernus grind, the really sick monster stuff, some pretty impressive mtb combos... list goes on. Also all the stunts made by the guests (especially kr3mlin's stunt, that was insane).

Even those who don't fancy this style of stunting will still say they had an amazing experience watching the video, and that is definitely because of the editing. DaredevilX pulled off a really good, clean style with a few spot on effects that did nothing but boost up the atmosphere. The track used has a really good vibe to it and creates a great feeling on its own, even without this editing to go along. The colors also matched perfectly, even though (you probably won't believe this) the color correction consisted of only 25% black and white applied to normal SA colors - according to the editor.

It's hard to measure the impact this video made on GTAS. Not to mention the 10 pages of good comments it got, it gotten the stunter into one of the best crews of those times (FB), and also caused a surge of 'creative collabs'. No matter what your thoughts on this video are, you can't deny its significance.

Now, sit back and immerse yourselves in the experience that is Samhain.

Samhain - Arnax solo

NuclearDeath - Congratz mate, one of the best solo I've seen since krem's one. The music gives to your video a kind atmosphere which I loved.
Turtle Dick - Cool vid man! Lots of entertaining stunts and a good overall vibe.
Tackleberry - I found this enjoying to watch. Both nice stunts and, a bit suprisingly, also editing.
Kert - I liked what I saw in the video, really good stuff. Keep it up.
Slim - Man, I loved it. Best video I've seen in this section since Concept (1). The music, the editing and the super creative stunts. PERFECT.
kr3mlin - Excellent solo man.

FURTHER VIEWING:
[noembed]Art - Arnax's creative collab, organized right after the success of this solo. Love it.
Tangent Universe - Yet another creative collab organized by Arnax. Burn's stunt in it is one of my favourite stunts of all time.
Samhain 2 - Sequel which came out in 2010, featuring Daffy & Ghost as guests.[/noembed]

[MxZz.]

I love those Looking back episodes. Well done btw.

[Veno]

I love those Looking back episodes. Well done btw.

gimme a kiss

[GI JOE]

It's hard to measure the impact this video made on GTAS

Arnax really helped push non-conventional stunting. Samhain proposed a style that really fascinated me, and I more or less aimed for that style in my stunting career. The content was very strong, varied yet stuck to a style. But more importantly the solo showed potential, that SA had a lot more to offer than what we thought. "Creative" was a word tossed about a lot back then, sadly a lot of the time it was mentioned in feuds about big air stunts and "creative" stunts. I must admit, I did a lot of flaming about big air stunts as I was a firm believer that creativity was best...this was due to immaturity.

But the majority gave "Creative" stunting a go, some people like Arnax pulled it off with a simplistic, yet stylish flare. Others like me pulled it off in a very lame, sort of "I cant do 150ft p2bs, but I can push a golf cart out of a dump truck onto an escalator". As you mentioned Arnax organised some very successful collabs; Art was my first ever collab, with my first ever half decent stunt, a quad bike backflip off a packer, onto a grind . But that was the beauty of it, experimental and he gave everyone a chance.

[MeetMyMeat]

If you say so.




I do remember the second variation of the monster stunt tho, that was epic.

[bluedagger]

i thought and still think its shit

[Genyus]

Didn't really look at it as the 'foundation' of the stunting scene nowadays, but looking back I think you are right. Back then people would ramble on and on about how creativity > big air and how everyone had to get rid of the big air scene. Even though you may not directly notice it but this 'creativity' as we call it (it's just a different style of stunting) basically took over most of the videos produced on here now.

I don't get the taboo for big air though, creative stunting is just doing stunts that look different, have a different concept to it and are fun to do and sometimes are hard and sometimes easy. But other people have fun doing big air. Whatever, I guess this discussion was left ages ago, though it's funny to realize how creativity still took over stunting (even in the big air aspect).

[TurBo]

I agree with genyus post, creativity indeed took over stunting in the bigair aspect aswell as in the 'combo-technical' aspect.
Nowdays you're able to see complicated-runup bigairs and bigairs that include several elements, I think though its a change for the better.
And I do remember people anticipating stunting scene back in 2008 to become rather 'creative' and technical in the future, indeed it happend.

[Reynard The Fox]

IMO this video sent a wrong message to all idiots on the forum back then. Everyone started doing non-conventional stunts which were something like stalling a pizzaboy into maximum stoppie and then jumping onto it, oh how creative. People started thinking that creative is a stunting style instead of finding the spots creative.

I remember giving this video bad feedback, because I thought Arnax was a big douche wad Nice read/watch

[Kukiel]

To my taste he is quite an egocentric but I liked the video anyways.

[DriZzly]

its an okay video, the only stunt that made me go wow was the second monstergrind ... ive watched this the first time i think and your text promised things the video couldnt deliver imo so i was kinda disapointed

id rather like a lookin back on elements