At the beginning of our phone call, Harry Hagan said, “when I really sat down with it I started to fucking drive myself crazy.” I've heard some form of this from pracitcally every filmer who has ever been kind enough to sit for a Shot List. Five clips? They usually ask. How am I supposed to pick five? But they always do, and we here at Slush are grateful for that. Today, Harry Hagan dives into his archives—the same archives that hold clips from Landline and Déjà Vu—to bring us his top five. Enjoy.

Louif Paradis—Boardslide Transfer (long lens):

This clip, I want to say, we filmed in 2012 maybe. That was my first intro to filming with Louif. We had filmed for a little while but that was kind of the first time I had filmed something of Louif caliber. Everything else I had filmed of him was probably just him fucking around and this was just the first time where I was just like, Oh my god [laughs]. I also feel like that was pretty groundbreaking for snowboarding as a whole at that point. We had seen him do those transfers on the bridge rail in Quebec—the flat down. But to do that on a kink was…I don’t know…super fucked. But for me, I was young, I was new to all the French Canadians. It was in Finland and I want to say that was my first international snowboard trip, so that was a big one for me as well. I guess all the stars aligned for things being new and crazy for me. It was just an introduction like, Holy shit, this is how the big dawgs are doing it. But we were in Helsinki, we had two crews worth of riders for Déjà Vu, and at that point in time, Eero Ettala had an app called SpotDigger, but it was short-lived, maybe for five years. It was mainly Finland and Eastern European stuff, but you could scroll on that thing for literally hours in Finland alone. It would show you photos, it would tell you the bust factor, if it was a rail it would tell you what material it was and what kind of speed you needed. It literally just gave you all the information you wanted. So we had found that thing on there and it was like an hour and a half away. We were like, Fuck it, we’ll just go check it out and see what’s good. It was me, Louif, Frank, Oli G, and Will Lavigne. I remember because it was three regular footers and on the way there they were doing roshambo to see who got to boardslide it. Frank won for the boardslide and he ended up boardsliding it. I don’t remember how it came to be but Louif threw up a couple boardslides and one, because of the C, threw him back the other way towards the rail. He slammed on the rail once and we were just like, Holy fuck. It basically threw him on top of it which made him realize like, maybe I could transfer this thing. And boardslide to lip at that time was fucked. I remember filming it and just absolutely tripping after he landed it. We got back to the hotel that night and the other crew came in and watched the footy—there was probably like 13 of us total and everyone was freaking out. And as a 22-year-old kid I was like, Holy fuck this is crazy. 

Cole Navin—Boardslide:

This was a trip for Landline. It was me, Cole, Dillon, Benny Urban, and Danimals. And we were with Cole Taco who was shooting photos. This was in Germany, in eastern Germany. It was at an old soccer stadium that I want to say was some sort of Hitler…he would give speeches there. It was super freaky. At the front of the building there was a big sign for the soccer stadium and, from what the locals told us, behind the sign was a massive swastika. They had basically made this new sign to cover up, because it was in stone, it was super old, kind of a small local soccer stadium. But we saw that thing and, believe it or not, no one in the crew was into it. Cole Taco and I were just like, What in the fuck? How is no one into this thing? This is the craziest rail we’ve ever seen. Cole [Taco] kept being like, This is once in a lifetime, this is once in a lifetime, can’t believe nobody is gonna hit it. He was like walking in circles freaking out like, How is no one hitting this thing? But at the bottom of the rail, the staircase was closed. There were two massive gates that were closed and locked. So it was literally unhittable. But, being with Benny Urban who is from Germany, speaks German, we were somehow able to work our way up to the local athletic director of the town. So Benny and I go to the local town offices and we’re like sitting down with this fucking athletic director of the town. Meanwhile, Benny’s not even hitting it, it was for Cole. But he [the athletic director] pretty much gives us the go ahead. And at this point it was kind of later in the day so he was like, You guys can hit it tomorrow. So, we got a random hotel—cause we were kind of far from where we were staying. We got a random hotel, posted up for the night, and then went back in the morning. And, as we were pulling up to the spot, the local keeper of the stadium was literally unlocking the gates and opening the door for us as we pulled up. It probably took Cole…I feel like he tried it for like 45 minutes or something, maybe an hour. The stairs were super shallow and super grippy, like stone or concrete. We covered as many of them as we could and Cole is really smart about stuff when he hits things. So, if he came off into the stairs he would instantly just go to his butt because the stairs were only like two or three inches tall. And he would stop himself so he wouldn’t just careen into the fence. I remember tripping because the rail was directly half and half: super bright sun and super dark shade. And for the HVX, or maybe AC160, whatever I was using, the dynamic range on those cameras is absolute garbage. So it’s like, alright, one half of this rail is gonna be fucked, either the top or the bottom. And it’s like, I could meet in the middle but maybe they’re both fucked if I meet in the middle. I remember just kind of freaking out on that. But, yeah, like 40 minutes later he just came off the end and we were all just freaking out. And the photo—which I think was a Transworld back cover—Cole Taco shot from this balcony looking down on the rail. I couldn’t do that because I would’ve had to film with one hand and hang off the wall and it just wasn’t possible for video. But where he shot the photo is where Hitler would stand and give speeches back in the day. It was super weird vibes, some diabolical vibes going on. It was freaky. 

Dillon Ojo—Boardslide Pop Out:

This was for Encore. We filmed it the winter of 2015, when the east coast got all that crazy snow. I remember the summer leading up to that I was living in Boston. I had a lot of free time. I had just moved back to the east coast from Salt Lake and so I was on my spot hunting shit. I know people were using Google Earth at that point but I was still on my analogue, cruise around and see what I can find vibe. So, that summer I just went fucking ham and I drove around constantly. Any day that I didn’t have anything to do, I would just find a new town on the map and just drive to it and see what I could find. So, I found that thing, which was in Lexington, Mass. in an industrial park. I took a photo of it, just joking. I never thought anyone would hit it. I just was like, I’ll take a picture of this just to show people to laugh at. And then fast forward to mid-February or whenever we started to get all that snow and like everyone in the world is on the east coast. The whole Déjà Vu Canadian crew is staying with my parents and myself and so I was showing everyone every last little crumb of a spot that I had within three hours of where we were. And Dillon instantly saw that thing and his eyes just lit up. I was like, Dude, really? You want to go to this fucking thing? There’s no chance anything is happening here but sure, let’s go. And we go and, yeah, he was just freaking out and ended up…I think he tried it—this was a battle—for like two or three hours. And he was slamming. He took a handful of fucked up falls on that thing. He was like flipping into a lightpole. Our whole crew was like, I don’t know if this is happening. Meanwhile, he’s just in the durag, he’s got the sickest kit on. Security came up and they were about to kick us out but then they were kind of cool with it. But, fuck, I don’t know, we’ve all been there where someone is not even close for hours and then all of a sudden they do it perfectly and you’re just like, What the fuck happened? He just rode away and yeah, it was insane. Dillon and Cole, probably more than anyone else I ever filmed, would prove me wrong constantly. I’d be like, Yo, there’s no way this shit’s possible and then two hours later they’re riding away from it and I’m like, Alright, I stand corrected. And this was the biggest one for me with Dillon. So, to see this now and…fuck, that was like ten years ago and it still stands the test of time. That could be an ender in a movie today, no problem. 

Jake Kuzyk—Front Board Pretzel:

This was for Landline. We were in Finland. Definitely a kink that had been hit before, I know Johnny O’Connor had hit it, maybe Brandon Hobush had hit it. But I want to say the year before we were there it got rebuilt, so it was galvanized. And, I’m definitely still a nerd for tricks on rails, as opposed to people just doing death-defying fifties and boardslides at challenge spots. So, getting to film Kuzyk, he’s like a purist with tricks. When he wanted to front board pretzel it I was like, Oh dude this is the perfect rail blah blah blah we were all hyped. But, it was also kind of the end of the day so we got there and I’d say we had maybe an hour and a half to two hours of light left. I think we had a bungee but no one wanted to bungee into a rail, so we built just one of those classic, haggard drop-ins out of pallets and shopping carts and whatever trash the crew could find. That took a minute so we definitely lost some light on that. But, once we got him going in fast enough he was getting pretty close pretty quick. And then he kind of moved away from it for a while and he wasn’t getting close. And, all of us at the bottom, where I was—it was super dark. I had the gain cranked up on the camera. Shutter speed down. Ugh, actually no I might have left shutter speed. I’m more of a gain guy than lowering your shutter speed. I’d rather have no motion blur but some grain. So, I had the gain fucking cranked. Yeah, we were about to tell him right before that try. I was like, Alright, this is the last try and then I’m telling him there’s no more light, we’re done. And I think at the bottom was me, Danimals, Rav, and maybe one other person. But yeah, literally last try. I was about to turn the camera off and tell him it was a wrap and he just did it perfectly. Everyone freaked out. And what’s funny about that is, the landing of that rail goes straight into a tiny little skatepark behind a school. There was a little launch ramp that was maybe a foot or so tall in the landing, pretty far past the rideout. So, for me to film him going off that, I almost had to pan the camera a hundred and eighty degrees. So, he front board pretzels, lands switch, and then probably 20 to 30 feet after the rail he rides off this little launch ramp and does a switch back 180. I really like the way I filmed the clip but like I said, I had to turn the camera a lot to get him going off this launch ramp. So, when we were editing it was like the big debacle between all of us and Jake of like, do we cut it before you hit the launch ramp or do we leave it in. Because if we leave it in, it doesn’t really cut well with other footage, but Jake really wanted it in there. It was a whole debacle on where to cut the clip [laughs]. We ended up cutting it out so you don’t see it. I think it’s in the raw files. But I love that clip. I love the way he did it. It’s always such a treat to film Jake, especially when he’s trying rail tricks, it’s so nostalgic to me. 

Danimals—Nosepress Front 360:

This was a wildcard for me. This was one of the ones that I was going back and forth on between other clips. I don’t even necessarily like the way I filmed the clip that much, but it’s so Danimals and the spot is really cool. This was in the Czech Republic, actually the same trip as Cole on the C rail, we had just gone over the border. Yeah, it was just a natural speed bump up to this roof and then this massive pipe coming off of it. It was just one of those spots where we were like, What in the fuck. How is this thing even real? And for me, any sort of Danimals press 360 is like, so nostalgic. I’m a little biased but I feel like he does them the best, him and Jake. I think he threw out some other trick and the whole crew was like, Nah, you have to nosepress 360 this thing. That’s literally what it’s meant for. You’re here and the stars have aligned. You have to nosepress 360 this thing. He did it pretty quick and he did it pretty easily. And looking at the clip, it’s pretty fucking big. He pretty much went to complete flat. This one, just for me is classic Dan. It was just the perfect trick for the perfect spot.