We Have a Winner!

*UPDATE* So, after over a week of voting, the people have spoken, and we finally have an official winner.........Congrats to Thomas Purtell for winning the Coakley Re-Edit contest!

Holy moly, Tom, you have the mother-lode of all prize boxes headed your way! And we'll be hyped to host your winning re-edit on the TOA Youtube Channel. We also want to shout out Mike Whitcombe for a close second place. They were neck and neck until the last day of voting. We actually heard from some participants that they were able to vote more than once from their laptops or i-phones. We tested this on our own phones/computers and only 1 of us in the office managed to vote more than once. And only from an i-phone. But it only allowed this a few times and then stopped recording our votes. So, although this was maybe not the MOST democratic or secure voting system, it worked properly for most users and hopefully still resulted in a mostly democratic and fair conclusion. We will be sending Mike Whitcombe a very dope consolation prize as well, so hopefully all parties will be happy with the result.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to submit a video. The participation was incredibly overwhelming and very rad to see, and now we have a large archive of alternate edits to enjoy. 

 

So the votes are in. First off, just want to say how hyped we were at the response. It's almost overwhelming to watch all of these submissions, but I promise we did. After watching and re-watching we've finally narrowed it down to our top five. There were so many sick edits it's hard to give everyone shine, but I think we have a pretty solid list.  

One of my favorite parts about watching all of these was hearing what song it was going to be edited to, some were funny songs like the Yoga Song, some songs were very literal, and some just outright bizarre... slowed down Katy Perry?  There were some really interesting song choices as well, like Daniel Johnston, Wugazi, and how could I forgot da Murderer. I wouldn't ever think to use any of these artists but it worked surprisingly well. 

It was also cool to see all the weird funny things people would add into their edits like, Nintendo Coins, Anime or even Stock Office Images. Joost Lewis even had a hand drawn intro with some crazy overlays from other Traffic videos. Matt Marchak's edit had a lot of cool titles and JUST barely missed the cut. Jordan Palmer Weins was another that barely missed, the way the music builds up to the last trick is insane. It was so hard to not include them in the top 5, but we had to cut it off somewhere. So without further ado... Here's our five favorite edits. What are yours?

Edited by Mike Whitcombe

When this edit popped up in the comments we were so blown away that our first thought was "well, how the hell will anyone compete with that?" With an incredible combination of strong motion graphics, the well chosen Mazzy Star track, the incorporation of the Hopps intro title sound effect and simply great editing, this entry really raised the bar. One thing we found ourselves thinking while watching the edits was that a lot of the best edits would start off so great but the song would eventually start getting too repetitive and losing steam. After a couple minutes I kept thinking "I hope they switch to a new song soon" but it most often wouldn't happen. When Mike Whitcombe's edit was halfway through I kept thinking "If he switches to a second song this edit will crush it" and then soon enough the song changed over to another well-chosen tune that wrapped the edit up perfectly. Amazing job. Top 5 for sure. 

Edit by Aymeric Nocus 

Right off the bat Aymeric stroked our ego by choosing a theme for this edit based around the Theories of Atlantis "Book Club". Zooming in on screen shots of some of the book covers and finding some syncronicity in some of the lettering and titles was really clever. But it was more the flow that he achieved with this edit and the awesome song choice that got us all hooked. We had Josh Stewart Pat Stiener, filmer John Valenti and Coakley himself all watch every edit, and this one ended up on everyone's top 5 list.

Edited by Thomas Purtell 

This was a case of simply a well chosen song and a solid, yet non-flashy job of good editing. This edit was on everybody's list, but we still debated whether it should be in the top 5 or not. Because there were other edits with more elaborate titles, flashier editing, etc. But this song just really fit Kevin's skating, the slow-mos were placed in just the right places and it just wrapped up the part really well. So we thought it was a great addition to the list.

Edited by Jason Macauly 

This edit was another hotly-debated entry between all of the judges. It was really tough because we liked so many of the entries, it was often hard to pick between two similar edits. But Jason's edit here featured some rad motion graphics, subtle effects, well-timed slow-mo's and just good clean editing. If you told me that this had been edited by a long time professional skate-video editor I would believe you. Even after watching over 90 re-edits, we still were enjoying this edit even 3 minutes in, which is a testament to a really good job. 

Edited by Stephen Pertalozzi

This edit just doesn't seem to get old no matter how many times we watch it. There's something about the poetic subtlety of the motion graphics and the surprisingly perfect music choice. Stephen's 'less is more' approach sort of captures the theme of the style of skateboarding that we seem to embrace here at TOA. By creating a beautiful look and concept but not overdoing it, he keeps you wanting more the whole way through. And somehow has taken our footage and created a completely different look and texture of his own. And you can't really ask more than that. This edit was awesome and was a no brainer for the top 5.