Fully Flared, 19 Years Later: The Lakai Video That Refuses to Age

In 2007, Lakai Footwear dropped a 75-minute bomb that redefined what a skateboarding video could be. Four years of filming, slow-motion explosions, an M83 soundtrack, and the redemption of a skateboarding ghost. Nineteen years later, Fully Flared hasn’t aged a day — it’s just cemented its place in the Pantheon.

⏱ Reading: 5 min

Four Years to Film a Legend

We’ve forgotten how much time Lakai took. Between 2003 and 2007, Mike Carroll and Rick Howard, co-founders of the brand, let Ty Evans and Spike Jonze build the video like a real movie. Not a rushed edit between shoe releases: a cinema project. Cory Weincheque co-directed. A cast that looked like a skateboarding all-star game from the 2000s.

The roster speaks for itself: Eric Koston, Marc Johnson, Guy Mariano, Mike Carroll, Rick Howard, Mike Mo Capaldi, Brandon Biebel, Rob Welsh, Scott Johnston, Cairo Foster, Jeff Lenoce, Anthony Pappalardo, Alex Olson, Jesus Fernandez. Fifteen parts, 75 minutes, zero filler.

The M83 Intro: The Shock

Three minutes. That’s all it took for Ty Evans and Spike Jonze to push the skateboarding video into another dimension. A deserted parking lot, an orchestration of slow-motion tricks, and explosions going off behind each skater right at the pop. All set to Lower Your Eyelids to Die with the Sun by M83. When it dropped, the community was blown away.

Johannes Gamble supervised the pyrotechnic effects. The first versions, Evans and Jonze recount in interviews, were « significantly more dangerous » than the final cut. We totally believe them. What remains is a sequence that made every skateboarding video intro of the era look lame in a single viewing.

Guy Mariano, The Redemption Part

There’s a reason we’re still talking about Fully Flared in 2026, and his name is Guy Mariano. From 1996 to 2004, Mariano disappeared. An adolescent hero of Video Days (Blind, 1991), he sank into narcotics, squatted in drug dens in Los Angeles, and quit skateboarding for eight years.

In early 2004, Rick Howard, Megan Baltimore, and a Girl employee called his girlfriend Gina Rizzo. They offered to pay for rehab. In exchange: a deal with Girl Skateboards and Lakai, plus « two or three tricks » for the video Ty Evans was putting together. Mariano accepted.

Three years later, his part closes the video. Relearning to stand on a board. Relearning tricks he’d forgotten. Inventing new ones. In 2008, Mariano swept Best Street, Best Video Part, and Readers’ Choice at the Transworld Skateboarding Awards. The skateboarding video had just saved a guy who’d been close to death. That’s the story you’re watching when you re-watch Fully Flared, no matter how many times you’ve seen it.

Marc Johnson and Koston: The Technical Peak

Marc Johnson’s part — a « marathon part » as the press dubbed it — set a bar few have cleared since. MJ strings together technical lines effortlessly. Every trick breathes. Every spot transition seems millimeter-perfect. It’s orchestral skateboarding.

And then there’s Koston. No introduction needed. His part in Fully Flared is absolute elegance. A catalog of what skateboarding can be when done by someone who’s spent twenty years refining their vocabulary. Nike SBs didn’t even exist when he started — in 2007, he was already a living legend.

Why Fully Flared Still Holds Up in 2026

We could list them: Best Video of the Year 2007 at the Transworld Awards, an 8.5 on IMDb, present in every « best skateboarding videos of all time » list. That wouldn’t tell you anything. What makes Fully Flared endure is that it arrived right at the hinge between analog skateboarding (VHS, zines, print Thrasher) and the YouTube era. It kept the best of both.

Today, full-lengths are expensive, brands prefer 45-second TikTok clips, and public attention melts like snow in the sun. Fully Flared reminds us that a 75-minute skateboarding film, made by guys who spend four years on it, can still be the most powerful production act a skateboarding brand can offer. Nineteen years later, the question isn’t « has it aged. » It’s more like: who will dare to make another one like it?