Inter­view LONELY RIDER

18 / 09 / 2025 / Interview

Jasper Tain­io:
In Fin­land you’re a well-known skate filmer who made sev­er­al epic skate videos dur­ing the 2000’s. How did you get into the whole thing?

Juice Huhtala:
We filmed some tricks in our hood back in 92 or 93, but those ses­sions didn‘t lead into a skate video. But in 1994 you, Jasper, got a vhs‑c cam­era. That‘s when things star­ted to hap­pen. You were film­ing a lot and I was also film­ing with you among all the oth­er skaters of our Koivu­kylä sub­urb. Since then videos star­ted com­ing out annu­ally, but I nev­er took part in the editing.
In the sum­mer of 2001 I was able to bor­row a video cam­era from the media school where I was study­ing at the time. I filmed every day as much as I could and from that mater­i­al I edited my first own skatevid­eo called 360 Astetta. That was when I got totally hooked on motion pic­ture. I still remem­ber the first edit­ing even­ing: I had shivers going all over my body when I was test­ing out slow motion of you doing 360 powers­lides with traffic in the back­ground in the magic hour light, spiced with some emo­tion­al music :). From that moment on I have been work­ing on films and videos non­stop. It got even more out of hand when I earned myself a prop­er mini dv-edit com­puter in 2003 from a sum­mer job as a b‑camera oper­at­or and light­ing assist­ant in a tv-series.
So, hav­ing a Sony PD-150 cam­era in use all the time, hav­ing my own edit in use and hav­ing the best skaters of Fin­land as friends was a good basis for mak­ing skate videos! Without this back­ground setup I would not have ended to be a pro­fes­sion­al cinematographer.

J.T:
Do you approach film­ing skate­board­ing more like telling a story, or is it more like doc­u­ment­ing raw moments?

J.H:
It‘s doc­u­ment­ing raw moments in the best pos­sible way for a cer­tain trick or a line, but also cap­tur­ing the atmo­sphere and build­ing a pos­sible scene out of dif­fer­ent shots, and at the same time build­ing a whole film of the dif­fer­ent scenes. That‘s the way I approach it. It‘s a pre­cious feel­ing when you real­ize that you are hav­ing enough stuff for a com­plete film, the vis­ion is kind of clear in your mind but still it‘s a mys­tery how it‘s gonna come out. Every time you go out film­ing you go out look­ing for a treas­ure. It is a highly addict­ive feeling!

J.T:
Do you feel more your­self when you’re on the board or behind the cam­era — or do they give you some­thing different?

J.H:
Skate­board­ing is cre­at­ive relax­a­tion, a kind of a ther­apy to me, and film­ing skate­board­ing is a vocation.
I have nev­er been a good skater. I was at my best when I was six­teen, and after that I have been spend­ing more and more time behind the cam­era, from where you don‘t learn new tricks. I have taken my task as a filmer very gladly because I have had the priv­iledge to doc­u­ment such beau­ti­ful skate­board­ing for all those years.

J.T:
Your new film Lonely Rider is some­what unusu­al com­pared to your earli­er skate pro­duc­tions. Could you briefly explain what it’s all about and how you came up with the idea?

J.H:
I have had too little time with skate­board­ing in the past years. When I have had the time I have skated alone or with my kid in early morn­ings. I haven‘t been able to live the skater‘s life­style, which you need to live if you want to make a prop­er skate video. You need to be on the streets all the time with your bud­dies and your video camera.
I filmed some hol­i­day clips of myself with my Nokia cel­lu­lar phone in 2022 on a fam­ily trip to Gran Canaria and I thought it looked quite laid back and funny. I got secretly excited about it haha. I found out that I don‘t need to do any­thing dif­fi­cult or scary to be happy about my skat­ing. And the video by the Nokia phone looked nos­tal­gic, some­thing like VHS or 8mm.
Then I under­stood that the song Lonely Rider by Jukka Nousi­ain­en has the per­fect groove for laid back skate­board­ing. I can also relate to the lyr­ics per­fectly. I star­ted to dream of a solo video part.
I have filmed my son grow­ing up a lot and had mater­i­al of him play­ing with his first skate­board and of our skate ses­sions togeth­er etc, so then I real­ized I might be able to build some­thing bey­ond a video­part. Lonely Rider is kind of a video part that was burst into a min­idoc­u­ment­ary. I guess I needed some chal­lenge and at the same time I had the will to pro­cess my thoughts on my iden­tity as a skater and as a skater-dad. Thanks for my son for his efforts to this film!

J.T:
What’s one of your favor­ite memor­ies of skat­ing or filming?

J.H:
Skate­board­ing in New York City in the sum­mers of 1997 and 1999 are unfor­get­table. Just cruis­ing down the heated streets of Man­hat­tan. Also the sum­mer hol­i­days spent in our sub­urb back in the 80s and 90s are like a dream to me, skat­ing all day long and being free of harm.
Now when I saw the mater­i­al that I shot of you skat­ing on the roof of Helsingin Jäähalli after more than 20 years, which can be seen in Lonely Rider, I was very amazed! It is so crazy to drop in and skate that spot, espe­cially in an early morn­ing ses­sion after booz­ing and stay­ing up all night.

J.T:
What’s next? Will we see more skate-related films from you in the future? I surely hope so.

J.H:
I have couple of ideas for skate related films. I try to build the films around sur­pris­ing themes so I rather not expose the ideas before­hand. But I really want to film someone ollie­ing over a rattle snake in the USA, maybe it‘s going to be you Jassu!