Review: Props “Owned”

Damn… Not only is my yard covered in snow, my desk is covered in dust…

The other day I had a copy of the long awaited Props “Owned” video pop up in my mail box. This new video featuring Alex Magallan, Tom Villarreal, Jason Phelan, Dan Foley and Drew Bezanson was a year in the making with guys like Stewart Johnson, Terrell Gordy, Will Evans and Rich Forne behind the lenses. With a line up like that, it’s hard to imagine any sort of disappointment, so let’s just take a look at what I thought.

The video starts out with Alex Magallan. Over the last few years, I’ve become a big fan of Alex’s riding. His style and creativity definitely stands out and it’s clear why he would be selected as one of the riders for this video. Needless to say, Alex came through with a ton of unique spots with some wild wall rides and sweet lines. Add in Stew’s filming and editing and you have your self a real good part. You can hear Cory Branan’s “A Girl Named Go” for this part.

Following Alex is Tom Villarreal. Tom is one of those damn talented riders from Florida who some how chills slightly under the radar but absolutely kills it. Given, Tom is sponsored by Madera so he’s technically not “under the radar” but you get what I mean. His part is filled with wild setups and unique riding that he makes look a lot easier than it should. I’m not going to lie, that crash of his that he takes in the trailer with that disturbing noise of the wind being knocked out of him makes me squirm. This dude can take a beating for sure. Tom rides to Maserati’s “Pyramid of the Moon”.

Jason Phelan is another rider who I’ve been becoming a bigger and bigger fan of over the last few years. His ability to absolutely wreck himself and still smile is insane. Jason’s part is filled with some massive rails and unique setups. The filming and editing was handled by Will Evans and Rich Forne. If you have kept up with the web edit game, both of these names should sound familiar. Will had a real good video from a recent Mongoose trip drop the other day and Rich Forne handles all those really dialed edits for Mutiny in the U.K. Needless to say, pairing Jason up with these two lead to a real solid part. Jason’s song choice was “Silly Bears” by Akron / Family.

Dan Foley’s section was one of the parts I was definitely anticipating. Dan has more style in a single line than I’ve been able to produce in my whole 11 years riding. He makes everything look so smooth. His part is filled with a ton of style and smoothness with a mix of street and park riding from Greenville, Austin, Texas and California. All I know is that I want Dan’s toboggan’s for Christmas… Terrell Gordy handled the majority of the filming and editing with clean shots and smooth editing to the tune of “Brothers” by The War on Drugs.

Drew Bezanson has the ender in the video and it’s for obvious reason. If you happened to see Drew’s behind the scenes edit, he talks about how it was his first real video part and he was real excited about it. That should be an indicator to you that Drew would be going out of his way to do things that would blow minds. All I can say is that Drew’s part consists of him killing ramps and cement parks, absolutely BLASTING 9th Street in Austin and destroying some street spots that 99% of us wouldn’t even think would work. It’s also kind of crazy to think Drew’s filming time was cut short with the doctors orders to chill for a couple months after hitting his head pretty good. Who knows what else he could have come up with in that time. All I know is the part will be on the list of nominee’s for Video Part of the Year at NORA Cup next year. You can find Danava “The Illusion Crawls” playing in the background of this part.

One thing that caught me off guard is that Jabari Winters did not have a section in the video. I almost forgot he was in the original plan until I was going through the Behind the Scenes videos and was reminded. I wonder why he ended up not having a section?

Owned runs for just under 30 minutes not including the bonus footage and commercials for all the sponsors. Props definitely had plenty of lead up time to get people psyched on the video. It was a new concept that I believe they plan to keep going with. I had the bar set pretty high for this one since Stew Johnson was leading the project and well, he doesn’t disappoint. Overall, I was really impressed with the whole video. Each guy brought to the table different styles and undoubtably good riding. The filming and editing was great and the song choices were all original. Owned definitely lived up to the hype and I cannot wait to see who gets selected for the next go at it.

Owned is available now through the Props website or exclusively through Dan’s Comp for $17.99.