Interview

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Max Henry sat down for a chat with Valtteri and Wessu to learn more about their history and get some behind-the-scenes on “Marras”

You can also listen as a live episode of Max’s podcast “The Takeoff”

Max: Thank you guys so much for making the time. I know it’s late in Finland. It’s looking a little bit dark, but because you’re in Finland, I’m assuming it’s just already been dark since like 2PM. So that’s it’s season and hence why we’re here to talk about Marras.

Valtteri: Hahaha just the way it is.

Wessu: Yes, and it’s only gonna get darker.

Max: Before we get into the video, I do want to just kind of ask you a couple questions that are a little bit more general and get to know you because I don’t feel like we’ve ever gotten to really sit down and chat and hear your story. So I’ll start with Val first. How did you end up moving the way that you do when everybody else in Finland is like jacked traditional parkour.

Wessu laughs

Valtteri: I basically used to do gymnastics as a kid, but I wasn’t very good at it, and it was very strict. But one of my old coaches who does parkour nowadays, he got me into a more free kind of movement style. Shout out to Miika, he’s super OG. Then I went outside by myself. So I didn’t get influenced by the Finnish scene at all in the beginning. It’s kind of sick in a way.

Max: Where are you from in Finland?

Valtteri: Kerava, which is 30 minutes from Helsinki. So, down south.

Max: Yeah, for people who have never been to Finland, I feel like my perception of it was cool, we’re in like this the general area around Helsinki is very urban. And then as soon as you left it’s like woods, reindeer, forest, boulders everywhere. Like I remember taking the train or taking a bus to Lahti from Helsinki and we were literally ten minutes out of the bus station and it felt like I was a thousand miles from civilization immediately. There’s not a lot of stuff in between the cities, at least that’s my perception. Wessu, how about you? Intro into the parkour scene and how long have you been training for?

Wessu: I started in 2012. It was actually I was doing judo and then I wanted to change sports. I wasn’t into the competitive side of it and my mom saw an announcement in the local newspaper that there’s parkour classes very near us. I didn’t know what it was so I Googled it, looked it up on YouTube and I was like, hell yeah like obviously I wanna do this and then I started going to classes and pretty much like during the first half a year we already started like a small YouTube channel with my friends. It was the three of us and we started filming videos ’cause I went to classes and then I showed them what I learned during the classes and then we just all trained together and watched tutorials on YouTube and uploaded it there. So yeah, filming’s been a big part of my parkour journey from the start and like the whole community in that sense.

Max: Nice! Who was your favorite YouTube tutorial? Jesse LaFlair early on? Who were you watching in 2012?

Wessu: Yeah, early on it was just LaFlair. But for flips, I mean, we have Johzuke, we have the trickers in Finland who make good tutorials, so in that sense we have our own representation there as well.

Max: Yeah, I remember Vellu was like the king of tricking, 2006-2008ish, that was the first time I also saw Finland has the coolest gymnastics gyms. I remember I went to one and it was like an underground bunker.

Wessu: Ha ha ha ha.

Valtteri: Yeah! So true.

Max: I think I was with Joonas Purastie. Yeah, he was like, this used to be like a World War Two bunker and you go down and it’s like surrounded by rock walls and there’s just a parkour and gymnastics facility. I was like, What is this? This country’s not real.

Valtteri: Mm-hmm. The one in Lahti.

Wessu: Mm, yeah. I had my first parkour classes in a similar gym in Kotka where I grew up.

Max: That’s so wild. It’s a vibe. It definitely made me feel more willing to throw my body at things. I don’t know. I was just like, I feel like I’m a piece of meat in this dark tunnel gym and I’m ready to kind of throw down! So, I wanted to ask Val about “Forever Incomplete”. I rewatched that twice before watching the newest video, because I was curious to kind of see what the vibe difference was. I definitely have my thoughts, but I wanted to ask you, going from Forever Incomplete, which I think came out like three years ago at this point, or close to it, what did you like about that video? Then what did you want to do differently, or did you want to do anything differently going into filming Marras?

Valtteri: I was really stoked with Forever Incomplete. I think I’m very happy with that video. But for the next project, I definitely wanted to incorporate more art, kind of, and more story. Because Forever Incomplete is just a parkour video, basically. There’s nothing new, like storytelling or anything. For Marras, we wanted to like a proper story kind of element. Then we ended up going the way that we went with the mushrooms and shit.

Max: Yeah, so this will be my first question. Did you really eat the mushrooms, and did you eat the whole thing? Because if you did, you are a savage. I saw that you were taking three bites on that bad boy.

Valtteri: No no, there’s a good way to eat those mushrooms, but that’s not the way. Ha ha.

Max: What’s cool to me is that Forever Incomplete, to me, it didn’t have a story. It had a vibe. But re-watching it, I kind of felt like there was the same, like there’s the same buildup. I really liked in Forever Incomplete the sort of final ender section. There’s like a little bit more of a subtle, like dark color grade, the vibe shifts, and the energy is high, but it has this kind of dark energy at the same time that kind of balances that out.

Valtteri: Mm-hmm.

Max: And I feel like going from that into Marras, I saw some carryover. Just like it felt like a continuation of the same theme but at the same time, like Marras is really cool because it’s a lot darker and it does have a lot more abstract time to breathe in the video for the viewer. But it’s also so much funnier. I loved that it had both of those things where I’m like, damn, I’m really thinking about what, you know, Wessu and Val are trying to tell me by the way they’re presenting the video right now. And then I’d just suddenly laugh because something so crazy was happening. So for you guys, when you were figuring out what you wanted to do with this video, what went into it before filming, what was the goal? And do you feel like after filming, you know, did that change at all?

Valtteri: Yes, it changed a lot during the filming. I think Wessu nailed the pacing and adding some humor into it because I can’t do that, I’m dry as fuck. Sorry about that.

Wessu: Ha ha.

Max: That’s the Finnish in you, truly. Yeah, the dry humor is very Finnish.

Wessu: Ha ha ha.

Valtteri: Yeah, the rest of it is magic. So all credits to him.

Wessu: I feel like during the filming we had like two different sections where the first clips we filmed were the craziest. They were the ones where he almost dies, you know. Like the craziest bails were all the first clips filmed. Then at some point we realized we need more material and we can’t have him almost die on every clip. Like that’s not how you finish a project. Even though we have good health care…

Valtteri: That was the whole idea for the video at first. Just to throw myself at things.

Max: Ha ha ha. Yeah, it was crazy! It’s split into three sections. You have the sort of introduction which feels kind of more like I don’t know how close to the woods and the mountains you grew up, but in the way that the Dear Connor video feels very American because of the locations and stuff, the first section of Marras feels very Finnish. It’s just, you know, a lot of like “there’s fucking reindeer everywhere”. It’s a random shed and somehow you’re doing like a lotus d-leg, and making a cool line out of a spot that’s just like a shitty building in the middle of nowhere.

Wessu: Yeah!

Max: It feels very, very Finnish. The second section is, I will just say, like one of my favorite sections of a video I’ve seen in a really long time. It felt to me, as soon as I saw it, I was like, this feels like the Uro video. Then I saw in the end credits, and I didn’t know if it’s the same Uro, but I saw a name drop. Was he involved in the filming?

Wessu: It’s a little homage. It’s what we wanted to do because we are stealing some ideas, but we wanted to credit him in some way and it’s funny because we were talking about doing some promotional material for this video to do like a little short doc to maybe try and go visit Uro. Like try to get in contact with him and see how he trains nowadays. I mean just see him in general, because no one’s seen him in ages.

Max: Nice! It just felt like sort of more abstract energy and it definitely had a totally different vibe. I could see the homage and the connection there. Mm-hmm. I think you need an owl to carry a letter somewhere into the forest for him. It’s the only way to get in touch!

Wessu: Yeah, right. A magic reindeer that flies you over there. A polar bear that guides you to the right rock where he lives under. No but we came to the conclusion that it’s like, let’s just leave it how it is ’cause he doesn’t really like people that much. I don’t think he would appreciate the whole thing, so we just wanted to leave it at this, just like a little homage.

Max: Yeah, shout out Uro. But the second section, I’m curious about what you guys, from a story perspective, wanted to ask about in the second section specifically. The first thing that stood out to me is the intro. Of that section it’s all of these shots in the air, like hitting these beautiful shapes, and there’s no takeoff and no landing visible. I loved that because it’s just kind of in a lot of ways, I feel like, especially after watching Forever Incomplete, there’s an element of like I don’t wanna say like recklessness, but there’s a little bit of like a “fuck you” element to you and your style, that I perceive. Where you’re just like, “this is how I’m I wanna move. I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna send it”. And like that’s in the second section, it was almost like to me that felt even more extended. Cause it’s like, I don’t care about the takeoff, I don’t care about the landing. Look at this thing that I’m doing in the air.

Valtteri: Excellent! Yeah.

Max: And I just want you to kind of like look at the shape that I’m making in this really abstract way. So much of parkour is about the way that we film with a focus on the takeoff and landing. And I loved how you guys flipped that paradigm. And I’m curious about what your intention was, what your goal was, especially for that second section.

Wessu: Well, first of all I can say that I’ll just preface this with that the inspiration for that comes from like skiing, and skiing movies that we watched a lot. Because yeah, I mean you can see that, we’ve been getting a lot more into skiing and via that I’ve also gotten into snowboarding, so we watched a lot of those types of movies and that’s like a pinnacle shot. And we’ve always wondered how you would achieve that with parkour.

Valtteri: Yeah, I guess that’s pretty much it. Just having that, having that like, you know, going across the screen and there’s nothing behind it. It’s just a sick shot. I haven’t seen it done in Parkour where, you know, you jump a roof gap or something and then you see it from the bottom and it’s kind of cool. But like having that kind of arc and maybe a trick and the shape, you don’t see that enough, I guess.

Wessu: Ha ha ha.

Max: Ha ha ha.

Valtteri: There’s another shot that we really wanted to have. That it’s a lot in skiing and snowboarding films where you zoom in and zoom out during that flight time. But there’s nothing you can do with that scale in parkour. Like, I can’t get that much speed to drop into sand. I don’t know. Just not enough.

Max: Yeah, maybe you need to visit that sand pit that Stas and Pasha were spamming like ten years ago in Latvia.

Valtteri: Maybe. But even that scale is so much smaller than in skiing.

Max: Yeah, we’re not doing twenty meter jumps, with our legs, unfortunately. I mean, you got a couple that were trying to get pretty close in the video though. So let’s talk a little bit about some of it. I just wanted to point that out because I’m sure some people will kind of get that vibe, but I loved that it felt very purposeful, the shift in intentionality from like landing takeoff to just “that’s gone”. It’s especially one of my favorite shots I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t know what the move is. It’s like half of a cork zero is what it looked like when you start to go do that and then you just disappear and you did a really great job doing this in the edit. You just see Val’s face like only half of the rotation and his face just drops.

Wessu: Yeah!

Valtteri: Mmm.

Max: Then you cut right out of there and like that was a really cool and powerful shot to me where it felt just like this doesn’t matter. Then we go to the third sequence where landings do matter because holy crap, dude, you’re doing some gnarly stuff landing on all parts of your body, seemingly. I don’t know how you got out of some of those clips unscathed, like the front flip where you bump your shoulder. Yeah, so those were the first clips apparently that you guys were filming. What was the scariest one of those? And just what was that general experience like going into those challenges mentally?

Valtteri: I don’t know, definitely irresponsible stuff. Like no common sense.

Max: Yeah.

Valtteri: The scariest one. That’s a good question. Everything was so… I would have done them even if we didn’t film it. All of that stuff I just want to do and then I have to do it. I don’t know, film it on the phone, I don’t give a shit. I have to do it. But then, glad we were filming this project, it meant a little bit more, I guess.

Max: Yeah.

Valtteri: But the scariest one… Yeah, you can… Because I can’t remember.

Wessu: I can tell you.

Valtteri: I was thinking maybe the gainer, the gainer slide. Because it’s kind of very specific where you have to hit it. It’s kind of like a gainer pre to hit it nicely. So that was kind of scary. And the takeoff was so shit. Like takeoff was so bad.

Max: Yeah. That’s also the one that the bail looked the most controlled. I mean it wasn’t, it was barely a bail, it’s just like your leg got caught a little bit on the slide, but yeah, that one was really, really well handled.

Wessu: Yeah, yeah, I didn’t even have time to get scared on that one ’cause I was like, you’re already up. Okay, you’re fine. But the one where I got really scared filming was the front flip. I don’t think ’cause we’ve worked for a long time together and I know you can handle shit. Like I get scared filming other people ’cause I know they can’t take a hit if they bail, but I trust Val so much that I know even if something happens in the air here, he’s gonna be fine. But that front flip one really spooked me a lot. ‘Cause it was high up and yeah.

Max: I don’t know how you didn’t hit your head. Yeah, so high up, and you’re coming as I’m watching you come down, you managed to get one foot in the mulch, you dodged all of the sharp things, and you kind of pushed your head out of the way. Yeah, that one could have gone really rough. So kudos for also your ability to land anything after your shoulder hits on a front flip. So for the viewer, again, go watch the video, but it’s a really messed up front flip precision onto a narrow ledge. Val bums his shoulder in the middle of the front flip.

Valtteri: Yes.

Max: It pushes the trajectory off, and you somehow recover. I think you might be Australian based on how well you’re able to take impact and handle all of these random hits to like your back. That one, the recovery was yeah, really impressive.

Valtteri: No, but that’s why I love having Wessu on this project because I can just trust him. He’s not going to talk me out of this. The trust goes both ways.

Max: Yeah, totally. You guys seem like good partners in crime. and Wessu, did you help at all on Forever Incomplete or is this your first time working together?

Wessu: I did film some stuff for that one as well. And then Val edited that one but we shared some notes for that one as well. So already from that part I think. But it started even before that when I was taking a bunch of photos. So it happened naturally. It wasn’t like a choice that I would help you film Forever Incomplete. It kinda just happened because I was always there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Valtteri: I just ended up asking Wessu to always film.

Max: Yeah. Year-round, you know. I’m going out. I need somebody who’s equally irresponsible but can point a camera at me.

Wessu: Yeah, I’m all right.

Max: The third section, I really like, is something I thought was really good from the story perspective that you did is the section where you’re breaking down what Marras means and all of the different ways that it’s used. The one that resonated the most with me is the last one, which some people, if they’re not fast readers, may not get to. You should pause it and think about each one of those. But yeah, the king of fish that if you catch it, you die. That definitely felt like the kinds of challenges you guys were going for. In the third section of the video, the challenges if you do get them, they still might mess you up a little bit. And the ender, again, for the listener, get your butt over to the comments boston and watch the video. And then I’m not putting any clips in this video. Don’t give me comments, like put clips in, go watch the video. The ender, WOW!

Wessu: Ha ha ha.

Max: You handled that so perfectly and it still looked like you bruised your heel or or you know hurt your ankle a little bit on the landing. That was insane. Like the speed that you have coming off of the slide. yeah, full-on like Hollywood action type ender clip. What was that clip like? And when you did what did you hurt your did you bruise your heel on that one? Or what was the fallout of that challenge?

Valtteri: Just a massive heel bruise. That was the only thing that I got from that. I think…

Max: Classic. Was it on the landing going into the roll or was it when you rotated after the roll? Because you were so fast. That roll was really nice, but I was amazed at how fast it was.

Valtteri: It was actually on the wall, like landing on the wall to the slide. I kind of landed, I didn’t land. Well, first of all, I didn’t realize how high the drop to the wall was before I was in the air. Like, holy shit, it’s taking a while to get to that wall. And after the line coming down and rolling, think in the roll, I kind of twisted my ankle a bit, but that wasn’t the…

Max: Wow. Okay.

Valtteri: The issue was hitting the wall with that heel. But that clip…

Max: Wow. I would never have guessed that ’cause yeah, the way you took the impact on this on the slide was really smooth.

Valtteri: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that was another thing that I’ve been looking for such a long time. The first time I went to that spot, I wanted to do this one day and then one day came, I had to do it.

Wessu: Yeah. It was the omen of death.

Max: Yeah.

Valtteri: Yes. It was good because then I had a couple at the hell jam. I could just chill. It was good.

Wessu: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Max: That’s when you brought the mushroom home, dried it out, made a nice tea, and had some tea in your thermos at Helljam. Nobody needs to know that you’d had some yeah, there we go. Cheers. That’s a great way to prepare for a podcast, also.

Wessu: Ha ha.

Valtteri: Cheers.

Wessu: Ha ha ha

Max: So I did an episode with Sam Ultima, Sam Govendan about the “Don’t Ring Ring Twice” video last week, and we talked a lot about rhythm and tempo. I noticed especially in that first section, I love how many roles and like dive macaco type movements there are where you’re just making a really big shape and you’re moving really slowly because the scale that you have to cover, it just like it’s kind of a simple, and I’m using quotations for anyone who’s listening, a simple looking move, but you know if you do parkour how insanely difficult it is to control your body through space in that way. The clip that to me stood out the most is the one that you did in Boston where you did the kong roll onto the slant wall and then you just drop off the edge. But the way you control the momentum through both of those makes perfect sense. It’s one of those things that like 99% of people would over-rotate or under rotate every time. So were there any challenges that you went into the video really looking for? I mean, it seems like slides were maybe one of them, but did you have any movements in mind that you wanted to explore or types of spots that you were really searching for for this video?

Valtteri: I think a lot of it came down to skiing and the influence of going down hitting something on the way when scaling down anything like if it was distance or going down just like going and hitting something on the way going down I guess and that was a lot that I was looking for.

Max: Yeah, psych.

Wessu: Spot wise it can be kinda divided into sections ’cause in our urban environment we weren’t really that picky with spots. I mean obviously we were scouting a lot and some of it was filmed in Helsinki for the first and last parts or sections. There’s some list challenges that Valtteri had on his list for a long time. So we’re kinda just hitting those but when it comes to like the northern like countryside spots we were just trying to look for spots with with at least urban architecture where you can still do some parkour but then at the same time like kinda not see any buildings or cars or people in the background and just have have the nature as a backdrop.

Max: Yeah. That was definitely the vibe. It’s cool that you’ve taken so much influence from skiing. Have you always skied or has that been like a new thing that you’ve gotten into recently?

Valtteri: It’s a new thing. I used to ski as a kid. I just did it as a kid and I was too scared to go to the park. And I never did any tricks but this is going to be my third season now. After Parkour it felt a lot easier to throw myself at things and try stuff. You have a helmet on, the snow is soft. What could happen? Just try it, you know. It’s much safer.

Max: Ha ha ha. Yeah, that’s so funny because from my perspective of skiing, I don’t like that I have things on my feet, stuff can get tangled up and twisted. But your style, now that you say that, the shapes that you make have always, I think, kind of looked like they’ve always had a freestyle-ski kind of vibe and the downhill inspiration feels very obvious now that you’ve said that and I didn’t pick up on that, but it totally checks out. That’s very cool! I had a couple other just kind of quick questions that maybe may be quick or may not be quick. Obviously Marras is a little bit more tied to Finnish culture. What did you want the identity aspect of this video to be? Like how did you take such a kind of an old folk tradition and tie it into something so modern like parkour? What was that conversation like for you guys?

Wessu: I don’t know. I mean I think you should answer that ’cause it felt very natural but I mean well, I’m gonna speak for you now, but I feel like Val has a growing interest in the folk Finnish traditional side of the culture. Especially now that you move up to the north, to Lapland. That whole aspect feels way closer over there because people still actually live the rural lifestyle still out there if you compare it to here in Helsinki. So yeah we kind of wanted to translate that feeling into the video. The idea really completed now that you moved to Lapland and we filmed the last things over there and then it really made sense. But I think we had that idea even before that in our minds but we just didn’t really grasp it that well. But yeah.

Valtteri: Mm-hmm.

Max: How did the name come up with it? Was that something that you guys just had floating around because it’s in the culture, or was it something that you specifically were looking for a name to capture this feeling?

Valtteri: Well, we didn’t really have a good name for the project. And then we just started slapping names on it. Then it just made so much sense. And it was like, yeah, this is the perfect name for it.

Wessu: Ha ha ha.

Max: Nice.

Wessu: It was called Still Incomplete for a long while. That was the project name which was very bad. But it was called that for a long while and then I mean we had some ideas for one reference would be black clouds, in reference to Pink Clouds (a famous Finnish Parkour video).

Max: Yeah.

Valtteri: That was the project. Yeah.

Max: Working title. Working title. Nice.

Wessu: But then that one felt kinda too tacky, like too on the nose, kinda. So Marras is what we landed on. It’s hard with those Finnish words also, ’cause obviously the words mean something to us in our language, but you want it to sound cool if you think about an English speaking person, but then you don’t want just any random word. So you still want something that resonates with Finns and the rest of the world. So we kinda hit a spot there.

Valtteri: I think Marras as a word, it resonates to English speakers as something dark like mordor or anything, you know, so it kind of speaks for itself.

Max: Mm. Yeah, it has that sound for sure. Val, when did you move to Lapland?

Valtteri: Yeah. 2025.

Wessu: Yeah, a year ago. A little over a year ago.

Max: Okay. Well that for skiing and for life or… what was the motivation?

Valtteri: Yeah. Yeah. Life and skiing pretty much.

Max: Nice, nice. How has that been being a little bit farther from the urban centers of Finland?

Valtteri: I don’t miss them. That’s what I can say. I just came back earlier. Been training a lot in the local birch forest. It was kind of cool and there were some good rocks nearby. There’s a nice riverbank. Very cool.

Max: Ha ha ha.

Wessu: Ha ha ha.

Max: Now you’ve got banger spots, like the first section of the video, yeah.

Valtteri: I just came back from Helsinki and obviously I miss all the friends and the parkour scene and everything. But being up here is a lot more peaceful. That’s what I can say. And it feels very nostalgic to go out into the forest and look for any resemblance of a spot and then jump by myself. It feels very nostalgic and kind of rooting and grounding. It feels very good.

Max: Yeah. Yeah.

Wessu: He’s been trying to move us all out up there as well. Like that’s that’s the main mission now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Valtteri: Yes, slowly. It will happen.

Max: Yeah, the next Helle video you guys can do like a midwinter solstice during the one hour of sunlight that you get in Lapland. Go out and train and get like one clip a day.

Valtteri: There’s a period of 21 days where I live where the sun doesn’t come up.

Max: It’s wild. I remember when I went to Armageddon in Jyväskylä and it was so cold there was still some sun. It was close to Christmas time and the solstice.

Valtteri: It’s good.

Max: It feels like the moments after sunrise is the brightest that it gets and it just stays there for like two hours and then the sun is back down. And I remember if I didn’t get outside of the gym for those like one or two hours, and luckily they had the outdoor sauna so we could spend a little bit of time getting my sunshine, but I can’t imagine being even farther north. That’s a lot. But the summer’s probably beautiful. Yeah.

Wessu: Yeah.

Valtteri: Very nice. The sun doesn’t go down.

Max: It’s interesting that you say how it feels kind of grounding because of the first section. The video definitely made me remember the times when I was doing parkour by myself. I didn’t know what a good spot was, or you know, I was growing up in a town that had like we didn’t even have any walls to vault. I only learned to vault on rails because there was like not a wall that you could use in the entire town. And I like walking through every street looking for a wall to work on like a climb up and vaulting. But it had that sense of just like you know that you don’t have good stuff around you, but you have so much fun anyway. I really appreciated the vibe of that. It’s just like looking at what you can do, even with spots that, maybe nobody would travel for that spot.

Valtteri: Mm-hmm.

Max: I really liked that energy. Honestly for the first and that was kind of like the first and the second section had had a lot of that vibe, except for the clips that were in the US and and some of the Helsinki clips.

Valtteri: I’m glad it translated to the viewer experience as well.

Max: Yeah.

Wessu: I think it’s nice that how how we managed to translate how we managed to kind of transition between that and then to the city spots and it doesn’t feel that far off from each other ’cause even when we were in the city in, Helsinki or in the US, we would still hit spots that had some grass or had some trees or something. Like we, we still managed to kind of keep that theme close during the whole of the video.

Max: Mm-hmm. Yeah, from an editing perspective, Wessu, I know how hard it can be when you’re trying to tie in sections and make them feel connected and not like three different videos. How long did it take for you before you felt like you really found the through line for the story that you wanted to tell in this?

Wessu: I think we had the story kind of the overarching arching theme, we had it jotted down very early on, like basically just after filming, like when we stopped filming. And then it was just a matter of how to tie the clips in those sections together and how to tie those sections together like between each other as well. We were working with the songs first and the whole vibe. So we kinda knew from the start what it would be like, but then it was just a matter of moving clips around basically. Which is I mean it sounds easy but that’s I feel like that’s even worse. Like coming up with an idea is very tough.

Max: Finding the right transition clip, yeah. I mean as somebody who, especially with a narrative or like documentary edit, when you find the right transition clip, all of a sudden it is so good. You were saying that Wessu did a really good job keeping the pacing consistent, it’s all about how do you get from the end of section one to the beginning of section two. Then keeping that from feeling like, okay, now we’re in a different video. When you find that right clip to transition them, all of a sudden it makes so much sense and I know that feeling as an editor where you’re finally like… it’s like a puzzle, and you move all of these pieces together and you finally get one in the right spot, and all like the energy just suddenly works. That’s a really satisfying feeling. Did you have any moments like that specifically where you were like, I wanna really capture this one feeling and and you like found a clip that for you you built the rest of the sequence around.

Wessu: Mm, I had a hard time because well I tend to edit backwards. So I start with the last section because I know what the clips are gonna be. I mean they’re the hardest clips basically and it’s pretty relatively easy to edit because it’s just banger like some b-roll and pacing.

Max: Mm-hmm.

Wessu: Banger, broll, banger. Like it’s not super difficult to do that part. It’s also the most fun one. So you want some motivation, so you start with that one. Then because we knew we had the clear idea for the whole mushroom section and the whole second section should only be forest and then like slowly descending into this madness. So that was a clear idea. So I then worked through that. But I had like a couple of months of just trying to figure out the first section. I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was really stuck for a while. Because yeah, it’s hard to start a video like that. You want because I know what the end reward is gonna be, but then you want to kind of introduce people to this video, but not make that introduction too long and boring, but at the same time kind of build a vibe around there as well. And then for that part we also had I feel like the clips were more from here and there. So I also had to find a way to match them with each other… I kinda forgot your question already. But I feel like I had some Val come over and we had a solid eight hours of just looking at the edit and like figuring out how the first part could be.

Max: Ha ha.

Wessu: It kinda all clicked from there. So yeah. I feel like I I made a breakthrough when I tried the song for the first section and then I looked at the the first clips that the videos, the the big slide on the on top of the roof, and I just laid them laid them over the clip over the song just to try it out and I was like blown away how well it worked and I was like, Okay, I know how this kinda is gonna work.

Max: Yeah. Sick! Who picked the music? Mm-hmm. That makes sense.

Valtteri: I found them. It’s all Finnish songs. Like they were made by Finnish artists.

Max: Yeah. That’s really cool. Because this definitely felt very tied to Forever Incomplete. Not tied to it, but it is thematically similar, but in evolution. And especially now that you’re in Lapland and you’re a little bit farther from the Helsinki community, how’s your relationship with parkour in general changed or been over the past couple of years? Because you were doing a lot of traveling. I mean Forever Incomplete, you were like all over the place and I’m curious if you feel like, yeah, your overall relationship with parkour has evolved in any way since then.

Valtteri: I think, like I said, it feels nostalgic. I feel like I’m going back to the main point of it. I know, just going out and trying to figure out something and that’s so rewarding. There’s no excess going on. There’s no pressure. Especially here where there’s no one watching, you know. You don’t have to be weirded out by people watching you. Parkour feels more like what it used to be for me. Because during my whole time traveling there’s always pressure, like you need to get stuff done and do cool stuff and you know, but now it’s more just go out and enjoy it and then cool stuff happens because you know, that’s how cool stuff happens.

Max: That’s beautiful. That’s true. The reindeer are not judging if your clip is Instagram worthy or not. They’re just enjoying the experience.

Valtteri: The reindeer love those red mushrooms, so they just hide all the time. So they don’t mind. Yeah, they love those things. You can always find like the red mushrooms where the caps are almost bitten off completely by those reindeer, they just keep munching on them.

Max: Do they actually? That’s giving a whole new meaning to me for Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. I’m like, now I know what was on his nose. Yeah. No wonder. My daughter is gonna be very disappointed when she learns this lore from the real reindeer. But it explains how they’re flying all the time too. So I guess yeah, there’s a lot of good stuff going on.

Valtteri: Yes.

Wessu: Ha ha ha.

Max: Wessu, for you, how’s your relationship with parkour been? Because I’ve loved seeing all of the Helle videos and getting to see more of the Finnish scene, get some love and I got to talk a bit about Helljam over the summer with Viljiam and Sanni when we were at Gerlev. It’s been awesome to see what feels like a revival a little bit after kind of a quieter period. So yeah, how has your perception of the scene been over the last few years?

Wessu: Very good. My personal relationship is, I’d say, very healthy at the moment. I do have more responsibilities than I had like a couple of years ago. So now I actually have to work and do stuff and not just go out and train all the time. But I feel like that’s completely fine. Like I still do, I just love parkour because I love moving about and there’s not a big pressure on me in that sense. And I really love that I can still contribute to the community without being the athlete, without having that pressure on me, but I can use my skills to do some use for the community instead. Like as a filmmaker instead. But yeah, it’s yeah, I’d say it’s pretty good in Finland actually at the moment. Things are popping off and I’m glad we started the Helle project way back. And then now it’s kinda moved on. When we were filming I was part of filming some clips this summer. but I specifically said that I’m not gonna touch a camera, I’m not gonna bring my camera with me, I’m just gonna go out and train and hang out with the people there and just kinda I feel like it’s where we wanted it to be from the start. I thought I thought we’d be stuck doing that, like the two of us being the ones responsible for that for like the next ten years and then maybe some would someone would take it over. But no. No, it’s good like this. But yeah, we originally started that whole thing because we had an idea for a video and we were watching other parkour videos at the time. like when was this? Twenty three maybe? So like three, four years ago.

Valtteri: Yeah.

Wessu: And we were watching a lot of parkour videos at the time and we pretty much had something negative to say about all of them. Like not personally to the people, but mostly like how the edits were constructed and what the vibe was and we wanted to make something with a story and and something for the community as well. So we just decided to say fuck it, we have to make it. Like if we want this to happen, we have to do this on our own. But it wasn’t really a plan for us to grow something big out of Helle and it would be our brand, but instead just to move it on to the next people who wanna take the responsibility.

Valtteri: I guess we just wanted to have a platform.

Max: Have you guys thought about a parkour team? Yeah.

Wessu: Ha ha

Valtteri: I think we just wanted to have a platform for the Finnish community. Like, nobody posted anything because they… Finnish people don’t like, “look at me”, you know, they don’t want to do that. So we kind of wanted to have a little platform for people to do, to show what the Finnish community is about. What’s the vibe here?

Wessu: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Prior to that I was working with Bounceback Boys. I was a part of the team and we made weekly vlogs for about a year or two. But it was very different. It was very like, well, parkour vlogs. We wanted to try out the YouTube game. But after that died out, there wasn’t really anything big happening for a while. So that was kind of our reaction to it as well, like to make the next move, the next step.

Max: Yeah. I’ve loved seeing it. It’s been very cool, especially because I think I came up at the same time that all of the major Finnish athletes started posting. I had a big connection to the Finnish parkour content scene and then all of those people aged out and got jobs and stopped making videos as much, even if they’re still training here and there. and then yeah, it was kind of a quiet period where I felt like nothing was going on.

Wessu: Yeah.

Max: Then Bounce Back Boys came up, and it’s been cool to see the evolution from that to Helle and getting to see some people come back into the scene as well from the older school

Wessu: Mmm. Yeah.

Max: Yeah, that’s really exciting. Yeah, people are popping up like mushrooms. Valtteri finds them and eats them just like he does in the video. Go watch Marras! I was gonna ask you guys one more question. What do you both have going on?

Valtteri: I’m done. Ha ha.

Max: Moving forward, are you working on any other projects? I know you’ve got ski season coming up, Valtteri, but other than that, yeah, do you guys have any travel or projects coming up?

Valtteri: Not really right now, just waiting for the season to properly start. It started already, which is nice up here. But yeah, just waiting for it to really start. And we have a new Farang collection coming out very soon. We have a Farang film that should be coming, I don’t know when, but it’s coming.

Max: Yeah. That’s gonna be sick. I’m excited for that!

Wessu: Not really not really anything. I feel like we put a lot of energy into this project. So I feel like I need a little bit of a creative break, honestly, and just I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, it’s always like that. Yeah, it’s always like that. It’s always like that. But honestly, yeah, I feel like I need a little bit of that.

Valtteri: It’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna start on the next one. So soon. I know you, bro.

Max: Ha ha.

Wessu: Like parkour film wise and then we’ll see what happens. but I’ve really gotten hooked into this storytelling thing now with this project. And like it already started with the kind of thinking about some themes for when we were out filming for Forever Incomplete and then moving forward for that one Helle project. and then now this. So they’ve all evolved slowly. And now this one is really good. I’m very happy about it. So I’m excited to see what’s next, you know. So yeah, yeah, we’ll see.

Max: Well, I’m glad that that means in eight months from now, Valtteri’s gonna be getting a call about filming a Midsummer inspired Super Eight film project, from Wessu probably, to have some whole whole new story take on it.

Valtteri: Yep.

Wessu: Ha ha! That’s the hard part though. Like it’s easy to come up with something that’s dark and mysterious, but if you want to do something that’s different from this one, I don’t know how we’re gonna top it, you know? We’ll see.

Valtteri: But you want to have the birch forest project, you already have that.

Max: Mm.

Wessu: That’s true. That’s true. That’s true. I have some ideas.

Max: You heard it here first, folks. Yeah. That’s gonna be dropping in February. All right, everybody, get ready. Well thank you for making Marras. It was such a fun watch. Really, really beautiful piece of art.

Valtteri: Thank you for watching.

Max: Do either of you have anything else you want people to check out?

Wessu: No, not really. I hope you enjoy it and I really appreciate the kind words about the film. We put a lot of love and energy into this one and we hope it resonates with people. ‘Cause obviously when we had a first screening at Holding Hands earlier this year it was a fun one because we hadn’t shown it to David or Alec beforehand.

Max: Sick.

Wessu: Like the people who were producing this who were paying for this hadn’t even seen any rough cut. Nothing. So they went blind into it as well. I appreciate their trust in us. They wouldn’t do that with just anyone. So, yeah I really appreciate their trust in us.

Max: Shout out to your responsible producers. Good job, David and Alec.

Wessu: Yeah, it was a fun screening ’cause the videos were so different from each other. Like from Finial to this one, it’s a big jump between them and it’s a slower paced one and it’s more artsy than than Forever Incomplete, and that feels like a bit of a risk in today’s Parkour media, like Instagram community, but I hope that people like it because we do.

Valtteri: I think it was kind of scary to show it and it’s scary to still publish it because it feels like part of me and part of us, I guess. That’s what makes it good for me. I hope people like it. I don’t really mind if they don’t because it’s part of us. It’s kind of sick. But it’s scary.

Wessu: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Yeah, it’s still scary but it’s true.

Valtteri: Because it’s not like a part video kind of thing. I guess. And if people are expecting a parkour video, that’s… You know… Could get some mixed feelings.

Max: I think it’s gonna resonate really well with people. I think our community has matured. I mean, obviously there’s plenty of kids who just want to see Valtteri huck himself off a bridge into a really fucked up slide, and they can see that also. But first they may have to think a little bit about their relationship to the world around them and what movement means to them. And I loved that element of it for me. Like that was the meat and potatoes of it that made me feel like it was even more memorable for me than Forever Incomplete. So yeah, thank you guys again. So go check it out and support their work on the Commons Boston and of course follow Helle and all their other projects. Wessu and Valtteri, thank you guys so much again for making the time. It’s been awesome getting to chat with you about this.

Wessu: Thank you.

Valtteri: Thank you, Max.

Wessu: Thank you. Yeah, man. It’s been awesome!