Josh Stuart interview We’re with Stupid.

July 18, 2007 @ 11:20 AM

Everyone’s favorite independent skate video static is just about to drop for the third time. it hasn’t been an easy ride for josh Stewart, the man behind the cam for the past two years he’s been at it. putting out an Indy skate flick of this magnitude at this day and age takes a lot of hard work and sets you up against Youtube and the mammoth productions that big companies are giving away free at the drop of a hat. After his last video josh sold his house to cover the cost of it. So before you go online to download the new one, maybe think about that for a second and then go to the shop to buy it instead. Not just because he could use the support, but because you know this will be something you’ll want to own.

Right Josh, you’re on the final stretch of your 3rd static right now. How did the whole thing get started?

erhm, that’s not such an easy question… I guess I’ve always been doing some sort of video since I was like 15. I’d start filming with the people around me and then figure out half way through how I was going to make it into a video. So, naturally, my first few videos were always about skaters in the local Tampa skate scene. Then the idea for static came about when I saw Jake Rupp and Sean Mullendore skating in Tampa one year during a Tampa am contest. I had already been working with Paul Zitzer but had no video concept yet. But when I saw Sean and Jake skate it all clicked in my head. So I called them up out of the blue, like, “hi, uhm, I’m this guy from Tampa, who makes videos”- and somehow it just all came together from there.

Was it hard in the beginning to get people involved when no one really knew what they’d be getting themselves into?

Well yeah, but the thing is that the people that I’m usually interested in are people that aren’t already being covered by other things. So it wasn’t like they’d be super busy with other projects, they were people who were just skating. But yeah, it’s still weird now just randomly calling up people I don’t know and asking them if they want to be in my video (laughs).

making an independent skate video isn’t exactly like putting money in the bank. What’s made it possible for you to do this?

That’s the most commonly asked question: “how do you do what you’re doing?” and the simplest answer is that I’m stupid. I mean really, I don’t learn lessons easily. I mean, the smart way would be to get sponsors, but it all just takes so long and I always feel like I’m in this race with time, wasting my life. So I usually just get anxious and end up just starting a video, before I’ve really organized it the right way. And once you’ve started, you’re in it, and the skaters are expecting you to finish it, so…! For the last video a lot of the money was just borrowed! (Laughing) from family, friends, credit, from my house, stuff like that. And then I just prayed that it would sell well. The last video [static 2] sold well, but I spent so much money on traveling for it that I ended up having to sell my house to pay off the debt for the video. Making videos it really expensive. And downloading and Youtube have become absolute killers. It’s getting to be impossible to make skate videos unless you’re advertising your company’s team. And now companies are giving away videos for free? All you little bastards out there need to start supporting skateboarding and actually pay for the videos you watch every day. I have tried to pretend like this isn’t the case, but I can’t help but accept it now…I will probably have to stop making skate videos really soon. It’s a whole new world out there, and the independent video maker doesn’t really fit into it anymore

When did you start working on this 3rd one?

I started filming with some of the skaters in the summer of 2005, but then there are some skaters like [Tony] Manfre, who just kind of became part of the project a year later. It takes time, since I’m the only filmer. On the last video I hired someone to film as well, which helped a lot, but it killed the budget.

You’ve rented a flat in London for the summer, another one in Miami, and you went to New York for a few months for this one. Does it work out cheaper like that and asking people to come and stay with you, rather than going to everyone’s hometown to film with them?

The worst thing is to do a road trip…(because) on every trip you end up getting two hotel rooms, a rental car, and the cost of gas and travel is just impossible, so I think this is the smartest way of doing it. I mean this fl at in London is killing me financially, so for New York I’m just going to get a room and not even let anyone stay with me. Because you can’t rent a room from someone and then say “oh by the way, Danny Renaud is going to stay with us tonight, and he’ll be punching a hole in the wall, destroying your ego, and pissing on your couch, hope that’s cool.”

I’m sure that way of working has a huge effect on what the video will be like.

Exactly. Because on road trips you end up at all the clichéd spots of each city and that’s another reason for me to be doing another video, because every time i watch the old one i have my hands over my head in embarrassment. There are so many spots I’m not happy with, especially the ones i took the guys to on road trips, the ones you see in a million videos. So I figured that with this one my goal was to film like 40% New York, 40% London and then little bits here and there. I figured those are the cities that look the best. Then with soy filming in Paris and Tony filming in San Francisco, we’ll end up with all of the best looking cities for a backdrop. I think that will have a big impact on the look of the video.
You pick the locations for how they look?

In my head the ideal viewer who’d be interested in a static video likes it primarily not because of the tricks that are being done, it’s mostly the skaters that are in it and the cities and spots that they see. You know the overall feel that’s created by it. To me the most important things in a video are the music, the spots and the skaters. Tricks are the least important thing, if you ask me. Those cities will help create the feel that I want to create. When I came to London for the previous video, this city just embodied the feel that I already had in my head that I wanted for the video. And a lot of the skaters that I want to work with and the people I get stoked on are obviously talented skaters, but there’s something about their personalities that shines just as strongly as their skating. Soy [Panday] was somebody I met at the static 2 premiere in London. I didn’t even know anything about his skating, but I liked him as a person, and once I saw an interview he had [in sugar] I knew I wanted him to be in the next video. It’s something about the people I can’t really put my finger on. There are people in this video that skate handrails, or a gap or a double set, but it’s just the way they ride their skateboard that gets me stoked. I made a mistake with the last video by making a whole big deal about the east coast/west coast thing, and that’s not the point at all. You can go anywhere in the world and find the kind of skaters that I enjoy working with. That’s one of the reasons we’ve got people like Manfre, who’s from san francisco, or Nate (Broussard), who’s from Texas, who really aren’t categorized by that whole east / west thing. I really wanted to find people whose name I would mention and skaters would be like, really, he’s got a part? And then they’d see the video and be like holy crap, obviously!

So you’re going by what you want to
have instead of what you don’t want to
have this time?

Exactly. I’m just trying to get a certain feel to it, rather than limiting what type of skating it is. I hate to say this, but most videos I see, I get depressed. I can’t watch them because I feel bad for the skater, who’s hucking his life down this stuff, obviously being super good, but you just can’t bring yourself to care. In my head I’m trying to relate to it, and think: why don’t I care and why is it not enjoyable for me to watch? If you saw that in person, you’d be absolutely blown away, but just because it’s the same sort of stuff you saw in every video that year, you feel like you’ve already seen that video. It’s tough, though, because it can go the other way as well, where people think they have to find this quirky little bank thing for their video part and do a pivot grind to fakie on it. You know, there are people like Puleo who are doing their own thing and that’s how they skate, but then there’s the people who think like, got to have the pivot grind, got to have the sw fs big spin like there’s an equation you can follow to make the perfect part. to me it’s rarely what’s being done but more the reason why it’s being done. i mean skating is so huge now, everyone is so good, it’s almost like you have to be a hater. You have to narrow down the stuff you like because there are so many impostors out there these days who are doing it for the wrong reasons...too many people think that skateboarding is a sport, or a competition! You know, you run into the random positive guy whose like: nah man, it’s all goo-od. But no! It’s not all good, because if that’s the case then everything’s the same and it’s just meaningless.

You get desensitized by all the
incredibly hard tricks, i suppose.

You have to find the kind of skating you like and cherish it, and for me it’s the stuff you don’t see all the time, every day. When you see something or someone in the media over and over, it gets old quick. There’s that fine line, because the other extreme of it is some one like Bobby [Puleo], who only appears every now and then because he practices such quality control. So whenever you Do see his stuff it’s always amazing and at a beautiful spot. But that form of skating isn’t appreciated by the masses, which in a way is a tragedy, because skaters who treat skateboarding with this kind of respect rarely have much success financially…because your average kid is wowed by the glitz of overkill and the flashiness of stunt work. I like the good stuff to be underground. The masses usually take anything good and ruin it. i just wish that guys like Bobby and Ricky [Oyola] could be allowed to make a decent living and get what they really deserve out of skateboarding since they’ve meant so much to it and to me.

So who have parts in the end?

Danny Reynaud, Soy Panday, Pat Stiener, Tony Manfre, Olly Todd, and Nate Broussard.

And when is the video out?

Ugh…I hate that question…when it’s good and ready, damnit! no, I’m shooting for late may...but I have to dodge the Lakai video, so it really depends on that. 

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