Immediately after taking in the incredible Static VI video we wasted no time reaching out to Josh Stewart about doing a Backstory interview for the blog. His many commitments, and a whirlwind of premieres, have meant he has been an incredibly busy man but we managed to connect once the dust finally settled. See which tricks from the video he selected to speak about, and learn more about their significance from the creative mastermind behind the Static series…
words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Josh at the Chicago premiere of Static VI. PH: Dakota Mullins
As the 25th anniversary of the Static series approaches, Josh Stewart is showing no signs of slowing down. We caught up with him when he was finally taking a breath after a slew of premieres for his new video, and in the middle of taking care of his duties at Theories of Atlantis HQ. Josh is married to the game far more than most, and finding the time to create another independent release in the midst of everything else he has going on is no mean feat. It seems he can’t curtail that creativity, and although they have many other homes to go to, each clip compiled points to the potential of another full-length. In a world where our consumption of footage is so immediate, regular, and short-lived, taking in a thoughtfully crafted video is refreshing. As Josh told Village Psychic it “will always be there as an important art form — for those bold enough to take on the challenge”. We are glad that Josh has remained up to this challenge for over two decades, he has gifted us some of our favourite videos, all of which remain eminently rewatchable.
Static VI is true to its lineage, it’s full of magnetic skateboarders, pure streetskating, and spot-scouring. This mixed with Josh’s mastery, eerie direction, and ear for tracks that will elevate it, proves to be a winning formula once again. Having thoroughly enjoyed the video, it seemed like an ideal canvas to pick apart a little for a Backstory feature. Although it was difficult for Josh to select only a few moments, he managed to narrow it down to three. The focus of our conversation was a John Baragwanath line that ticks all of the aesthetic boxes on a Static checklist, a Brett Weinstein line that made Josh re-evaluate his relationship with inevitable confrontations, and Jordan Trahan’s epic ender performed in high heat, and the complications involved in capturing it. Enjoy some insights from one of skateboarding’s most unique auteurs, and learn more about the process that went into making one of the most memorable videos of the year…
John Baragwanath – Midtown Manhattan. NYC (2019)
This was tough to choose, I was torn between two clips, one of which was a nollie-backside-heelflip over a planter and stairs. The reason I was going to speak about that is because when I filmed it, I wasn’t even really sure about doing another Static video. I had been skating and filming with John a lot that summer because I was a fan of his style and personality. But when he did that line with the nollie-back-heel in LA it showed a skill level I wasn’t even aware he had. I was already saving his footage for a potential part for something, but at that moment I wasn’t really entertaining doing another Static video. Then when he did that trick I was taken aback, it was like one of those moments when you’re really surprised by someone’s skill. It was a significant moment where I realised he was definitely capable of filming a part that would be pretty solid on all levels. And it sparked the seed of wanting to do a new Static video.
When he did the nollie-back-heel line I ended up saving the clip, and just used a nollie backside 180 for the video piece we were working on at that time, a Theories brand video called Escape to LA. That was right when I started saving John’s best clips, which was kind of to his detriment because for seven years, for every video piece we put out, I wasn’t using his best footage. So it kind of hid how good he was from the public. John’s style is really pleasant, I feel like it has a Nate Broussard vibe to it, and he’s a super likeable, humble dude. That’s kind of how it was with Soy Panday, I knew I wanted to film a part with him before I knew if he was good at skating at all. There are people where their personality, and style are intriguing, which can make for a good part. Then there’s the next level, where you could be someone who doesn’t pick up on style so much, and still be impressed by his skating.
I first met John when I was working on that MIA skateshop video [Welcome to MIA] in 2010. He’s actually from one of the Florida Keys, the little islands at the bottom of the state, and by this time he was local to the Miami skate scene. I ran into him a couple times while down there and thought his style was really advanced for such a young skater. Then when he moved to New York he was a huge fan of ISLE, so we talked to [Paul] Shier, and Nick [Jensen], and they trusted our taste and started flowing him boards for a while. Then he became part of the Theories camp.
“It’s a clip that feels like a video I have been trying to emulate my whole life”
If I’m saying my favourite clip, regardless of the story, it has to be this line filmed at night where he does a nollie flip down the stairs, and then a 180-fakie-manual. It’s the one that sticks out to me. It’s night-time in Midtown Manhattan, and you can see all the buildings in the background. It’s a clip that feels like a video I have been trying to emulate my whole life. Like an Eastern Exposure video, or an old RB Umali production. Every time it pops up when I’m watching his part, I wish there were a lot more clips in the video that look like that. Static IV had a lot more footage that had that feel because back then I was filming almost exclusively at night. With this one, I have been so busy with work for the past six, or seven years, that I was basically mainly filming on the weekends. That has meant that most of the footage in the new video was filmed in the daytime. I have always preferred night footage, so when that clip of John pops up it really stands out.
“John and I went there enough that we figured out a hack in the system”
That spot has been there for ages and I’ve never seen anyone do a line that way. Rick Howard did a switch nosewheelie at that same spot years ago, it’s on the same thing around the corner just bigger. There’s also the FedEx ledge around the back which John switch-back-smiths at the end of his part. It’s a classic spot where you typically get kicked out within five or ten minutes. John and I went there enough that we figured out a hack in the system. If you went there after 11pm the security guard would do his rounds every fifteen minutes. He would come up this escalator, exit the front door and do a full circle of the building. After getting kicked out of there many times we figured out that you could see his reflection in the glass of the building when he was getting on the escalator. So I would see his reflection, tell John, then he would come over and sit down next to me on the stairs. The guy would walk right past us, and we would get another fifteen minutes.
It’s just a classic NYC spot and it LOOKS so New York, and so 90s…..a look, and an era I am heavily influenced by. That’s why this clip is one of my favourites.
Brett Weinstein – Gramercy. NYC (2019)
I’ll tell you why I picked this line. For me, as a filmer, I really struggle with being disrespectful. If we get kicked out of somewhere I don’t want to go back. Jahmal [Williams] is the same, he won’t want to return. Brett [Weinstein] is the exact opposite, he will never give up until he gets his clip. This meant that filming with him was really difficult for me at first. We wouldn’t argue, but if I said no to going back somewhere, he would push it a little bit. Brett was really perplexed by me not wanting to go back, why wouldn’t we go back? We would get kicked out of somewhere, go across the street, he would see the security guard disappear, and say “let’s go!” even though we had been kicked out literally 30 seconds ago.
But I would say he eventually broke me, haha…he changed my perspective after 25-30 years of filming. I had to accept it, this is what the security guards job is, and, sure, some guys are going to get pissed off but mostly, they’re just going through the motions anyways. At least we weren’t rude, arguing or giving them any flack. This clip is one of the first examples of him talking me into going back somewhere, and I was so bummed on going back. It’s another classic New York spot, HUF had clips there on the front of it. It’s a cobbled hip where he had a frontside ollie photo, Puleo has had clips there, but I’d never seen anyone skate it the way Brett was. When you walk up to skate the spot the security guard can immediately see you, before a board has even been thrown down. So we got the boot first try and had to go across the street. Brett talked me into going back for a second time, and I just hate that feeling in my stomach of being disrespectful like that. Knowing that same guy is going to see us after we just told him we were leaving. “Hey we’re back, it’s the dickheads again”.
“He eventually broke me… he changed my perspective after 25-30 years of filming”
So we went right back, walked up, and the same thing happened, the security guard came running out of the building. I was waiting for it but he just acted like he was pissed, he was waving his arms around, and talking loudly about how he had only just kicked us out. Under his breath though he said “just come back in fifteen minutes”. He explained that his supervisor would be gone by then, and he’d give us as long as we needed to get the line. I finally agreed to do what Brett wanted me to, and I was rewarded by this guy being totally cool, and letting us skate there. We then got the line pretty quickly. I still hate that feeling, and experience that comes from being disrespectful, but Brett has managed to change my perspective on it, and accept that it’s just what we do. I have had so many security interactions since, mainly because of Brett, he has tested what I can deal with. That nervous feeling it gives you is motivating to some extent, but can be disabling too, it affects your physical stability to a certain degree.
With a video like this, I had so little time to film. My previous approach meant that if we got kicked out, I refused to return, and only would return after a few hours had passed to try one more time. With this video I’m glad Brett broke me because we wouldn’t have gotten 20% of the footage we did, especially in Chicago where you get kicked out a lot. In New York the cops don’t give a shit, you just have to worry about security. Brett only seems to want to skate those kinds of spots, the spots where you KNOW you’re going to have a problem. They’re spots you don’t get to see much footage from for a reason. He just wants to skate places that are notorious busts, no-one wants to go there because they know what a nightmare it is, but that motivates him even more. If he wants a clip he’s going to get it, and I think his part is really strong as a result of that, I’m stoked on how it turned out.
Jordan Trahan – New Orleans (2023)
The first time I asked Jordan to be in the video he came up to New York, and I think we filmed three or four things together here. Then my first trip down to New Orleans to film with him was literally the week Covid popped off in the US. We had an art show for Steve Brandi the day before I flew down, it was packed, and early the next day I started feeling kind of weird. Of course being a hypochondriac, I was freaking out wondering if I had Covid. Even though, at that point, nobody I knew had caught it yet. It was March 2020, and the media was making it seem like if you catch it, you’re going to die. So the whole time I was in New Orleans I was terrified because I started to get sicker, and sicker. But, it was on that trip that he first showed us this bump to bar, and told us he wanted to kickflip it. The spot would look so nice on film, and knowing that Jordan has one of the best kickflips in the business, I knew it would be a rad thing to film. He knew though, that if he was going to do it, that it could destroy him and he wouldn’t be able to skate for the rest of the trip. So we ended up not going back to it on that trip. It turned out that I did have Covid, but didn’t know for sure until I got back to New York. I have had it three times now, the first time was the scariest because of the unknown element. I was two weeks in, and the last few days were becoming harder to breathe. I was scared to go to the hospital because they were being presented like war zones, but I resigned myself to accepting that if it got any worse I would go. Thankfully the next day I started to get better, it was scary though being the first person I knew to have it.
Anyway, being from Florida, which is fairly close to New Orleans, I knew it as being notoriously a spot desert. Skaters in the South always knew it to be a waste of time traveling there because it only has like two spots. When I was doing that first trip, and the ones following, I would invite other guys from the video to join me, like I remember inviting Paul Shier to come on one trip and he was like “oh mate, there’s no spots there, invite me when you go to a city that actually has spots”, hahaha. After that first trip though, I was really impressed by what I saw. I thought it would be so sick to film all of Jordan’s part down there, and make that the theme. So I ended up going down there a bunch. Jake Todd, who helped film for the video a lot, came down with me once or twice too. Every time Jake or I visited, Jordan would take us by to look at that bump to bar spot, or talk about it. Jordan would want to get that trick every trip, but knew it was going to take him out of the game for a couple of days so we never ended up doing it.
This year I knew I needed to finish filming for the video by June, that was the deadline. I offered to go down to New Orleans one last time so he could get the kickflip and he agreed. Then the first day I flew in he surprised me that he wanted to go and do it straight away, to get it out of the way. It was super hot, it was 96º, and 96º there Is more like 110º, it’s not the same as in New York. There was no shade, and it was in direct sunlight. He battled it for about two hours, but realistically he probably only tried it about twenty-five times. On each try it was so hot that he then needed to go and sit in the shade for five minutes. Throughout the 2 years of going down there, I decided I wanted to shoot it on slow-mo 16mm. I wanted that 16mm to be super slow-motion and have it end off his part and flow into the credits. I had the whole song edited already. I knew he would land on the last bass-line of the song, and that would flow into the book closing in front of the Mississippi River. It was literally the last piece I needed. As he tried it that day I had probably burned through two rolls of film. He was dying in the heat, and told me that he could only try it maybe once or twice more. At this point I was down to the end of the roll. I was filming with my 16mm camera on a tripod on the ground, and my VX-1000 was in my other hand zooming. So I was filming with both cameras at the same time.
“At this point I was down to the end of the roll. I was sat with my 16mm on a tripod on the ground, and my VX-1000 was in my other hand zooming”
Thank god this other filmer showed up to help, he was filming it from the profile side which is the ideal angle for VX. Then on that last try, when he was JUST about to give up, he landed it. Not only did he land it, he landed the shit out of it with the exact style you would imagine in your dreams. It was right at the end of the roll, it was his last try, and it was like a storybook moment. It was so perfect, the last trick of the video. But thank god that other filmer was there and got an amazing angle on it, because when I got home, all of my 16mm footage from that trip was ruined. There was a light leak in my camera that had never been there before, it appeared out of nowhere. And it rendered that entire roll unusable. That same thing happened significantly during the filming for Static II when Kenny Reed did the ollie in front of the pyramids. It’s crazy, I could show you the 16mm footage, every try leading up the one he made is clean and appears perfectly. Then for the one he made, it immediately goes to a super grainy light pulse which obscures everything, only on the one he made. The lab didn’t understand it, it seemed like there was some goo on the film, it just didn’t make any sense. I have this weird curse with Static videos, a curse that’s just bad enough to make you really appreciate when it all works out. I have had so many stories like that throughout making the video.
Oh man, not to go on and on about this, but how could I forget about how the curse manifested with Static V!!… I was filming Jahmal Williams one night and my camera was doing some weird stuff that made me nervous. Daniel Wheatley was with me, and I asked him if his camera was reliable. He told me that he had never had a problem with his camera, and let me use it. Jahmal did his trick surprisingly fast, and got out away without one single slam. He grinded this weird rainbow rail that no-one had ever skated, and it was such a strong clip for his part. Then as I started capturing the clip once I got home, my heart sank… every try looked amazing and then literally JUST the one try where he makes it the camera went bananas and it seriously looked like the movie Tron! You couldn’t even see Jahmal, it was just these weird red & green lines, and grainy black space. It made no sense, it was ONLY the try he landed it and then every trick after it was fine. When I gave the camera back to Daniel Wheatley he said it never glitched since, and he’d never had that problem with that camera. Imagine when I had to break that news to Jahmal! Then for three years after that, I would occasionally ask Jahmal to go back to refilm it and he was NOT feeling it. He realised he got away with murder not taking a slam on it. Then the last couple of months before we finished that video I asked one last time and he finally agreed to go back and we got it, but he got broke off, and took a bunch of slams trying to re-do it. I think maybe somehow my intense anxiety when I’m filming affects technology and causes my camera to act a fool.
“I have this weird curse with Static videos, a curse that’s just bad enough to make you really appreciate when it all works out”
The 16mm footage of Jordan trahan’s kickflip wasn’t meant to be but Tim Black’s photo was
When I was filming Jordan do that kickflip there had been no problems with the footage from that camera leading up to it. I couldn’t figure out where that light leak came from. I had used gaffer tape, and taped every edge and seam, anywhere light could get in beforehand because I knew how important that trick of Jordan was. But it still got fucked, but thank god that other filmer, Tristan Laeseigne, showed up because his angle was the exact right angle for that trick. And he was filming VX but using a digital recorder so it wasn’t relying on the shoddy VX tape mechanism. I was shooting 16mm and VX at the same time like a cowboy with his two guns. My clip isn’t filmed badly it’s just that I was prioritising the 16mm angle which would have looked so good. Tristan being there was such a saving grace because there’s no way Jordan would have wanted to go back and do that again. That’s the thing about film though, like with that whole Kenny Reed thing, you don’t know until you get home, drop off the film, and then wait an entire week to get it back from the lab. There is a drum roll of anticipation when you’re about to watch something that is so key to the video. Imagine flying to Cairo, getting this epic thing, and then flying back home and waiting another week for the lab to process the film and send it back to you. When it all works out it’s amazing though, it’s so rewarding… but these unfortunate experiences have made me appreciate it all so much more.
Thanks to Josh for taking the time out to speak to us, it was great to catch up and hear more about the video. We recommend you watch it at your earliest convenience if you haven’t already. Visit this Static VI Download Link and watch today, you can also find other titles in the Static Series. You can watch the John Baragwanath part over at Quartersnacks, and Brett Weinstein’s part over at Free Skate Mag.
Previous Backstory Articles: Nick Jensen & Mike Arnold, Neil Smith, Conor Charleson.