Big video feeling | Simply Ranked
New Balance Numeric's "Intervals," José Vadi on Tiago and The Supremes, Ian Browning on who chipped in for Westgate's tow-in, Simple Magic’s pound-for-pound #1 four-eyes Fall 2024 update, and more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other things online that I cannot stop consuming and how it makes me feel, personally.
Big video feeling
Rank: 1
Mood: 🟥🟩🟦
A fully fleshed-out promotional campaign for a skateboarding video doesn't happen too often these days, but when it does, and it's done well, it's a nice reminder that even within our constant content deluge, the oft-elusive quality known as "hype" can be built — and enjoyed.
One month after the trailer for New Balance Numeric's latest video was uploaded to YouTube and Instagram, and in the intervening wake of weeks' worth of globe-spanning premieres, promo spots, and speculation, Intervals went live online for a salivating general viewing populace last Friday.
With just three stars on the bill in Brandon Westgate, Tiago Lemos, and Jamie Foy, Intervals still clocks in at nearly 25 minutes in length with little in the way of wasted space. It is deserving of that quality promotion, even if its hype cycle wasn't as long or all-consuming as generations past when we were aware of and waited for titles like Yeah Right! for what felt like eons in advance.
What those cycles look like now is just different, for better and worse, due to the state of the skateboarding media industry and how that media currently functions. Instead of months and months (or years) of build-up through various ads, articles, and interviews across different magazines and ur-blogs, we get marketing-adjacent mini-docs like Foy's "Out There" episode for Thrasher that came out last Wednesday. A video's cast and filmmakers will get discussed or guest on podcasts. Sponsored athletes will share what appear to be contractually obligated posts in promotion of projects they're not involved in. Productivity itself is now promotion, as both Foy and Tiago have released multiple video parts previous to Intervals in 2024. Those sections serve as a setup for the main event, leading audiences to assume that what's to come will not just be their best but their final argument for why they should win the much coveted Skater of the Year award.
The majority of those things are great, entertaining, and occasionally enlightening additions to the promotional canon; they just feel more fleeting.
That all said, magazines still exist, of course. SOTY is a product of Thrasher, the last remaining major monthly print publication, and they do their job well. As such, Foy still got the interview treatment in The Bible, nabbing the cover of the December 2024 issue and an interview within. Westgate was in there, too. As was Lemos in the January edition in addition to his cover of the November issue. To squeeze all of that into just a quarter of the calendar year is an incredible lift for one magazine and is, overall, great and important as print fights on, but Thrasher's digital arm does most of the heavy lifting now. It serves as one of the primary conduits from brands to our screens. Intervals itself was uploaded to Thrasher's YouTube. A "Thrasher Weekend" episode from July with the New Balance team would tease some of the bigger moments from the film in a sort of pre-promotion promotion.
Print still has power; it just struggles to keep up with the pace of consumption we've set for ourselves and an audience who would increasingly rather look at their phones. To that end, it's surprising, impressive, and kind of scary to consider how Thrasher juggles and dominates in both print and web — and how much of the promotion of professional skateboarding as a whole relies on them. What happens if they ever fold? It's probably best to subscribe and not think about it.
Alright, now, what about the video itself? Last month, in response to the Intervals trailer, I shared some worries.
The trailer certainly does its job of hyping up the project, but from what we're shown, it also, I fear, veers into the realm of a late-career Ty Evans in its self-seriousness. There is the pounding, dramatic song choice, the stylized hero shots of its stars, and a few angles that capture the skateboarding as if it were a GoPro commercial.
That comparison is also apparent to the video's star. In his interview from the latest issue of Thrasher, Jamie Foy, who starred in Ty Evans' ludicrously-titled The Flat Earth, says that the filming techniques in Intervals "reminds me more of the stuff I used to do with Ty [Evans] when he was doing it. It's a little more cinematic. But it's really cool... They're gettin' a little high-tech with it."
While Intervals is a highly polished production, it thankfully doesn't veer anywhere near the lifeless spectacle of Evans' later features. As I noted then, Kyle Camarillo, the filmmaker behind the project, has a solid track record, and he adds to it here. Intervals isn't the most creatively compelling skateboarding video, but it is expertly crafted and hits all the beats. The soundtrack is decent. Foy skating to Tom Petty has certainly grown on me.
Overall, will Intervals make you — as the Simple Magic golden rule of good videos demands — feel something? Definitely. Maybe not on a deeper emotional level like In Search of The Miraculous, but there is a warmth to it. Through the use of b-roll you can gauge a genuine-seeming camaraderie between its stars and it feels good. The level of skateboarding on display is also out of this world and will make you yell at whatever screen you happen to be watching it on.
The quality of skateboarding is so high that it seems like it may have finally broken something on the social internet. Almost as soon as the Intervals went live on Thrasher, the social media accounts of various skate media outlets and personalities began uploading clips from it. Or, more accurately, spoilers. Skate videos immediately getting cannibalized into highlight-sized online morsels has been an issue for years. While this could accurately be described as promotion, you could also, for some, dub it engagement farming — one of the ways the media ecosystem has evolved, in my view, negatively. However, this time with Intervals, at least in my own bubble, there appeared to be genuine and widespread displays of frustration about the practice, and rightfully so.
If I had that spectacular Westgate ollie spoiled by an errant Instagram Story, I'd be pissed too. Just wait a few days; we're begging you. But, if anything, that frustration is a good sign for New Balance and Camarillo.
That's how you know you've made not just a good video but a big video — when people are upset at not seeing it of their own volition. When it only features three skaters and is still one of the most anticipated of the year. When two of its stars are in contention to be anointed the year's best at what they do. When it inspires a whole organic media cycle of its own — like what this very newsletter is a part of — and when it's one that a person can easily imagine themself watching over again.
Tiago skates to The Supremes
A special correspondence by José Vadi
Just as we take for granted Tiago Lemos footage in 2024 A.D., so too do we have assumptions about how his skateboarding should be soundtracked.
Sonically we expect Lemos to skate to hip-hop much like we expect Geoff Rowley to be draped in the jukebox stench of Motörhead or for a Toy Machine edit to include Dischord Records’ bands.
Maybe we’re dull to the equation of boom bap rap plus Lemos because it’s expected at this point. The pro skater with the best looking baggy pants and the categorically phatest pro model shoes since the D3.
Blame the over-saturated skate media landscape and the legal handcuffs of licensing music in our digital age. Or how unbelievable Lemos’ footage has hit audiences for years and our inability to soundtrack or even describe its glory. A skater whose skills are paramount over everyone in the game, we expect to see him skate to the likes of Ghostface Killah or, in a recent Spitfire edit, Gang Starr.
From his style to the backward hats to even the spots themselves, there’s something about Lemos that reminds me of a hip-hop and skateboarding of yesterday accelerated into the present tense. The space of Tony Starks’ askew cadences across a head nodder beat allows for Lemos’ lines to take shape, showing how fast he attacks double sets with switch pop shove its or the poise of that nollie crooks executed on the massive Alameda county courthouse out ledge.
Yet despite the hand-in-glove relationship of Wu beats to “fresh” skating, Intervals shows that something slower like The Supremes can lull us into further admiring the dream-turned-reality of Lemos’ skill set — his pop, his ability to skate switch, to do flip tricks out of switch backside noseblunt slides — through their song “Remove this Doubt” authored by the legendary Motown songwriting trio, Holland-Dozier-Holland.
The slow dance that is Lemos in Slow-mo is evoked as we watch him destroy every ledge known to skate-kind while Diana Ross demands a lover to decide what their relationship status is, for her love to be honoured by someone who can’t reciprocate. It’s a pained crooning, worshiping and longing for the spiritual sanctimony of love incarnate.
Many of us who pray at the church of Lemos are proselytizing for his SOTY recognition for many reasons, his latest effort in Intervals case in point; you have to appreciate the ability to frame a skater this bombastic and with this much willingness to continue to push a style that doesn’t involve 20 stairs, a subway stop, nor a motorized contraption towing him in, but solely through the weight of his pop.
Lemos’ skills are so singular as to not beget a generation of Lemos dopplegangers. Which isn’t to discredit others' styles on different objects, but more so to appreciate the devotion to ledge skating Lemos has demonstrated for years, his obstacle of choice often public enemy number one in city council meetings.
Ledges aren’t just taken out; entire plazas are destroyed. Whole civic third spaces pulled out of the heart of a city, spaces no longer available to anyone. To be a ledge skater in 2024 is in some capacity to stand as close to skateboarding roots as airing out of a pool on a Logan. It is to evoke a love against the development odds of the Modern City™️.
At their best paired, soul songs in skate videos can turn into bangers because they unearth and articulate the most foundational of feelings, like love and the desire, like Ross’, to confirm its embrace. What better way to soundtrack the hammers in the second half of a career-defining part by the most inimitable skater of his generation.
José Vadi is the author of Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder’s Lens.
Who chipped in for the tow-in?
A special report by Ian Browning
Spend enough time practicing the dark art of advertising, and you may eventually end up in the surreal position of watching a commercial come to life. I once worked on a spot that featured a few people riding bikes, and when we wrapped, they just gave the bikes away. I’m sure they weren’t dentist bikes, but at the same time, somebody spent close to a grand on ‘em, all-in. A cursory glance at VX1000 markets shows that for the price of all those bikes — such an insignificant expense on the shoot that the production company just buys, uses, and recycles them — you could get a functioning camera and a few dozen new Mini DV tapes, or a used HPX170. It’s a wild world.
I got a little sense that the same sort of thing might be in play during the second angle of Brandon Westgate’s ender in Intervals: What’s going on with this motorcycle tow in? It’s not inconceivable to imagine revving a dirt bike around a cranberry bog, but there’s not a fleck of dirt on the fenders in the clip. Could New Balance, a corporation bankrolling the video with a (presumably) gargantuan advertising budget, have conceivably bought the bike? Was this frontside flip movie magic?
To get to the bottom of it, I called New Balance staff filmer Tim Savage. It turns out that Westgate took things into his own hands after finding the spot, which is close to a handful of other spots in East Boston but hadn’t been touched for obvious reasons. “Brandon and I were over there looking at something else, and he spotted it,” he said. “It’s a good bump with a good run-up.”
“We went earlier in the year and Bondo’d all the individual bricks, and he couldn’t get it that day,” Savage continued. “We had a dirtbike and towed him in, and then 20 minutes in, the bike started overheating. So that was a dud. Right after that, the other homie came and he had a mini bike. We tried to use that, but it wasn’t enough power. It just got away that day. Six months later, [the team was] on a trip in Boston. Brandon knew they were coming and bought the bike himself.”
The investment paid off. Westgate rolled away in under 90 minutes with another one of New Balance’s SOTY candidates on the assist. “Jamie [Foy] knows how to ride a dirtbike, and what cooler way to do it than to have him tow [Westgate] in? So Jamie towed him in, and he got it,” Savage said. “I don’t know if he was looking at Brandon, but he took the corner and ate shit.” Foy put the bike down but got away unscathed and went on stacking clips right up until deadline.
No harm, no foul. Plus, as Savage noted, there are always more spots that require a tow. On to the next.
Ian Browning is a writer living in New York City.
An interval from "Intervals"
Rank: 1
Mood: 💆
Simple Magic’s pound-for-pound #1 four-eyes: Fall 2024 update
Rank: 4
Mood: 👓🏆
Sometimes it's hard to see how fast time goes by. Sometimes it's hard to see in general. At that intersection sits the long-delayed Fall 2024 update of Simple Magic's prestigious and unassailable list of skateboarding's pound-for-pound #1 four-eyes (shoutout to 'sletter friend and fellow four-eyes, Jesse Birch, for reminding me to do this). When we last checked in in February of 2023, Diego Todd had retained his #1 ranking on the strength of his section in VANS VIDEO By Fletch. Has Todd held onto the Golden Spectacles? Who's moved up or down? Are there new contenders on the scene? Let's find out.
Todd in Fucking Awesome's Eat, Pray, Slam and Thrasher Weekend: Vans in Austin
- Diego Todd: By god, Todd has done it again. It hasn't been the most productive year for the Hockey Skateboards professional — at least from what we've seen in terms of media output — but he still managed to give us two of the more memorable clips in recent weeks when he struggled to land two versions of a tailslide kickflip in two different water-hazard ditch spots. He got wet, his glasses flew off, and yet he continued. That's what being bespectacled is all about. For his tenacity, he gets the gold.
- Una Farrar [👆2 ]: It's been a big year for Farrar. She's had a Vans x Dime shoe and tightrope walked across an active volcano, got her pal Breana Geering on Krooked (as a guest), and has been travelling the world filming for the upcoming Dime video and an Antisocial project to boot. If I remember to do the rankings in 2025, don't be surprised if Farrar is the one to finally dethrone Todd.
- Marisa Dal Santo [👇1]: We all know the score. Dal Santo is one of the best to ever do it. Not just while wearing glasses, but also while wearing glasses. Some consider her career, or more accurately, lack of career support, a glaring "what if," but thankfully for us, she is still out there doing the damn thing and it will be next to impossible to get her off of this list.
- Jeffrey Cheung [previously unranked]: The There Skateboards and Unity mastermind has quietly put together a serious slate of footage in 2024. From his section in There's excellent full-length Soft last week to his shocking bluntslide-270-flip-out ender in the There x Nike SB promo in July, he's been going to work. However, Cheung is a bit of a controversial addition to the rankings, especially this high up, as he appears to skate mostly in contact lenses. For this, though, we'll let it slide:
- Lindsey Robertson [-]: Do I really need to say anything about one of skateboarding's premier four-eyes? Yes? How about full-Cab-stalefish.
- Jahmir Brown [👇3]: Brown may have dropped a few spots, but he retains his place as the skateboarder who looks the best in a pair of frames.
- That European Guy [previously unranked]: You know the one. With the shaved head? Goofy footed. Kind of goth? Super tech. I cannot remember his name or his sponsors for the life of me, but you can see him in your mind's eye too, right? Man, he's good as hell.
- Gifted Hater [👆2 ]: While his gradual ascension is thanks to more unconventional means — a satisfyingly one-sided flogging (vlogging?) of odious interloper Tim Pool and, what I believe to be, a thorough debunking of Garrett Hill's coffee slam viral video — Hater is also out there, as we like to say, shredding.
- Vince Palmer [previously unranked]: Not only does Palmer look to be a generational, glasses-wearing talent, but he's also a complete mophead. Rocking grom hair while being that good at skateboarding is a statement and I respect it.
- Chris Pastras [previously unranked]: Pastras might seem like a left-field addition to the list, but I watched his Tincan Folklore part for the first time in many years the other day and it is a great time. He does this little boneless-to-heelblock that I think is really cool. Cool enough to land him in tenth and round out our rankings. Our beautiful, perfect rankings.
Something to consider: Kai Cheng Thom in response to this week's Giller Prize gala and the winner's use of their craft to obfuscate and avoid the truth about what that boycott is about.
Kai Cheng Thom
Good thing: Boil The Ocean's annual SOTY contender list.
Another good thing: My favourite skater talking to my favourite skater.
Banksandledges
A pack-your-bags thing: Ryan Lay announced the 2025 edition of Slow Impact yesterday. February 20-23, Tempe, Arizona. See you there. (You should really come, it's great.)
A good thing about "cozy" things:
Kyle Chayka
A good thing about a bad thing:
Sabrina Imbler
Until next week… if your allergies happen to flare up and between all of the sneezing, watering eyes, and congestion, it becomes too difficult to focus on your work, which is perhaps typing on a computer, that's okay. You can just sto
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
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My new collection of essays is available now. I think you might like it. The Edmonton Journal thinks it's a "local book set to make a mark in 2024." The CBC called it "quirky yet insightful." lol.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
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I wrote a book about the history and cultural impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you can find at your local bookshop or order online now. I think you might like this one, too.
Here’s what Michael Christie, Giller Prize-nominated author of the novels Greenwood and If I Fall, If I Die, had to say about the thing.
“With incisive and heartfelt writing, Cole Nowicki unlocks the source code of the massively influential cultural phenomenon that is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and finds wonderful Easter-eggs of meaning within. Even non-skaters will be wowed by this examination of youth, community, risk, and authenticity and gain a new appreciation of skateboarding’s massive influence upon our larger culture. This is my new favorite book about skateboarding, which isn’t really about skateboarding — it’s about everything.”
Photo via The Palomino.
