Kyle Camarillo is a filmmaker and photographer from the Bay Area, California, who is the head of video at New Balance Numeric.

Growing up skating SF spots like Pier 7, 3rd and Army, Hubba Hideout, and regularly shredding alongside Karl Watson and seeing Mike York roll about occasionally, he learned early on how to navigate sessions with top skaters.

But it’s no lucky coincidence that Kyle got a quick handle on that and filming banging clips and shooting sick photos of skateboarders so easily; he’s got great timing, a quality you need to be a solid filmer. However, alongside that, he puts a lot of attention and focus into every detail of the process, from the camera he decides to shoot on, the lenses he chooses, the angle he shoots from; every decision is considered. It shows in his work, in the magnitude of the epic videos he’s produced and with the huge brands he continues to work with.

In casual sessions and high-pressure situations, Kyle is on point, delivers the good and gets great shots and creates the atmosphere to make all of that happen.

So knowing he has tonnes of experience and stories from documenting decades of dope skating from behind his lens, we had to hit him up to find out what it was like from his perspective, what he’s focusing on now and after we connected we were stoked he was down to join The No Comply Network.

We chatted about him growing up skating SF and San Jose, the legendary skaters he met and spots he skated along the way, getting his first job in skateboarding, Justin Strubing, Skateworks, filming and photography, Tiltmode and Enjoi, filming for Man Down, Jerry Hsu and Bag of Suck, filming Jerry’s Nollie Backside Heelflip Ender, Marc Johnson, Ben Raemers, The Gonz, Ray Barbee, LRG, working for New Balance Numeric, Tiago Lemos, Brandon Westgate, Jamie Foy, Intervals, Andrew Reynolds, Tyler Surrey, Jordan Trahan, Tom Knox, Franky Villani, Charlie Birch, Running Numbers, plus his favourite skate videos, skaters, style filmmakers, photographers, styles, spots, and more.

Kyle: Shot for New Balance Numeric

What’s your full name?

Kyle James Camarillo. James is my dad’s name.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in the Bay Area, lived down in the LA area shortly after for a couple of years, and then I moved back to the Bay Area in 6th grade, and that’s when I found skateboarding.

I liked how you fast-forwarded straight to skateboarding. I love that. How did you discover skateboarding?

I had a Nash cruiser when I was little, and we would just sit on it, cruise around on your butt and push a little bit, but just little kid stuff before that. But when I moved back to the Bay Area, my neighbour was into skateboarding, and I was like, whoa, what’s this world about!?

I didn’t even think he could do too many tricks, but he definitely had the look. He had, not the crazy baggy pants, but he had baggy pants for any of us kids, a Shorty’s deck, and magazines. He had Thrasher’s and Transworld, and it was like, whoa, so you’re just starting to go through all that stuff.

I was really into punk music at that time, and all the skate videos had a lot of music like that. I think that was just the funnel; music, skateboarding, and I got pushed into this one direction, and it was like, oh, that’s where I’m going.

Tiago and Kyle: Shot for New Balance Numeric

I understand what you mean when you’re being introduced to all of these influences, and especially skate magazines. So, was it the late ’90s when you started skateboarding?

It was the Mid-’90s. I’m 42 now. I think it was ’94, ’95. Yeah.

So you got on board in that era that was peak fresh hip-hop and on the hesh side Nirvana and Souls of Mischief. There’s all these classics.

Dude, you hit it right on the head. 6th grade was Nirvana, Souls of Mischief, Pharcyde, and then into more punk like NOFX and that kind of skate punk stuff. Yeah, that was the direction.

Yeah, definitely. Were you regularly skating Pier 7, 3rd and Army or any of those other iconic SF ’90s spots?

When we started, it was very local-based. Just us in our little town, there wasn’t really anybody.

We ended up meeting two guys that became my best friends, Dan and Rob. They were even more into it and took it to another level of obsession with skateboarding and music as well. They were super into music, we had the same kind of vibe, and so we were pretty local for a long time.

But the raddest stuff we did was take the train to San Francisco and go to Pier 7. We were like, we have to get there! That was the location.

So, yeah, I would go to Pier 7 occasionally if I could figure out a way to jump on the train and get there, and see Karl Watson, Mike York, Henry Sanchez; you show up, and those dudes are there. You’re like, oh my God, people are filming, and this really happens here!

Coming from the only skaters you saw were the five kids to the actual world of skateboarding, you’re like, wow, this is crazy. So it was amazing, man. It was amazing.

That’s so sick, growing up where you did, quickly bridged that gap between you and these massive names and places in skateboarding

You’re so spoiled being in California. The world was so small to me at this time. I didn’t know anything. But the fact that you can go to San Francisco and you could go to those spots and they’re right there was sick.

That’s still apparent to this day and obviously even bigger now because there are so many parks and so many plazas and places where people are skating and filming, and skating is just so accessible now.

But at that time, there were a few places like EMB. I just missed the EMB train; EMB had just finished when I was getting around there. Hubba Hideout was still going. We would go over to Hubba and see if anyone was skating it, trying all the stairs. It was crazy. Yeah, it’s crazy that it was all that accessible. Oh, I can go to Pier 7. I can just go to Hubba Hideout; many people didn’t have an opportunity like that, you know. I’m very lucky.

One of the early times going to Pier 7, we were really cautious about everything because these dudes were filming and we’re little skate rats. So we’re trying to stay out of people’s way. I saw this dude wax a ledge, and I think Mike York tripped out on him, yelling at him; he gave him some shit for waxing.

Right

So we were like okay, just follow the rules, you know what I mean? So we did. We kept a backseat to the whole thing. But one time I was trying to manual the pad from the low end to the higher end. So I’m going down, I’m trying to do a manual, and then right as I reached the edge, someone was coming to skate the ledge, and we collide, and it’s this big dude. That’s all I could see because it just hit me, and I was like, oh my God, this dude’s gonna kill me because we collided! So it’s probably my fault, you know what I mean?

I’ve seen these dudes yell at others, and I know stories, and I’m scared. I’m like, oh my God, this guy’s gonna kill me. So I turn over, I get off the ground, and I look up, and it’s Karl Watson. He’s like, you okay, brother? It’s all good. Just the happiest; he made it all good. The one dude that was the best you could run into. Honestly, God, so lucky.

It’s so funny now. I’m so lucky to have a solid working relationship with Karl, and working for LRG, we’ve become good friends over the years. He’s such an incredible person, and I love his outlook on life. I think he’s so funny. Everything he does is hilarious. He’s a one-of-a-kind man and honestly, easily one of my favourite skateboarders to this day.

That’s rad, it’s cool how you met and how things progressed.

Karl is one of a kind. There’s this energy Karl has, Ray Barbee has, and that you’re drawn towards. They just emit positivity, energy, and coolness. They’re just so cool/p>

Ray Barbee: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

For sure. When did you first see Ray Barbee’s skating?

We had a copy of Public Domain throughout our little crew, and we would watch Ray’s part and be like, this dude is the coolest dude. Then watching him on The Firm and all the 411 stuff he had, he was always so rad, man. His Frontside 360s, all the step-hop stuff.

But then Karl’s creativity and smoothness and unique style. Nobody skates like Karl Watson. There’s not another one that looks like Karl, and I’ve always said this to Karl because even in the later years of his career, he was still trying to push NBDs.

He kept saying, I have to do something that no one’s ever done before, and I was like, that’s great. But he did, and it was just harder. You’re getting older, and it’s harder to be able to have that within an easy reach, and I would just always tell him, Karl, people just want to see you push.

Karl Watson, Framed Push: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

People just want to see you Switch Flip. You don’t have to do anything more than just skate because you’re a unicorn. There’s not another Karl. So you could honestly do a Switch Flip and a Switch Nose Manual and people would be like, yep, that’s my guy.

The way he did it was dope and nobody even thought of it before, you know?

Karl’s impact is insane, man. The Front Nose Pretzel Out at Hubba Hideout. I don’t know if we’ll ever stop talking about that, you know?

Then even to top it off, to land and sit on the bench and be smiling, it’s just, there’s so much beauty in that clip. It’s forever locked in my head.

I think that he’s cherished in certain ways, but I think that he’s also under-appreciated for how much unique, inspiring skateboarding he unlocked for people.

I think there’s even more; I think his Front Nose Pretzel is obviously a big one. But man, so many other of those flat bar combinations, or even something simple like Switch Frontside Boardslide on a ledge, just, people weren’t really doing something like that in a line. There’s something about what he chose to do and the way he did it that is just, yeah, completely unique.

So, back to your experiences of the Bay Area and filming, it’s interesting to hear that story because Karl is such a cool guy. That’s a great thing to happen, but there’s somebody else you could have skated in to that could have changed your experience in skating so early on, do you know what I mean?

Oh, totally. Yeah, someone would have focused my board easily. Yeah, that’s like the littlest thing that could have happened.

I got schooled pretty quickly in that style of the community; it was very pecking order. You’re sitting down, you’re watching, and I was fine with that. We would go to one skatepark that was local called Greer Park. It was in Palo Alto.

We would go there, and it would be Phil Shao, Tim Brauch, Chris Senn, Tim McKinney, Pete the Ox, all these gnarly dudes; those dudes were actually super nice.

But there were other dudes that would definitely shoulder-check you, get up, knock your board over. You learned quickly this is how it works, and you got to sit and wait your turn and don’t put your board on the coping and all that stuff. You learned harshly compared to now; you’d probably be, hey man, don’t put your board there while other people are skating. But back in the day, they’d just kick your board off the ground.

What was the first skate magazine that you read?

Oh, it’s definitely Thrasher: September 96. This is just one that stands out to me. It’s that kid’s face – a young Jonathan Bohannon. I remember that one being in our collection. That stood out a lot because it didn’t have a skater on the cover. That’s why I remember it really well. Oh, yeah, yeah, the illustration.

I remember seeing this cover. Look at those bands on the top.

Yeah, bands I was into, and that’s great- just bold Thrasher font and then a kid that looks our age, or just a kid in general, and you’re like, sick. When I think back about old magazines that were on the couch that we all just hung out on. That was one of them that I remember distinctly. I don’t know if that was the first Thrasher I ever read; probably not. But that was definitely an early one.

Another one would be Justin Strubing’s cover of Thrasher. That stood out to me a lot too. That was February ’96. His family owned my local skate shop.

What, your local skate shop?

So Sk8works skate shop. Justin’s family owned the shop, and that place was like heaven to us, you know? That place was where we wanted to be 24/7; it was being at the shop.

Yeah, it was really relatable. You’re like, wow, that dude is on the cover of Thrasher, and there he is, and there’s his brother and his other brother, Billy, was about our age too. So, we’d skate with him at the shop and stuff, and it brought it all home. So it’s just, like, whoa, this is crazy! So yeah, I remember that as another one that was really shocking to us.

Definitely.

But at the same time, I didn’t really even know anything. I didn’t know that getting the cover of Thrasher was a crazy thing to get. It was just crazy to see that guy in a magazine, whether it was the cover or not. It was like, oh, I don’t know, it’s right here, and then, I didn’t even know Thrasher was in San Francisco for probably the first couple years of skateboarding. You only know your little world, and even San Francisco is an eternity away. So you don’t even realise how close things are to you.

So Strubing owned that skate shop?

Yeah, his family owned it. The coolest story is that Justin is one of three brothers – Jason, Justin, and Billy. Jason and Justin were the older ones, and they were super into skating. I think they literally asked their parents to open a skate shop, and they said, okay, and they opened a skate shop, a family business, like, hey, cool, you’re gonna work here, and we’re gonna run it.

The skate shop was so important then, and I hope it still is to some places and to those shops that hold it down like this, because we have obviously an invasion of a lot of mall shops and a lot of shops that have no connection to what we do, man. Yeah. But at that time, it was such the beating heart of the community, and every start of my career was from the shop!

The more people I met who were getting flow or getting sponsored or meeting Justin and my other friend Justin Williams, who worked at the shop for a little bit and then became the Venture team manager and was a really good skateboarder. He rode for Think, and then meeting more people through that, and then the waterfall of continually meeting people through people was so fast and consistent via the shop. That’s my jump-off for everything.

At 15, I got a job there, and that was my first real job, 24/7 skateboarding, being surrounded by it, meeting new people, having people come in, pros gripping boards or whatever. You’re meeting all these people. It was insane.

They also did incredible parking lot demos, and they had a bunch of ramps in the back. They would pull them all out and paint them up for whatever team or style the demo was going to be. We had Tum Yeto come through. Toy Machine, Foundation, Zero, and friends- it was crazy. Consolidated Skateboards was really connected.

There was so much from this shop that fed me everything I wanted and probably more. I can’t say enough good things about the shop, and the idea of skate shops and the community they can hold is forever an incredible thing.

At what point did you start thinking I need to get a camera to start documenting this for the shop?

I was already filming. I started filming really early, probably the second we started skating. I borrowed my dad’s Hi8 camera, and it was hand in hand, but I wasn’t the filmer. We all filmed each other.

My dad had the camera, so I was like, yeah, cool. Then I filmed my friend, and then he filmed me, or he’d film another guy, and the other guy would film me. We were being kids, having fun, filming each other and whatever.

Then my buddy Jake Palu, who rode for Consolidated, needed to film more, and I was there, trying to do it, so I was just the guy that had the camera, to be honest. It wasn’t much more than that. But then it was fun, and it was like, oh, this is really cool, and it’s gonna be in the video, and that was exciting. So I started making videos of my local friends.

We made a homie video, which was a lot to do at that time, not just to film it, but also the dauntingness of editing when editing was still so archaic and difficult to do. But we ended up scrounging it together, and I really enjoyed it. I did a little premiere at Skateworks, and it was 20 people, literally the people in the video, and we were so stoked.

That led me to wanting to get a better camera, saving up for that, and then Skateworks going, oh, you obviously can do this to an extent. We’ve seen you made a video, even though it was just your homies and whatever. But why don’t you start filming because we want to do another video? So I was like, okay.

So then I switched roles from being behind the counter at the shop to working at the shop two days a week, and then every other day just filming. That opened the entire Rolodex of homies from the shop, and it was everyone in that area from Santa Cruz all the way to San Francisco. Everyone was connected to the Strubing family, to Skateworks. Everyone was like, oh yeah, I want to get a trick in that. Or they’d be like, hey, here’s Pete the Ox’s number, go call him and figure it out, and I’d be like, alright, here I go!

Skateworks by Kyle

Jumping on some gnarly pool session, and I’m just this little dude, and everyone was super cool and down for it. So it worked out, man. I don’t know how, but it worked out.

That’s like anything in skateboarding

Yeah, man, it’s just skating. You’re just trying to land it and oh, it worked.

Definitely, to keep the analogy going, you had a good setup, man.

No, I was lucky, man. I can’t say enough about how lucky I am to have the people that I had around me that were down for me, that were down for this skinny dorky kid to hang out with them or film them and trust, you know. It’s crazy.

What was the first skate video you had on rotation?

Honestly, the first video I bought for myself, my grandma took me to the skate shop. I bought it. She bought me a complete and a shirt for my birthday and a video.

The video was the first Skateworks video. It was called Portable Flat Bar. It’s incredible. Everyone you want to be in it is in it. It’s so sick, and it’s a local shop video, but insane, and it was made by Mark Whiteley, who went on to be the editor of Slap Magazine and an incredible photographer, writer, and video maker in his early days. But yeah, my first video was the Skateworks video, Portable Flat Bar, and the skating was way beyond our ability!

But it was, like, oh, that’s this city. Oh, that’s over there, and everything was local, and it was inspiring, and my video camera didn’t look different than that video camera, okay, cool. Our videos look like this, maybe not in terms of the filming quality, but the footage itself. It was probably all filmed on a Hi8. That’s what I had. It looked really similar. So it was cool; we’re doing the same thing. We’re there. So that was really inspiring to me.

That’s dope, so did you go from Hi8 to VX? How did you afford it at the time? That would be quite pricey?

I saved up my money, and then the craziest thing is I was driving; my girlfriend’s parents were driving me home from their house one after-school day or something. It was dark out.

So they were driving me, and I was in the back seat, and I was looking out the window, and I thought I saw something like paper, like what I thought was money on the ground. I was like, ah! I think I saw some money on the ground back there, and her dad was driving. He was like really?

I said, I don’t know. I don’t want you to have to turn around, but I’m pretty sure it was money. He said, ” Oh, okay, and so he turned around, went back, and pulled over. I jumped out, and I looked on the ground. There’s $700!

 I scooped it up, jumped back in the car, and I was like, yeah, it was money. They’re like, really? How much? I was like, it’s $700. They’re like, wow, that’s great, and drove off. Didn’t even, okay, hold on. You won, you won, and I was like, oh my God, and yeah, thank God for whoever dropped that cash, however that happened. But that was huge for me. That made the camera obtainable, you know what I mean?

We were driving through a really rich neighbourhood; the street is super rich, it was a gated community, it was in front of someone’s house. I don’t know, maybe something happened, but when I saw it I was like, dude, that’s money, that’s a lot of money. It was obvious money. I was like, what!? So thanks whoever hooked me up there.

So when you got that VX, then you were basically on the forefront of filming technology in the early 00s?

Yeah, I think I got a TRV-900 first, and then I got a VX. I can’t remember the order of everything, but yeah. I was changing cameras a couple times. I think one broke. I don’t remember.

I had a camera that was advanced by that point, and videos had advanced, and you’d see, especially in Transworld, you’d see it the most; you’d see people in the sides of the photos holding a VX.

So it was just, oh, okay, that’s the one. I was super into seeing the filmers in those photos and seeing how they were, how they were sitting or how they were pointing the camera. I would study those photos that were in Transworld a lot. Just because you never- you didn’t really; you could see the video, but you didn’t really see the guy doing it until those photos. So that was, that was big.

Do you remember the first thing you went out and filmed?

It was probably one of my friends, my friend James Beavis or Andrew Pearl. I was probably with one of those guys, just excited. Let’s go film this. Maybe with Jake Palu as well, or my friend James Beavis; he’s from the UK as well.

Also, quick sidebar to that: when he moved to our town, he brought Waiting for the World, and we had no knowledge of this. We were like, whoa, we were so into that video. We were so into John Rattray and Nick Jensen.

Nick Jensen, especially because he was a kid like us. So we’re lik whoa, this is the best kid; it was a whole other world of skateboarding because everything we had was US-based and mostly California. So it was so cool. We were so connected to that.

But my friend James went on to ride for Santa Cruz and Venture. My friend Andrew Pearl, who I’ve known since he was nine years old, went on to ride for Krooked and Adidas, and then my buddy Jake Palu rode for Consolidated, and he went on to ride for Think. He was in the Think video that I made. It’s crazy that my local buddies, who we gravitated toward, ended up doing stuff in skateboarding. We all did something, and it’s really bizarre that skateboarding is small like that, where anyone can be that next person. Just like these guys, it was just Jake.

All three of them were so dedicated to doing it that they made it happen, and It’s crazy that you wouldn’t think that. Like, no one’s going to high school and being like, oh yeah, me and my four buddies on the football team are all in the NFL. That doesn’t happen, only one dude goes, you know what I mean?

Ben Raemers: Backside Noseblunt, Shot by Kyle Camarillo

Was photography something that you found later on?

Yeah, it was a little later on, but I always shot photos. I learned the basics of photography, and I had a camera in 6th grade. My middle school had a photography class. It was really, really odd looking back at it. I think because they had a darkroom and half the year was something and then the other half was a photography class. It was an elective you could take. So in 6th grade, my grandfather gave me a camera, and I learned the basics and the fundamentals of photography, how it works, you know.

Then developing the film yourself and doing all that stuff was really cool. So I always had a camera, which goes hand in hand.You’re watching skate videos, you want to make skate videos, you’re looking at skateboard photography and magazines, you want to shoot stuff. I shot stuff occasionally, but that’s a whole other expense for a kid: developing film? I couldn’t really do that. So, I would mess with it here and there, just for fun, and nothing would come out good and whatever. But eventually in 2006, I went to Europe with Enjoi, and I brought my camera, like our cell phones didn’t really have good photos at that time.

Everyone had little digital cameras we would shoot with, but I brought a film camera too, and I started shooting some stuff. On one leg of the trip, we didn’t have a photographer, and Jason Adams was doing this Frontside Hurricane at that tranny spot in Paris, this transition-like sculpture type thing.

Yeah, the sundial spot.

The sundial, exactly. He was doing Frontside Hurricanes there, and I had borrowed a lens from Mark Whiteley, this really wide lens. I think it was an 18MM or maybe it was a 20MM, might have been 20. So, I had that, and I thought, oh, cool. Here’s where I want to shoot this from, and I shot a whole bunch of them doing it because it was easy for them to do it every time.

Then I got the photos back and thought, oh, this actually is cool, and I sent it. I was in contact with a lot of people by that time, and I sent it to Jaime Owens at Skateboarder because he was very easy to talk to about that stuff, and he said, dude, we could use this for the magazine. I was like, really? And ended up running it, and that sparked it all off. I thought, oh, I gotta get a digital camera, and if I get a digital camera, then I could learn flash photography because trying to learn flash without digital, the learning curve is going to take me so much longer. But now you have digital, you can adjust instantly./p>

I didn’t really think about diving into that until then. But that really sparked it off. That image got me inspired, and seeing my name in the magazine and my photo in the magazine and thinking that it’s good enough to be on those pages alongside all the other photographers I look up to was just insane to me.

So I started pursuing it more, and I was really hungry for it. I wanted to shoot photos and film everything, and I think the thing about photography that’s fun is there’s so much more you can do as opposed to maybe skateboard filming. There’s so much you can do, so much you have to think about, so many pieces to the puzzle.

But it’s also instantaneous, and it’s click, and that’s the one image, right? Then it’s done, and it’s complete. Whereas with video, you’re filming for a small project for months and months, and then you have to put it all on the computer, find music, colour it, and it’s a process of months and months to have a final product. Which is incredibly satisfying to have at the end, but it’s a lot more work.

With a photograph, you get great satisfaction from it, and it’s instant. It’s like, boom, that’s it. It’s done, and there’s not too much you can do to it, right? With video, there are a million different directions you can go. There’s almost too many options where it’s hard to pick sometimes. Even music can go a thousand different directions. So yeah, I got really drawn to photography then and just that instantaneous.

It’s complete, and there it is, and you can look at it, and I was drawn to skate videos, and that made me want to film, and I was drawn to photography from all those, from all the magazines, heavily influenced by Joe Brook, Atiba Jefferson.

Locally, Jai Tanju was another big inspiration for me, and too many to even think of. But yeah, those are the few that pop out. Daniel Harold Sturt’s photography was obviously a shocker, just like, what?

Brian Gaberman has shot so many great photos.

Skin. Yeah, I was like, wow. But I also felt you had to be really good to be able to shoot photos; I feel a lot of people could film. I think in that way, it was, at the beginning stages for me, you would hand the camera to people, you know? So it was easier for people to film than to shoot a photo. So photography was this upper echelon of skateboard media.

Your shot of The Gonz doing that effortless Ollie up a curb is one of our favourites. Was it a spur-of-the-moment thing?

Yeah, I had the privilege of assisting Brian Gaberman on an Adidas shoot in San Francisco. I was showing them spots and helping Brian, and to me, it was the greatest. I’m helping; I get to watch Brian Gaberman work and see how he creates because he’s the best.

Mark Gonzales, Ollie: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

Yeah, his work is great.

So I got to watch him and help him, and then I got to show around Mark Gonzales, and I’m trying to think who else was on that trip. I think it was the whole team; Dennis Busenitz was on the team at the time? Tim O’Connor.

Dennis Busenitz, Backside Nosegrind: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

Anyway, I got to show all these guys around and hang out with them, and it was fantastic. At that particular moment, I brought my camera along as well, even though I wasn’t hired as the photographer. I brought a camera, and we went to one spot, and then it was seven blocks down to the next spot, just a straight shot down.

I’m forgetting what street I was on. But it was a mellow downhill bomb to the next spot, and so we’re, oh, let’s go skate there.

So I think we split up as some people started going quickly and some people started lagging.

I thought, oh, I’ll go with this group to make sure everyone gets to the spot. As we were going, Gonz was right there, and I was shooting him, just being Gonz, being himself going down the hill and all the stuff he was doing and pushing.

That little one worked perfectly, and I remember looking at it and being like, oh, wow. I was really stoked on it and ended up sending it to, I think it was the Skateboard Mag, and they ran it. I was so psyched. But they put Anthony Acosta‘s name as the photographer. I was so bummed.

Funnily enough, I talked to Acosta about it. He was like, oh man, that sucks. But a funny thing did just happen. He’s like, Jerry Hsu emailed me and asked for a print, and I had to tell him, oh, I didn’t shoot it. I don’t know who did, so then I hit up Jerry because at that point I had already been working for Enjoi, and I was like, oh, Jerry, I shot that, and he was like, really? But it was such a bummer because I knew that people liked it. Especially having Jerry like it, and I don’t know if he would have told me he liked it if he knew I shot it; he might have said something else.

Nestor Judkins, Frontside Ollie: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

Right.

But like, through the vine of it being through someone else and that people really liked it was awesome, was really cool, but also a complete bummer that it didn’t have my credit for it. But at the same time, I’m stoked regardless.

I always feel, am I being cocky or being all me, me, me? But I think I even do it when it’s something that I didn’t film. I just, oh, I know that Anthony Claravall filmed that.

So I’ll message someone and say, Claravall filmed that, or Matt Eversole filmed that. I always try to, if someone didn’t get the credit or the person wasn’t sure who shot it, or whatever it may be, I always try to stay alert, make sure I can, if I can help get it in there, help get it in there because I think it’s important. But it’s so hard, man.

Even Joe Brook asked me the other day about something. He was like, oh, did you film this trick? I was like, I have no idea. You’re gonna have to ask somebody else, and we tried to go through the friend list of how we can figure it out.

But yeah, some stuff escapes me to this day, and it is nice when you get tagged in something where you’re, oh, because you haven’t thought about that thing, especially that little 50-50 No Comply step-off thing that Jerry did. I haven’t thought about that trick or seen that trick in quite some time, and for you to bring it up, I was like, oh, this is sick. So I was, yeah, cool. If you then tag Dan Wolfe, maybe it pops onto his feed, and he’s like, oh, sick, you know? I enjoy that stuff.

So, how did you get involved with the Tiltmode dudes?

Skateworks was in the middle. San Francisco was 30 minutes up and San Jose 30 minutes south. So we were right in the middle. I would go up to San Francisco a lot, but San Jose was also just as close. My friends and I were always on the hunt. We’d try to skate San Francisco, then meet someone in San Jose and say, oh cool, let’s go to San Jose.

I saw this video, or I saw this here, and we’d try to find stuff. I ended up going to skate camp, Visalia Skate Camp, as a video guy, a video intern, they called it, and I was filming all these dudes for the camp.

I met Eversole, Louie, Chris Avery, and Jerry Hsu. I can’t remember who else, but those are the ones that come to mind the most. I remember specifically connecting with Matt, and he said, oh, you’re from Menlo Park? He said, ” Oh, cool, you should come skate with us sometime, and I was like, yeah, I’m down; that’d be sick. He gave me the number to the house, saying, ” Give us a call, and let’s go skate.

We became friends, and we would call those guys and go down and skate with them. I think around maybe within the next year, I started doing the Skateworks video, and all those guys were involved with Skateworks. So they connected even more, and I spent a lot of time down there and just as much time in San Francisco. I was back and forth between the two areas, filming everybody. That’s how I met those guys, which is just crazy. I think I met Louie right around the time that his Slap cover came out. It was a Front Salad; it’s coming off a truck.

Yeah. I met him a little before that came out, and he was super cool. I just, then I was, I didn’t really realise his caliber, he was really doing it, and I was like, oh shit, You’re on the cover of Slap, that’s crazy, that was just funny. I met those guys around that time, Tiltmode was really taking off, and they were about to finish Man Down. I gave them a couple clips for that.

What clips did you film in Man Down?

I remember my buddy James Bevis boardslid some kinked rail. Then I think some other hijinks type footage. I think my buddy Byron tried to Ollie a big 6-flat-6 and just completely died, and he was like, oh, I want that.

So I think a couple little random things he took, maybe something from Skate Camp. I can’t remember, and then, right around the time of that premiere, I was pretty connected with all those guys and skating with them, man, every couple of days, at least every weekend, always rolling out.

So it was cool, meeting those guys and MJ, Caswell, all those Tiltmode guys were really awesome and started skating, filming, especially a lot.

I think it was probably around that time.

So when you were going between San Francisco and going up to San Jose, who were you filming with the most?

I might have been filming the most with Jose, actually. Yeah, I feel like he contacted me the most to go and film. But that was just in terms of Enjoi guys specifically, probably Jose.

But a lot of the Tiltmode guys. So not necessarily Enjoi, but Eversole would contact me a lot. I think Louie, Jerry, and Mark had a really strong relationship with their filmer, Chris Avery, who was their age, and so they had a long-standing relationship with him.

So when they were going to do something more serious, I was definitely in the back seat to that. But that’s totally cool, and occasionally I’d go on those missions and film a second angle, and it was really cool to see those guys do their thing. But I didn’t film with them as often as some of the other guys because I think they were at a point in their career where they were really doing it, and they had a trust and a relationship with a filmer, which, you can’t, that’s just how it was.

I think even for me, even as I got to know those guys and became friends with them, at the beginning of working for Enjoi. It was like, okay, Kyle’s gonna do it now. But he’s not Chris Avery, you know. It’s kind of, I get it. It was big shoes to fill, is really what I mean.

But it ended up being fine, and I grew into the role and made it work, and I think everyone was happy with it. But yeah, I remember, it’s hard to fill the shoes of someone like that because it’s not just a job. It’s a connection, and you have a relationship with these people, and skateboarding’s just, it’s never a job.

Yeah, when you film with someone you’ve known for a long time, you just have full trust, and if you were going to call someone, you’re going to call him versus, like, the new kid that’s maybe learning.

But if you’re at the park or you’re at the spot and the new kid’s there and you’re filming and it’s working out, you’re going to film the clip, and be like, cool, did that work? So that was my start. I definitely started at the bottom, and that was fine, you know. But I kept doing what I do, and it was great.

Was there anything that you filmed in those early Tiltmode, Enjoi days that stands out to you ?

Yeah, maybe something of Louie. I’m trying to think of something that would have been. Yeah, I think some of the stuff I filmed early before I worked for Enjoi did make it into Bag of Suck, like that Nosegrab Tail Bonk thing of Louie. He bonks it and goes, that was definitely before I worked for Enjoi and was the filmer around filming. That was a really cool one.

What about Jerry’s Backside 50-50 No Comply Out on Clipper?

Honestly, that Backside Grind step-off at Clipper that Jerry did was actually really early. I think those guys were coming to the city and they hit me up, and they were already filming with Dan Wolfe, who was going to be there.

I think they were shooting with Pete Thompson, and I was the second-angle guy, and I remember Jerry did that and then Caswell Kickflipped over the hubba. Caswell Kickflipped over Clipper, which I don’t think had been done at that time, and then I remember Dan was like, hey, what are you gonna do with the clips of these guys, both of them?

I was like, what am I gonna do? Because I think he thought I had a closer relationship with those skaters than him, maybe, and he was, like, here, why don’t you just take it?

So Dan Firewired over the footage to me of both those tricks, and it was just, yeah let me know, you know. I was, oh really? Okay.

So I remember sending it to 411 and then giving Jerry’s trick to Matt for his shoe sponsor’s video. I think that’s what it was in.

What clips of Jerry did you film in Bag of Suck that still stand out to you?

Yeah, that was a very serious part. Like, a very calculated, dedicated thing. That was not for shits and giggles. That was for reals.

The easy answer is Nollie Backside Heelflip. But also the line where he Wallies the rock and Ollies into the rock and then runs up onto the waterfall thing, then Ollies into the rock at the end and Nollies into it after that.

Filming that line stands out to me, and also the 3-up 3-down line, where Jerry does the Fakie Flip Up and then Switch Tre Flip down; the first Fakie Flip Up that he made, he did the Switch Tre first try.

So, it was just battling the Fakie Flip, and then once he got it, it’s like, oh, we’re done. Boom, perfect Switch Tre; it was game over.

A specific trick for Jerry in particular, maybe the gap to Backside Noseblunt because it was like, I thought that was before the Nollie Backside Heelflip, and that was just the nail in the coffin. Like, you shut the video down if you do that trick. That’s the gnarliest thing to do at that spot. You’re going so fast, and so I remember that relief of feeling like Jerry got his ender, we did it, the video can be complete now, and I remember that one really being like, wow, and then him, for him to be like, okay, actually one more. I’m gonna go do the Nollie Backside Heelflip at Lincoln. But that really stood out as an incredible day. Yeah, for Jerry, those are what pop into my head at the moment.

They weren’t on the same day though?

No, no, definitely not.

Was that the same session as back Noseblunt? A different day.

I didn’t film the gap to Nosegrind, the gap to Backside Overcrook. No, I didn’t film that. They had already filmed that, and I think because, like, when I came in, there was probably like 60% of the video filmed.

Right.

Okay, so I pulled it all out, got it all together and ready, and I went, okay, here’s where we need to work and here’s what we have. I think Jerry did a gap to Back Tail on the gap to rail as well, and it was like okay, well, you got Backside Overcrook, Backside Tailslide. Let’s get, let’s add the Noseblunt and just make it incredible.

Same with that spot over the handrail. He does four different tricks. He does a Switch Hardflip. He does a Switch Pop Shuvit. He does a Fakie Flip and an Alley oop Switch Backside 180.

I remember he rains down so many tricks.

I remember the Switch Frontside Shuvit was in a row, with our buddy Sami from Finland. He Nollie Flipped it in the video.

Sick

Sami Nollie flipped over it, and it was like, oh, and then turn the camera and you could tell Jerry was like, I’m doing this one, and then just smash. Yeah, they did that back to back. So that was a killer one.

Also, Jerry’s Fakie Flip on that was another one. Like, everyone was there. Chris Avery, I think he filmed it fisheye, and MJ was there, and Louie, everyone was there for that to witness it.

Jerry was killing it at that point.

Just the vibes, and everyone’s like, that’s why he’s Jerry, you know.

Jerry’s Nollie Backside Heelflip down Lincoln is one of the most banging tricks he’s ever done. What was it like to see that go down and looking back, what impact did filming it have on your career?

On that specific trick? I don’t know if that trick had that much impact on my career per se. But maybe it did, just being around it and being a small part of it, being a small part of Jerry’s incredible career and his trust to put that together for him.

But I’m excited to talk about it, just in the fact that I was lucky enough to be there, and lucky enough to see that, and to this day, I can remember how stressed I was that he was struggling and he might not land it.

I remember the tries leading up to the make. I was like, this is not going well. He was getting further from it, and I remember the stress because we were all so stressed and right to the final minute on this.

Being just like, oh, it’s not gonna happen. You see it, you see it, and it’s just, it’s not gonna happen, and I remember him rolling away, and I honestly felt like I left my body, even though I wasn’t the one skating.

I almost forgot to pan to the frame because I was like, oh my God, because it was almost surprising that he did it because it was starting to get away from him, and I thought, he can’t keep jumping this anymore, and I don’t mean to sound like I was doubting Jerry’s ability or talent. I knew he could do it.

But like, on that day, at that moment, it was just like, oh no, it’s slipping away. But he was able to reach down and be like, no, I’m doing it right now, and pulled it all back together and did it perfectly, and it’s just like, what?

So I think it’s more than the fact that trick is incredible. It was like all the things leading up to it and that session that day, the first time he tried it, months before, he hit his head. Also, it was like, is it even possible?

At the time, Reynolds had Nollie 180’d it, and that was Andrew Reynolds. You know what I mean? And it was, Nollie Backside Heelflip? I don’t know. I know how good Jerry is. But last time we came here, he hit his head.

It was incredible. It was just incredible to make. So yeah, it still stands out to me as the icing on the cake of that whole project.

After that video was released, the Enjoi brand evolved and changed massively!

So every video project that I’ve been a part of….Well, I guess until Intervals, because that was only a 3-person video. But every giant team thing, someone always got kicked off during the shoot or left.

Every time there was always, yeah, that guy’s gone now, whether he quit or got kicked off; there was always something, and it was always someone that I really liked too. I would be like Oh man, they’re not, you know.

I remember Pancho Moler quit Think when we were working on the Think video, and I was really bummed about that because I love Pancho, and then Enjoi. Oh man, there were a couple. Bobby Puleo quit, and I was such a Bobby Puleo fan that I was, like, oh man, I really was excited to be a part of that, part with him, or to have him in the video in general.

Then with LRG, I was working on a part with Karl, and he quit.

I was really putting a lot of effort into this part. It ended up being in his Organika clothing video part. It’s a minute and a half maybe, and it actually looks really cool.It’s the video part where he does a Nose Manual 360 to Nose Manual. It’s just a little clip from Organika.

That trick is so banging, man. How did filming that at Fort Miley go down?

Oh, it’s so good, man. Yeah, I think he was doing a lot of stuff like Nose Manual, turn to Switch Back Lip kind of situations. He was, and he always did the Nose Manual Cab, Nose Manual Nollie Cab out. He would do those. So I think, I feel like me and him were talking and joking about stuff and how could you…Could you hold it? Could you come all the way around? And he started messing with it, and it was really working. I think the whole thing was finding the right spot for it because it had to be short enough to where you could.

We went a lot of times. We went probably four, maybe six times to Fort Miley to shoot that. Yeah, and it wasn’t until he finally got it and he didn’t really like it and he ran back, and he did two in a row, and it was easy for him. He figured it out, it unlocked, and I was like, you’re the only person that can unlock this, you know what I mean?

Now people have seen it, and now other people have tried it, or done it. But no, that’s a shocker, and I remember when it came out, some people were like, no, this person already did that, and it was a completely different trick, 180 Nose Manual and then turn to Nose Manual, and I’m like, no, it’s completely different than that.

There are a couple other things, some pop-over tricks. Yeah, he does Noseslide 270 transfer over a parking lot block kind of thing.

A couple other tricks he does. I think he does the Nose Manual to Switch Back Lip on a ledge. There’s all these things that I really spent time with him to get and work on, and I really wanted it to be in 1947. But then he left, and it was, oh man. That was a big bummer. But yeah, I feel that happens every video.

What’s your experience been like working with New Balance, and what’s your role there?

Oh man, I’ve been so lucky; every job has been a giant step up every time. From the skate shop to Think Skateboards to Enjoi to LRG, every time it was such a scary end, oh no, what do I do now? But then jump into this next thing that was just, wow, this is even better.That kind of world.

I feel like for all these years and to do all this stuff through my life and then now to get to New Balance and have such an incredible, not just skate team, but team at New Balance. I’m so fortunate and couldn’t ask for more; it’s the best.

Rodrigo TX, Frontside Flip: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

The team at New Balance is such a small, connected team that you can’t beat this. Everyone is a core skateboarder that cares so much, and that makes all the difference. There’s no one lame that works there; there’s nothing dragging it. There are no problems. It’s all up and up.

Everyone on the team, skate team-wise, is incredible and great to work with, and I really can’t say enough good things. About being with all of them, and obviously, the skate talent is through the roof. Especially Tiago, I’ve known Tiago since he first came to the US.

Because I was close with the Brazilians through LRG. I’ve known Tiago that long, and to see him be who he is now, the incredible one-name man- he’s like Prince; it’s just Tiago. You don’t even need his last name. He owns that. So yeah, it’s the best, man.

I handle all the video marketing. All the video projects, commercials, and video parts are directed by me, and I have an awesome team of three dudes that work with me:

Who are the skaters on the New Balance Numeric filming team?

Tyler Wilcox, Tim Savage, and Eric Iwakura, who is shooting with us now. I have a team of filmers; it’s crazy to me to have a team, and we all work together and split up on things. I can lend opportunities to these guys that are coming up. Tyler’s young, and I can help give him opportunities to shoot things, go on trips, and direct things himself. It’s a really great opportunity and feels good to be where I am in my career to have a position like this.

What’s your favourite New Balance shoe?

Ah, man, right now I really like the 770. They just came out. There was a grand collaboration, the all-black. I’m really into that shoe. It’s so comfortable; it’s crazy, man. I even took off my runners and put those on, and then I was wearing them for the day. Then I took them off and put my runners back on, and I thought, oh, these feel horrible.

Yeah, they’re really cool, man. So I really like those. Those and the Reynolds I really like too. But I also like the 440s, and that’s probably it. Yeah, those are probably the three shoes that I go to. I’ve rocked a lot of them. But Tom’s shoe and Brandon’s shoe as well. Those are really great too.

The 440 is incredible, that’s the one I was skating in most recently that I was like, oh, okay, this is really cool. Yeah, they really worked on that.

Andrew Reynolds, Backside Tailslide: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

Is there anything you worked on, as the video director for New Balance, as a filmer or editor, you’re really proud of to put out there?

Besides Intervals, I really liked the stuff I did with Jake Hayes and the blue 272 and a blue 379.

All those blue shoes that we did, we did two different commercials for them. I was really proud of them. They had full creative control. Yeah, just go nuts, and that was really fun for me to take an idea and push it all the way through into something that’s kind of nuts. But still skateboarding.

Was that the one where he Ollies the bike in front of the blue building?

Yeah, he Ollies over the bike in the blue building, and then the other one’s like the Ollies over a car with Reynolds and Franky; that was quite recent and Foy. Yeah, those guys are all in the car. There’s also this other shoe we did. It’s a futsal shoe. It’s a futsal and skateboarding shoe, and we did this collaborative video with a professional futsal player.

So it’s Tyler Surrey, the foot magician, with another foot magician, Eric Mendonca, who plays for the Barcelona team. That was really, really cool. I was really stoked on that.

What has been your favourite New Balance project to work on so far?

My favourite was the 808 campaign for Tiago because of how we went to the four different cities, and it was all about being connected through the metro.

I took a different approach to it with transitions. It was a little more creative than straight skate visuals, but I was trying to add some personality and flavour from each city and tell that story. Also, integrate the colours of the shoe into the visuals.

Going to New York and involving R.B. and Jeff Pang, having them make a little cameo, things like that, little nods to those cities and the skate scene and the stuff that, honestly, not just skateboarding, but also Tiago holds high in his heart, what he cares about. He has such a dedication and respect for all the skateboarding that has come before him.

It’s so honest and respectful that it had to be included in this piece. Having Henry Sanchez at Pier 7 with us.

That was, we have to get him there, not for anything more than for skateboarding, for Tiago, to have that respect. He cares so much about that stuff, and I think it’s so honourable and awesome.

It’s not a gimmick; it’s so cool, man.

How did the idea of Intervals come about?

Well, I think they had done a couple of three-person parts before and when I came in, they wanted to keep it going. But the thought was, we have these three pro model shoes right now. We have Westgate, we now have Tiago and Foy; let’s do a video with the three guys that had shoes at the time.

Brandon Westgate, 50-50: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

Fast forward four years, when it actually came out, there were a couple more pro models by that time.

So that was the initial idea. But it really didn’t end up being the entire thing since more people had pro model shoes. But originally, the idea was to get the three pro model guys and put a video together. It was driven by all those guys’ points in their careers, and this was a time and a space where they could give it everything they got.

We were like, where do you want to go? We’ll go wherever you want to go. Where do you want to skate? Here it is. We’re gonna give you everything we can to enable you to put out your best part, and those guys were like, cool, let’s do it!

It was super easy, and I had a relationship with Brandon before when he rode for Emerica. I used to show him around San Francisco a bunch, and obviously, I’ve known Tiago for a long time. Jamie was the only person I didn’t know as well as the other two. But his professionalism and ease of working with those guys are so pro. They know what they want to do, and they go there and handle it.

It’s cool. Foy with that rail that goes down flat and then up. He was like, I’m gonna go scope it out. Yeah, cool. I’m gonna do this. You guys want to come out to Germany? Okay, there it is. Boom, done. Nothing was ever a risk, or oh, this is a problem, or that’s a problem. The only thing that was ever any hindrance was that those guys are busy. They have a lot of sponsors, they have a lot of schedules that are packed with contests and everything, and Tiago had come off of the 808 campaign, which was literally a video part.

So everyone had to throw down one more time and really get in there. I think Tim Savage, Tyler Wilcox, and Dan Stolling, those three filmers, really helped me put this thing together.

They were on the ground, they were on every trip, and it was a team effort to put this thing together. I’m really proud of it too in that aspect, to see everyone work together and carry different weights of the project and to see it come together to what it came to was really exciting.

Coordinating all of that whilst keeping the aesthetic of the unified look of the film and direction must have been its own sort of mission from an editing side. So were you doing much filming on that one? I saw that you filmed Westgate’s huge Planter Ollie Planter at Pulaski. How did that go down?

Oh my God, the photo’s incredible. Yeah, that’s another part of our whole thing, man. Another reason why New Balance’s winning is because they have Jake Darwen, who I think is the best photographer of his generation; he’s shockingly good. I remember when I got the offer for the job, I was like, oh, sick, I’m gonna be able to work with that guy.

I’d seen his stuff for so long and been like, who is this guy? How does he nail it so hard? But yeah, that photo is incredible. But you know what’s funny about that one is Brandon didn’t think anything of it. He was gonna film it on the phone, and I was like, Brandon, you don’t understand, dude. No, we need to film this, and he’s like, okay, sure. I think he did it four times. He did it in a line, you know!

Wait, Westgate did the Ollie four times or the line four times?

The Kickflip up? I think he did the Kickflip up once. Maybe twice, but he definitely Ollied it probably at least five or six times.

But I think the sickest part is when you were there with the locals and all the homies that are at Pulaski every day, and they’re sitting down to watch Brandon and shaking their heads like, wow, that thing’s been there for so long. We’ve never seen anyone try that, which is the coolest, man. It’s so cool, that respect, man. We went to so many plazas and hung out with the raddest dudes at all those spots. All the dudes that ran those plazas- it was so much respect and good times, and man, it was great, man.

What about Brandon’s shocking Ollie from that roof ramp to roof ramp in front of those houses?

We have a good relationship and team for the filmmakers, and Tim Savage, who works with Brandon the most because they live close to each other and they’re good friends. He would send me stuff, and we’d talk about it. Here’s this spot, I want to take him here or here or there. Or, Oh, we looked at this, I think we’re going to go back, and hearing about that and being like, ok cool, and getting the text message, he got it, that kind of stuff.

Then it was like, Oh my God, getting the clip filmed on the phone, taking it to New Balance, showing people, and they’re losing their minds over it. It was a little mini premiere; all those moments are so cool. Although we were all separated, such encouragement and hype for each other.

Was there another trick in Intervals you were there to capture you were stoked to have in that video?

Maybe Brandon’s Ollie over that really tall and long bump-to-bar. It’s kind of in the middle of this part, I believe. It’s this really long ramp up to a bump-to-bar that has a pretty giant drop at the end.

Yeah, that was one that I filmed that I was really stoked on. I’m rolling alongside him but with a long lens, from the other side of a parking lot. There are cars in front of me. That was one that I really liked.

Yeah, it’s an alleyway. There are cars in the foreground, and he’s on the other side of a fence, and Ollie’s it, and I’m rolling alongside him.

It’s just so raw, you know what I mean? I like that a lot about it. It’s raw. It’s real, but it’s also kind of clean at the same time with how he’s framed, and it’s the perfect opportunity to do a shot like that. So yeah, I really like that one for Brandon1

Favourite trick you filmed of Tiago for Intervals?

For Tiago, the first thing that comes to my mind is his Switch Back Noseblunt Fakie Flip Out on the picnic table. It’s not filmed in any particularly incredible way. I filmed the still angle. This just pans with him. But it’s very simple filming because it’s all about the trick; it’s all about incredible Tiago, simplicity in his technical power of skateboarding, you know. So for me, that one’s definitely a big one!

The other one in his part could probably be the Switch Ollie over the top of that handrail to switch grind. I think it’s one of the first tricks of his second part, second song. Yeah, we went there, and it’s such a good spot. But you’re looking at it; it’s so gnarly to do anything.

I just didn’t expect Switch grind. I just didn’t see that in the cards when I looked at the spot, and watching him literally straight go for that was so gnarly that you just, I’m not gonna do anything else. I’m not even gonna grind it. Just starts Switch Ollieing over the top. You’re like, God, it’s insane!

Yeah, so many things could go wrong. It’s so sketchy, and then from my own personal skateboarding, not that I could do that trick, but if I was gonna grind even anything, let’s say, I’d have to test it. I’d have to test a grind out. He goes straight for Switch Ollie over the back. It’s like, God, how do you get yourself to commit to something like that? Then, sure enough, the first one he gets on correctly, puts it down, like, there you go, he didn’t even feel out anything!

Right, he knows exactly where he needs to be for that trick.

Yeah, and I guess that’s really interesting that dudes are like that. I’ve been skating with Tiago for quite a long time, building up to the beginning of intervals. We did this whole 808 campaign together. We did a couple other things together before that, and I never saw him switch grind any handrails, you know what I mean? In terms of the past couple of years and skating with him.

So if it was, oh, he’s gonna Switch Back Tail this tall ledge, or he’s going to Backside Nosebluntslide this, you’d be like, oh, okay, yeah, I see it, I know it, he does this all the time, I see it. But I didn’t see this, you know what I mean? I knew he could do it, but I didn’t see it. I’m like, how would you even approach this? Whereas if it was someone else, you’d think, you’d be practicing the trick at the skate park, getting really comfortable with it, and he doesn’t do that. He’s like, yeah, let’s go do it.

Yeah, Tiago is a gifted skater. He can skate regular as well as he skates switch. Anything else that comes to mind about Tiago?

Switch Back Noseblunt, yeah, that’s probably the best because he also went there so many times to do it, and he’s a vibe skater. The vibe’s got to be hitting right, and he’s gotta be feeling it. Like, it’s got to be a good session, you know? Sometimes it doesn’t work out, and that was all working for him that day, and he put it down, and it was like, wow, that was it! Like, it almost seemed too easy how he did it. Switch Back Noseblunt Fakie Flip. Like, what the fuck!?

What was your favourite trick to film of Jamie Foy for Intervals?

For Foy, I hate to keep going to these guys’ enders, but the Frontside Feeble he does as his last trick over the rainbow flat bar- I filmed the last angle of that, and it’s a spot where you’re like, what the fuck? How can anybody skate this? It’s incredible. But okay, a 50-50 makes sense, and maybe a Crooked Grind, but front Feeble, you know? Also just that wizardry magic that Jamie has with holding flat bar tricks.

Oh yeah. dude, I don’t know if there’s another human that could front feeble that.

It’s like, man, how? But also the fact that the whole team was there. I’m sure the whole video team was there, all the guys in the video, Brandon was there, Tiago was there, and we were all hyping for him because no one else was gonna skate that thing, and everyone was in his corner just like, yeah, let’s get it. It was such a rad one to see everyone stoked for Jamie and the camaraderie of the team, you know?

There are some things that he’s that guy who’s got that lock, he’s one of a kind as well, you know? I’m really lucky to work with such incredible, not only skaters, but people, you know? It makes my job so easy, and such a pleasure and an honor to be a part of their careers.

When someone of his caliber is not struggling, but putting everything into it, the fact that you are having this much trouble doing this thing and being able to accomplish it, it’s like, wow. Literally no one else can do this.

I’ve even seen him do Frontside Heelflips on quarterpipes.

Oh, dude, Jamie Foy can skate vert. He can Back Smith Grind on vert. He is shockingly an all-terrain vehicle. I think he’s so well known for all his handrail stuff, but man, he can rip transition. He can be super tech on ledges, manuals. Dude, it’s shocking, man. He really is. He will go down as one of the greats.

Yeah, that’s a crazy one too, man, to have a good Frontside Heelflip. That’s a hard trick. One, a hard trick to do and two, a hard trick to do well.

Yeah, all the raw footage that was released after the video really showed you how much work they all put into their parts.

Yeah, and I like that we can share that stuff after the fact now too. Menikmati had a big impact on me, where the DVD version had raw footage. It had all the stuff that was in slow-mo; it was in regular motion, and you could really sit there and marvel at tricks.

Outside of that part, which really impacted me at that time, and I remember putting stuff like that into Bag of Suck, in the DVD, there’s a bunch of raw stuff and alternate angles. Those are all inspired by the Menikmati DVD, and ever since then, I’ve always wanted to put that in there. But I think there’s obviously the huge downsides to everything being on YouTube now.

But one positive side is that you can put out a video and then, a couple of months later or whatever, you can add all these other things where people can appreciate individual tricks outside of the part and really see a different side of it too. If there’s an angle they never saw, or seeing it in regular motion, hearing everything without music, there is something really cool and special about that. So I’ve always enjoyed giving that to people.

Also, it’s nice too because, a lot of that stuff doesn’t fit in the video, you know? Like sometimes you’ll be like, there’s nowhere for me to put this, and then this gives you like a full opportunity to like put everything out there. Just like, here, here’s everything, man. Like, check this out, you know. I like that.

What was the reaction like to Intervals from your perspective?

The reaction and the response to the video were incredible. Some of the stuff people said meant a lot to me, and I really saw that people appreciated what we were trying to do and appreciated the standard and the look we were going for. I think I’m really stoked, and I know everyone at New Balance is really proud and happy with how it all came together. It did really well in terms of views. We hit a million views under a year, two weeks before the year anniversary, and it’s pretty tough to do something like that. So I’m really, really stoked for those guys and everyone involved. It was a big team effort, and I’m really thankful for those guys. In terms of what’s next, we got a bunch of stuff, man.

Working on something new for New Balance?

There’s gonna be a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline. We’ve got stuff with Andrew, we’ve got stuff with Tyler Surrey, Tom Knox. Everybody’s got something they’re working on. Jordan Trahan, Tom K, Aimu.

Aimu is new to the team, and he’s been such a pleasure to work with. He’s such a great, great human.

He really is the best. I love being around him, and he’s also another skater that’s like, no one else can do this. His flip tricks, his flatground, however he does Kickflips, it’s shocking, man. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen come up to him and not ask for a selfie, not ask for an autograph. They ask to see him do a Kickflip on flatground.

So many people ask, can you please do a Kickflip for me? And then smile and be like, oh, okay, and do his Kickflip that doesn’t make sense, and then that’s all. People are just dumbfounded. I think it’s the beginning for him.

Yeah, there are so many different projects coming out. We’ve got so much cool stuff going on; everyone is busy in a great way.

I’ve got this project I’m working on that I think is awesome. It’s called Running Numbers, where we are doing trips and tours around Europe and we’re heading to places like Amsterdam and London. I’m really excited by that, especially how well the first one was received and the response to that. It’s crazy that we can get such a giant amount of team riders together to put on those demos that made a difference to me when I was a kid. Those were so insane, incredible, inspiring, and I see that same excitement when we go to these. I see that in kids, and I’m thinking, hell yeah, that’s awesome. It’s still happening.

People are still stoked, and they want to shake Andrew’s hand and show respect and be like, hell yeah, this is sick, I’m psyched you guys are here in my town or whatever. It’s the best, man. That’s what it’s all about. I fucking love it. Yeah, it’s something so simple as a gesture like that, it means the world to us, and that’s a beautiful thing.

How did filming Tom Knox’s pro shoe video in London go down? The clip filmed from the bus is so sick.

I filmed the bus shot. Yeah, I was really pushing things at that time, really trying to think how can I incorporate stuff that represents the city and, alongside this skateboarding, and that was one of those ones that worked out. No, but Jacob Harris helped shoot most of that. He shot a lot of the skating.

I let him shoot most of the skating even when I was there, and I took a backseat to that as well and filmed all the extra stuff. So that was fun to work with Jacob for sure, and that crew. Such a fun time. But yeah, I think the bus thing really worked out. It only took us about four tries, and I had Jacob on my phone. I was on a phone call with him, and so I got on the bus one stop before.

I wouldn’t even pay. I would hop on, set up, and say, Jacob, we’re about to come to the stop sign or the stoplight, and then we go when the bus is about right here, and that was pretty much how we did it. I think we tried it three times and got it perfectly, and yeah, that was cool though. I enjoy doing stuff like that. I like trying to push the opportunity to film something a little differently lately. But I also know and really still care about the core values and principles of skateboard filming. I still want to be fisheye up in the trick and make the gap look as big as possible and film lines fisheye. I think, things that are fundamentals of core skateboard videos. I want to integrate that with pushing some filmmaking techniques. But, as I said, staying true to the tricks and making them look as good as possible has always been my goal.

What’s your favourite thing about Tom Knox’s skating?

Tom is such a unique and special skater. It’s been a pleasure to watch him work. I really loved the back 180 to 50-50 he did in that part. I filmed that of him. It’s a half push back 180 to grind and then drop. If you stick on that 50-50, you’re going straight backwards, like, probably to your head. Like, you’re ruined.

So that was amazing to watch. Just one of those things, yeah, no one else is gonna do that. But this is one person in the entire world. It’s Tom Knox, and that’s so cool, man. I love that. I love when it’s Tyler Surrey; no one else can do this. Karl Watson, no one else can do this. Jamie Foy, Tiago, these guys are one in a million; you can’t step to it. No one else can do it.

What about filming Tyler Surrey, do you have a story about filming him?

Well, the No Comply Flip was funny because he originally wanted to No Comply Flip straight, and we were cool with it. Then he started trying it and began turning 90 degrees every time, rotating Frontside. To credit the complete talent of that guy, he said, oh, okay, I’ll take it all the way around, and turned it into a No Comply Frontside Flip. It wasn’t even in the plans; he started turning and then decided to keep turning with it, executing a perfectly executed trick that’s almost impossible to do.

Have you filmed much with Jordan Trahan?

Yeah, I got to work with Jordan Trahan on a couple of things now. My favourite was the Chocolate 480 campaign that he did. I filmed most of that, I think, with some help from Dan Stolling. I got to shoot the ad for that, as a photograph, and I don’t shoot photographs really, so that was really awesome for me. It happened by accident because Jake Darwen was out of town, and Jordan was trying to get an ad for this thing, but nothing had really come about yet. We went to those big natural quarter pipes in downtown LA, and he was doing an Alley-oop Backside No Comply, maybe? I have to look at it again.

Jordan Trahan, Alley Oop Backside No Comply: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

So we filmed it. Then, I think there was another photographer there, and Jordan said, I’m gonna go ask this guy if he will, if he can, shoot it because I’m feeling it right now, you know?

I was like, yeah, sure, whatever, and he went over to the guy, and they were literally getting in the car leaving, and he was like, oh man, we gotta run right now, and then I was like, ah shoot, okay, and Jordan said, hey, well, do you want to shoot it?

I was like, I don’t have any flashes or anything, but yeah, I think I could do it. I got you. I think I have an idea for it, and I looked at it and I was like, oh, this would work from right here and shot it natural light, and, it’s one of those things where the trick speaks for itself, you can’t really mess it up too much as long as you get that timing right and get a good composition of it. It’s just the trick; the trick will always win.

So yeah, then we got that photo and showed it to New Balance. They’re like, perfect, this works for an ad, and it’s so funny because I just don’t shoot photos as much anymore, and so it was really fun for me to be able to do that for a minute and have a little taste of that again.

Andrew Reynolds has the 933 out with New Balance. It’s a dope shoe. What’s your favourite thing about having him on New Balance?

Andrew is not only the incredible skater that we all look up to, but he’s also the guy behind all the Baker videos, and he has an incredible catalog of videos he’s edited and put together. So it’s been really cool to have him. He really likes to be involved with everything, and so he’ll come over, watch the video that I’m working on, and then give me some suggestions.

Andrew even helped with Intervals. He came over and watched it, and we tweaked some stuff with some of his suggestions. It’s been a really cool collaborative relationship, and then working on the stuff that he has too, the same way, we bounce ideas off each other, music and stuff like that. It’s really cool to have him be excited about all the projects that New Balance is doing, not just the ones that involve him.

But my favourite thing I filmed of Andrew is when he was on Emerica. I filmed him, Fakie Flip down the big 6-block in San Jose. I filmed one of those angles, the roof one.

Then, for New Balance, honestly, my favourite thing I filmed of Andrew is him pushing at this location where it’s kind of underground, but the sun’s coming from above, and it’s one of the opening shots of his thing. That’s my favourite thing. I love how that shot looks. So.

What about Tom Schaar?

Man, on the last Running Numbers trip when he did a, I don’t even know what you call it, a stall, grabbed the Fakie on that Tree. He went up out of the pool, onto the Tree, yanked back out. That was incredible.

His ease of skating, and you know what else at that pool? I guess it’s not a pool, it’s a bowl. But at that bowl, he also blasted a giant Stalefish that was so incredible, and the form, everything about it was just, oh my God.

Definitely. Seems like he’s in a world of his own. Like, only Bob is there with him, I think, like, when it comes to looking at insanely large ramps and thinking like, how can I do the most fucked up thing possible? Like, it’s so impressive.

It’s so impressive, yeah, his FDR Disaster, absolutely mind-boggling; it’s crazy.

Tom K., you filmed much with him? ’He’s got a good eye for a spot.

Totally. What I love about Tom is he’s very collaborative as well, and he’ll come with an idea of a spot and get excited for you to, or for myself to, talk about how I want to film it or how we could film it and what we could create from this thing. He gets really excited about it, and he’s always really appreciative of my eye on things, and if I see something that I suggest to him to do, he’ll do everything in his power to get himself to do whatever you ask him to do if he can do it, you know? I think that’s really cool, man. He really makes an effort. Okay, I’m gonna do this for you, you know? Oh wow, okay, thanks.

He’s just dedicated, and he has such a passion for the history of skateboarding and all the legendary stuff that has gone down. I think it’s so cool.

Yeah, he’s an interesting person, who knows how to pay homage to the history whilst keeping it current. So that’s cool to hear your perspective on working with him. I feel Tyler is the same way.

Tyler Surrey, the wizard. Just does absolutely unique things that no one else can do. Just trying the hardest tricks that, like, are awkward, you know.

I remember talking to Marc Johnson once about manuals and how the hardest manuals are anything where you turn in one way, and then you have to turn back out the other way, and how even something as simple as that is, for example, a Frontside 180 Nose Manual, and then Switch Frontside 180 out where it wants, your body wants to turn Switch Backside 180.

So you’re turning back the other way, and I feel that’s all that Surrey does. Like, he’s always trying to turn the harder way out of things or into things, and it’s just like, wow, and it doesn’t look hard.

They’re all so professional. They respect and enjoy what I do, and so whenever I ask, oh, do you think we could try and film something like this? And it might not work out, but can you try this? Even if it’s just a flat ground trick, they’re always like, yeah, let’s do it, and down to, I think there’s a trust that’s been built, and I’m really thankful for that, and really appreciative of them and that trust.

Anything you filmed with Franky Villani that you were stoked on?

Well, I would also say that he’s the silent demo crusher. Him at a demo is incredible. He does the gnarliest stuff and so many tricks. I couldn’t believe the number of tricks he was doing at each demo. He was the MVP. To have him come to a demo is incredible. I think on that last Running Numbers tour, I got to film him do his Backside 180- what do they call it, Bennett Grind to Switch Crooks and that was just, man, I’ve never filmed anyone do that before. That was incredible. So, it’s always a pleasure, you know what I mean? He’s always thinking outside the box and throws something out there that I’m not prepared for, and I’m like, wow, that’s what you want to do here? I never would have thought of that. Or, it all seems really easy and fluid for him, and he’s such a personality too; he’s a great dude.

Had many chances to film with Charlie Birch over the years?

Yeah, I filmed Charlie for the 480 campaign, he’s so gnarly and goes for it. I was there when he tried to Boardslide that double kink handrail out of nowhere and fell and smashed his face, and man, I’ve seen some injuries, you know what I mean? I’ve seen people get pretty wrecked in the past, and that one, I was, I was a little worried at first, and then when I got to look at him straight in the eye and look at what happened, I was like, okay, you’re gonna be good. But at first it looked so bad the way that his face grinded along the separations of asphalt.

I thought he was gonna look up and it was gonna be much worse. So once I finally grabbed him and looked at him, I was like okay, you’re gonna be alright. Actually, this sucks, but it’s not as bad as it could be. You’ll be alright. It was great, and you know what? He handled that thing like a goddamn champion. So it was, wow, this dude is tough as nails, man. Just not a care in the world. We’re good. So, he’s Scouse. It says a lot, man. It says a lot about a person. Yeah, he’s tough as nails, man. He’s one of a kind too.

What’s your favourite skate video of all time?

I’ll definitely say Transworld’s The Reason had a really big impact on me. So that’s definitely one of my all-time favourites. It’s a Ty Evans video, and then Jon Holland, and that’s why it’s good; those two guys put that masterpiece together. That’s why it’s so good.

Who has your favourite part in The Reason?

Cairo Foster.

Who’s your favourite skater?

Marc Johnson. Style. Mark Gonzales. Scott Johnston. Karl Watson. Wow, this is really interesting. They’re all lining up. I feel like I need one more.

Also Phil Shao. He’s from the zone that I grew up skating in. So, I got to see him a lot, and he was definitely a power unlike any other. So yeah, a lot of style guys, just the way all those guys skated. That’s what I lean towards.

Favourite style on a skateboard?

So favourite style, I’ll go John Cardiel, Jimmy Wilkins. Dude is incredible. Pete the Ox. Mike Carroll, and we gotta go MJ round 2; he’s gotta go in there twice. Most special.

Which skate filmmakers do you look up to the most?

French Fred for sure. Sorry. Bon Appétit, all the Cliché stuff, all the little shorts he did, the shorts he’s done for Cliché, and then some stuff he did for other people. I think he might have done it for the Cliché website. But yeah, French Fred for sure is definitely one of my favourites of all-time.

Who’s your favourite skate photographer?

I definitely have a few favourite photographers. Skateboard photographers would be: Joe Brook, Jai Tanju, Jake Darwen. Ollie Barton and Gaberman.

Heath Kirchart Frontside Bluntslide: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

Do you have a favourite skate spot in America?

Soma Skatepark. It’s fun, I like the crew that’s there. I like the obstacles that are there. Yeah, it’s an easy one.

Favourite spot in the world?

There’s a spot in Japan, somewhere in Tokyo, where you can, I think Rick Howard had a Heelflip to Fakie or something, maybe a Backside flip. It’s a big bank. Chico did a Switch Heelflip on it. In 1947. It’s a big bank, that’s kind of like a slide almost, and there are a couple of DIY boxes that people have left there. I remember skating there, having a lot of fun and thinking, this place is awesome. So for some reason, I’m going to choose that.

Favourite trick that you filmed?

That is a tough one. Wow, that is hectic. geez. I filmed a couple lines of Keith Hufnagel for Skate More. If you wanted to say a clip that I was really stoked on, that really comes to mind, I would say those lines of Huf back in the day for the Skate More video.

They were really satisfying in terms of the trust that he put in me to help film him, and to film someone that I looked up to in skateboarding and of that stature, you know.

What line of Huf did you film for Skate More?

Yeah, Huf did a Noseslide and a Tailslide at the same time – the Frontside Nailslide. I filmed those ones. Yeah, man. I think that’s definitely something I was really stoked to be able to capture.

What’s your favourite photo you’ve shot?

Photos of Ben Raemers, I love Ben like a little brother. He meant a lot to me. I’ve known him since he was a little dude on Duffs, and I’m sure you’ve probably known him longer, but he spent a lot of time in San Jose with all of us.

I got a lot of love for Ben, and his passing has still been really hard on me, and, actually, on a personal note, I’m hoping to go to his bench on this trip. I haven’t been there yet, and I haven’t really had any closure since his passing because I didn’t go to any of the services that were in London. So my hope is to go check that out and say a little something to him.

But yeah, all those Ben photos, man. I look back on them very fondly. He was a funny little fucker. It’s like, oh my God, where does he get this stuff? Such an incredible guy, great laughter; he was such a maniac.

Another one that comes to mind that I’ve always really liked is this picture I took of Tom Asta. It’s on my website, and it’s this line, a line of light from left to right, and he’s doing a Backside Flip in the middle. It’s just on flatground. It’s really about his form and how the light was for this particular image, and I remember seeing that line and going, oh my God, I gotta do this quick. Got to get Tom to do this Backside Flip quickly before this light disappears on me, and sure enough, he got it, and it was something I’ve always been really proud of, that photo of Tom Asta. It’s not a gnarly trick or anything. It’s something that I’ve always really liked.

Tom Asta, Backside Flip: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

It’s the perfect amount of pieces to the puzzle. I was always really stoked on how that got put together; it was a fun one.

Any advice for skaters who want to learn to film and shoot photos who are reading this?

I feel the best advice I can give is, most importantly, learn the fundamentals of photography, which is going to be photography and, to an extent, filmmaking. But really, the fundamentals of photography are really important. You can pick up your phone and hit record, but being able to go further from that, it’s really important to know those things.

Then I would say film and shoot everything. Find your friend’s band and make a music video for them, even if they can barely put a song together. Just film stuff. Film your friends hanging out, film anything, keep filming lots of stuff, and the more you’re out shooting, the better you’re going to get at it and seeing things from different perspectives.

I think that’s really the best advice I could give anyone, and keep meeting people and making connections, and, yeah, just keep going. That’s it!

Do you have any shoutouts you want to make?

I’m always super thankful and humbled by all the people who allow me to shoot with them, work with them, and create with them, and the skaters who put their trust in me. I’m super thankful and honoured to have had a career that has been so fulfilling.

If anyone ever wants to, feel free to reach out if you have questions about photography or filmmaking or anything that I could help someone younger or someone starting out with. I’m always down to help others because people have helped me in that same way, and I wouldn’t be here without those people. So, I always try to pay it forward; I’m just stoked to still be here.

Any last words for people reading this Kyle?

Oh man, yeah, you got me thinking so much of Benny Boy. My last words are gonna be, Long live Ben Raemers.

Ben Raemers: Shot by Kyle Camarillo

He had such heart, such an attitude, such an innocence; he has a long-lasting impact on me. So yeah, never forget Ben Raemers. Thank you to The Ben Raemers Foundation too, for keeping his spirit alive and for doing what’s right in his name.