‘Down By Law’ — Paul Young on East Coast Filmmaking

The full-length skate video thrives on America’s East Coast. Videographer Paul Young began filming for Down By Law after falling back in the love with the Sony VX1000 three years ago, following a stint time working with Quasi and Theories Of Atlantis. Initially filming with his old friend, Joe Russo the cast grew to encompass East Coast up-and-comers Ben Tenner and Vin Perso alongside his childhood pals Dick Rizzo and Josh Wilson (a staple of his video catalogue), who are joined by Bronze’s Grady and Arty Smith, alongside Aaron Herrington with a contender for his career’s best work. Here’s the story behind Down By Law, as told for Closer #7.

Paul Young | Mike Heikkila

Words by farran golding

Photography by mike heikilla

Film stills by Paul Young

In summer 2018, videographer Paul Young and two of his closest friends, Dick Rizzo and Josh Wilson, arrived at a Manhattan theatre for the premiere of Quasi Skateboards’ first video, Mother. Their involvement was an opportunity which hadn’t been taken lightly over the couple of years prior.

“We were thrilled to be out there trying to push their personal envelopes. Josh doing all those hard bump the bar tricks or Dick skating Grant’s Tomb and that wallride at the Brooklyn Banks, that’s the stuff we grew up idolizing and channelling. That Jake Johnson in Mind Field energy where it’s a single trick at the iconic spot,” says Young. Hometown pride was high that evening. Not solely for Young, Rizzo and Wilson but the screen presence of their city itself stole the show. “It didn’t matter what the trick was, as soon as a New York spot appeared in anyone’s part everybody would erupt,” says Young. “For me, growing up going to those kind of events, and Josh Stewart says this all the time too, that’s the best gratification you can ever get: watching a video in a room full of people who are there to make noise.”

Dick Rizzo, pivot | Grant’s Tomb, Manhattan, New York | Mike Heikkila

Young recalls this over the phone ahead of the premiere for his new video, Down By Law. It’s an independent project, filmed predominantly around New York and the North East, which features Rizzo, Wilson, Aaron Herrington, Ben Tenner, Vin Perso, Arty and Grady Smith, Joseph Delgado, German Neives, Joe Russo, and more. An expansive cast (most of whom have full-time jobs), plus sponsor commitments, Young working as a freelance videographer, and East Coast winters snowballed Down By Law into a three year long endeavour which he treat like a full-time gig equally out of necessity and sincerity.

“It’s a conscious effort not to cut corners,” says Young, regarding the timespan. “There’s nothing worse than when all’s said and done and you need thirty seconds more footage to do the song justice. I pushed that pretty hard and everybody came through.” Clocking in at snappy forty minutes, even across ten-plus main parts, there isn’t a moment where the pace of Down By Law drops. Individual sections average around two or three minutes of screen time and there’s a commendable concision in Young’s editing. “There’s not one thing where I’m like, ‘Eh, whatever…’ I could puff my chest out for every single frame,” says Young. “The skaters are all people who I’m a fan of. They worked really hard and I approached it from an objective perspective. Anything where the spot maybe wasn’t that interesting or it seemed like we should have gone back to film something again isn’t in there,” says Young.

Ben Tenner, nollie varial kickflip | Philadelphia, PA | Dakota Mullins

The built environment throughout Down By Law is classically East Coast: diamond plate, bricks, jersey barriers, coarse tarmac, invitingly obscure pieces of geometric concrete. However, there’s a remarkable absence of brand name spots for a video born out of New York. Missions to Baltimore, Washington DC and Boston took place over summers and Miami became a go-to excursion to dodge the winter cold. “Maybe not purposely but in the last “season” of good skating weather – like spring, summer and fall – I think I went downtown twice. We went way out into Queens, New Jersey and South Brooklyn which is still sort of uncharted territory. A lot of it is where I grew up too,” says Young.

Manhattan and Brooklyn | Down By Law | Paul Young

Young picked up a video camera as a high-schooler in Nyack, Rockland County, a satellite neighbourhood, about twenty miles upstate from Manhattan and New Jersey. “I had to make a conscious effort to find my tribe that weren’t just the couple of knucklehead kids in high school who had a skateboard but weren’t exactly skateboarders,” says Young, regarding Nyack in the late 2000s. Joe Russo, an older pal, was his earliest connection to any scene whereas trips to New Jersey’s Drop-In Skatepark brought he, Rizzo, Wilson and Nick Ferro together. “During the process of making my first video, Nevermind [2012], it was a concentrated effort to try and build some kind of community from these other little communities,” says Young. His follow up video, 2016’s Bleach is a timestamp of his crew at the turn of New York’s mid-2010s renaissance: midtown and the boroughs lit by a camera light at night, a youthful Rizzo and Wilson on the cusp of sponsorship, and a handful of Bronze-adjacent buddies.

Josh Wilson | Newark, New Jersey | Down By Law | Paul Young

“Towards the end of filming Bleach it became a running joke that the goal was to get Mark Humienik and Buggy [Nick Ferro] sponsored because we had already seen it was possible with Dick and Josh. Like, ‘Whoa, this exists in our universe now.’ As a filmer you can’t rest on the laurels of the guys who are already established, you have to be looking around and taking in new blood, so it became a joke, like, ‘We’ve got to get these guys a deal and I’ve got to get a job out of this video,’” says Young, chuckling. Off the back of Bleach, however, Young wound up on a retainer to film Rizzo and Wilson for what would become Mother. He worked with Quasi for another couple of years afterwards before dipping back into freelance waters, including a stint with Theories of Atlantis which rekindled his love of the VX, leading to the genesis of Down By Law.

“Joe Russo and I started filming a little bit and I was like, ‘Now I have to make something…’” says Young. “He was the first person who ever seriously let me film them. To see him progressing and learning new tricks on camera, having known him for so long, that was a full circle, wholesome thing to see.” Ben Tenner, the latest in Boston’s family tree of authoritative ledge skaters with impeccable flatground game, was another instigator. “Ben was like a prospect of mine. We got him on Quasi flow, and he still is,” says Young. “Then I was like, ‘Alright, this guy is great. I see something in him.” He’s already getting boards so now let’s take it a step further and film a part.” 

Vin Perso, backside tailslide | New York, NY | Mike Heikkila

There are good odds on Vin Perso being a breakout hit for Down By Law thanks to the languid quality of his flow, footwork and overall demeanour. “Everyone compares him to Kenny Reed but that could just be the cap he wears,” says Young, amused. “He’s sick. No social media, no sponsors. Vin’s a silent killer.” His part stands up on the merit of his skating alone but Perso’s section is elevated by its novel score: a cover of The Beatles’ “A Day In Life” by jazz musician Les DeMerle. The instrumental, perhaps most recognisable as the sample from O.C.’s “Time’s Up”, underwrites the tone of Down By Law’s soundtrack which darts (mostly) between hip-hop, big band, and soul.

Intentionally referential and reverential, “It’s a callback to the old Girl and Chocolate videos where you have some hip-hop and then you have the music that inspired the hip-hop,” explains Young. “That stuff is cool and it ages well. It’s a mature way of having diverse music while still keeping this hip-hop energy. Sometimes there’s a lot of power in an instrumental song. Music is my little passion outside of skating so I want to put some of myself into the video, it’s something a little different that I can offer,” he hopes.

Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York | Down By Law | Paul Young

Better known amongst the cast of Down By Law is Aaron Herrington who Young got acquainted with whilst filming him for Polar’s Sounds Like You Guys Are Crushing It (2022). “After that, it was kind of this under-the-table handshake, like, ‘Okay, you scratched my back all those years even whilst you’re doing your own thing. Obviously, I’m going to come through for you,’ and he took it so seriously. Aaron has one speed and that’s professional,” says Young. Although sidelined by knee injury midway through production; hauling over bump-to-bars, onto tall handrails and hubbas, and a handful of lofty fliptricks makes Down By Law a punchy career highlight for Herrington. “That part could have been twice the length,” says Young. “When he was dealing with the injury I gave him a genuine thank you. We talked about how a lot of us are getting older and with skating and filming, you can do it until you’re old but time is a big theme in my life now. They say ‘there’s no time like the present’ and he had no pause at all.”

Nyack, Rockland County, New York | Down By Law | Paul Young

As a teenager in Nyack, Young’s biggest influence was a videographer named Justin White — an early adopter of the internet (in terms of skateboard media) who released footage of his crew, Popills via a Flash-powered site in the days where YouTube and outlets like Quartersnacks were in their infancy. “It’s hard to quantify now, because so much comes out, but he was a household name in the Tri-State area. He had an artistic touch,” says Young. White’s 2008 Popills video, New Thirsty, is as much of a key text for Young as the likes of Static and Photosynthesis. “I idolized him so much and we had a genuine bond. It’s an apprentice type thing, right? You put yourself next to the person you want to be like.”

Through their friendship, Young inherited a mentality which continues to guide his cinematography. “There’s this idea I’m still so attached to of how you can present your local schoolyard in the suburbs the same as you can a spot in midtown Manhattan. That’s a theme you’ll see quite a bit in Down By Law. It’s all in the presentation,” says Young. “On a simple level you’re using the resources that you have but its cool when people skate where they’re from.” He applies the same thoughtfulness to his friends whether their name is on a pro board or he’s simply known them since way back. “There are no rules so if you think your friends are sick, put them on a pedestal. I guess the disclaimer is there has to be some ability for that to carry but, as I get older, some of the best shit to me is people rolling around with their crew.”

Paul Young | New York, NY | Mike Heikkila

Independent videos have long thrived, especially on the East Coast, but the resonance of small scale projects throughout  skateboarding culture is a phenomenon as occasionally baffling as it is endearing. “It’s because skateboarders are nuts,” offers Young as an answer, cracking up before shifting gear to earnest. “Skate videos age forever, you know? We – meaning the skateboard community – we all give our lives to this and then if anybody cares it exists forever. Some kid in Nyack will be watching Joe’s part from Down By Law when I’m dead, in the same way I can sit here and talk about Popills clips or Static. This stuff exists in the lexicon. That’s the value in it if you have any audience at all, which I’m really fortunate to somehow have, so that’s how I think of it. Then, you know, what do you really make a video for? You do it out of admiration for your peers.”

DOWN BY LAW by Paul Young, a Hit You Off Management Production. Featuring Dick Rizzo, Joe Russo, Josh Wilson, Joseph Delgado, Ben Tenner, Grady Smith, Arty Smith, Justin Helmkamp, Aaron Herrington, Vin Perso • ALONGSIDE German Nieves, Dustin Eggeling, Joel Meinholz, Luke Malaney, Nick Ferro, Erik Martinez with appearances by Ian Mcgraw, Leo Gutman, Mike Powley, Devon Connell, Devin Woelfel, Brian Costadina.

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This story originally appeared in Closer Skateboarding Issue 7, Spring 2024 with the headline ‘Paul Young’s Down By Law’.

Farran Golding is Closer‘s Associate Editor.

Mike Heikkila is a photographer based in Brooklyn, New York.

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Further Reading on East Coast Skateboarding

• Starting Light: Josh Stewart on the Original ‘Static’ Trilogy
• Closing Doors: ‘Static IV’ and ‘Static V’ with Josh Stewart
• End of the Line: Josh Stewart on ‘Static VI’
• Hardbody Skateboards presents ‘OD’

Favorites from the print edition of Closer

• ‘Have You Met Nelly Morville?’ — An Interview with Limosine’s Breakout Star
• The Long Play with Mason Silva on Early 2000s Skate Video Soundtracks
• Topography: Wallrides with Silas Baxter-Neal