What Makes A Skate Shop Video A Skate Shop Video?

The best skateboarding media of September 2026 came courtesy of independent skate shops. Richmond’s Venue Skateboards and Boston’s Orchard Skate Shop released new videos (To The Bone and Wishbone) and each store has a long history of strong productions. Both Orchard and Venue featured in Ian Browning’s story on skate shop videos from Closer #12, alongside the likes of FTC’s Penal Code 100A, Lottie’s Skate Shop Must Be Stopped, Supreme’s “cherry” and more. Here’s the full story which unpacks the genre conventions of what makes a great “skate shop video”, a great skate shop video.

Push to black. The closing moment of PJ Ladd’s Wonderful, Horrible Life by Dave Kordan, Matt Roman, and Arty Vagianos for Coliseum Skate Shop | Jaime Owens

Story by Ian Browning

The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, a couple hours north of New York City, is breathtaking before even considering how good it is to skate. It’s very good to skate, too. Smooth ground, stairs, handrails, ledges of all heights made from precious stone—it’s the type of spot that if you were lucky enough to have as your local, you’d get accustomed to passing pro skaters and their team managers hitting you up about the best time to skate it.

It wasn’t always an oasis worthy of detouring from a trip to New York City though. Skating was always illegal there, but in the post-9/11 years, it was mostly locked down by a state trooper the locals called Super Trooper. “He seemed to work seven days a week for a solid fifteen or so years,” explains Trevor Culley, one of the owners of Seasons Skate Shop. “He made it difficult to skate, but in hindsight, he was probably mostly entertaining himself. He was hilarious once you realized he never did anything past belittle you and waste an hour of your time.” 

Super Trooper retired early in the pandemic, during an era when everyone was varying degrees of inside, and glued to their phones. Word got out quickly that the spot was less of a hassle. “I remember Ryan Lee, Curren Caples, Louie Lopez, and Mike Anderson were in town in 2020,” says Culley. They were also traveling on their own dime. “They’d been here before. I was just shocked that they were choosing a destination with no direction from a company, and decided on here. That’s when it seemed like word was really out there about the plaza.”

“Cities hire ad agencies to craft entire campaigns to woo tourists. The skate shop video as a genre achieves the same thing powered by a handful of skaters placed somewhere around their late-teens and into their early-20s, a couple of responsible adults, and a steady flow of price-point shop decks.”

Knowers know, though. Seasons has released ten shop videos since 2014, with footage captured at the State plaza in all of them. Many skate shops have come and gone for a number of reasons, but a through-line for some of the finest is producing a shop video. Cities hire ad agencies to craft entire campaigns to woo tourists. The skate shop video as a genre achieves the same thing powered by a handful of skaters placed somewhere around their late-teens and into their early-20s, a couple of responsible adults, and a steady flow of price-point shop decks.

The question of “the perfect video to throw on before a sesh” is tossed around a lot in skating, but a local shop video is almost always a good answer. They refocus the locals’ gaze away from European plazas and towards what’s possible at home. So-and-so skated a thing that people have been questioning if it was possible for years? Somebody figured out how to skate a locked-down spot for long enough to get a line there? Sick. They showcase what the scene is, where people are skating, who rips, and oftentimes, where else you can hit if you pile into a car for a few hours.

Alexis Sablone, switch frontside flip from her part in PJ Ladd’s Wonderful, Horrible Life | Coliseum Skate Shop

“Talk about showcasing your local haunts for the world to see: PJ Ladd’s Wonderful, Horrible Life was the building block of four skaters who would go on to earn pro shoes — in addition to Jereme Rogers’ rap career, Alexis Sablone’s Masters in Architecture at MIT, and the skate shop she co-owns, Plush, in New Haven.”

They also serve as a postcard for visitors. Every time I’m headed to a new city, the first thing I’ll look up is the closest skate shop, followed by looking to see if they’ve got a video. A shop video might become a key text to skate culture in its own right, like PJ Ladd’s Wonderful, Horrible Life helmed by Dave Kordan, Matt Roman, and Arty Vagianos for Coliseum. Talk about showcasing your local haunts for the world to see; Wonderful, Horrible Life was the building block of four skaters who would go on to earn pro shoes—in addition to Jereme Rogers’ rap career, Alexis Sablone’s Masters in Architecture at MIT, and the skate shop she co-owns in New Haven, Plush.

The video solidified Boston’s identity as a hub of east coast tech flanked by endless granite, and even more remarkable was that at the time, you found out about it through word of mouth. I’m pretty sure I downloaded it off of Kazaa because it was so hard to find a copy. A truly special skate shop video might have great influence on those outside of the store’s immediate orbit, and it was Coliseum’s (arguably, all-time greatest) shop video that was the straw that broke the camel’s back on getting me to finish college in Boston.

But this story isn’t one about the “greatest” shop videos ever produced. Rather, it’s an exploration of what principles “the skate shop video” is built on, achieves, and offers to skateboarding writ large, each in their own special way

Lotties Skate Shop Must Be Stopped

Lotties (Los Angeles, California)
Directed By Daniel Wheatley (2019)

Nick Michel, fakie backside 180 as seen in Lottie’s Skate Shop Must Be Stopped | Kris Burkhardt

The post-lockdown vibe shift was massive, and we’re either still processing it, or in some cases it’s still unfolding in real time. As usual, skaters were ahead of things. The post-dork revolution was bubbling up in the late 2010s—a front shove into a wallride here, a gap-to-long grind there, and all on spots that resemble rejected contraptions for the board game Mouse Trap.

When Daniel Wheatley got started on Lottie’s Skate Shop Must Be Stopped, Lottie’s hadn’t done an official video, but had put out some impressive co-branded edits (‘On God’), including a Danny Brady solo part (‘The Burning Man’) and another from Dane Barker that made waves. “I knew the level the skating needed to be at,” says Wheatley.

However, availability for the older crowd shifted, as happens around scene and shop productions. “I wanted to get some fresh faces that could bring it. I saw Nick [Michel] and Frankie [Decker] really rocking with Lottie’s in Vegas and it made me want to reach out to them,” says Wheatley.

Michel stands out in the video, whose part is more poignant when considering the life event he was navigating along the way. “To see him push himself physically and mentally, all while going through the death of his mother, it just was unbelievable,” says Wheatley. “There were days of pure joy, and there were days of stress, tears, and unbearable sadness. I’ve never seen someone push themselves as hard, and be so up for the process, all while battling something so much larger.”

Lottie’s Skate Shop Must Be Stopped by Daniel Wheatley starring Nick Michel, Dustin Henry, David Clark, Frankie Decker Jr., Josh Pall and featuring Jerry Hsu, Kevin “Spanky” Long, Andrew Allen, Andrew Reynolds, Danny Brady and more.

Antisocial Summer

Antisocial Skate Shop (Vancouver, Canada)
Directed by Shari White and Anjelo Fajardo (2024)

Rick McCrank, 360 flip | Vancouver, Canada | Shari White | Published in Cole Nowicki’s profile of McCrank in Closer #9

Right off the rip in Antisocial’s latest video, we get Rick McCrank blasting an ollie between propped up bumps. Michelle Pezel and Rick have both been elder statespeople in Vancouver, and both routinely cite supporting their skate community as a pillar of the shop. 

The fruits of their labor are evident throughout the video, from pros like Dustin Henry with backwards-that-look-backwards manuals to Breana Geering’s ledge and bank tricks that channel the earlier eras of her bosses at Crailtap. Meanwhile, locals like Amadou Diallo, Hasumi Iida, Connor Belvis and Ryan Bjorgan use power and next-generational-approaches to redefine what hucking can look like.

“It was the loveliest group I’ve ever gotten to film with,” says Una Farrar, whose nonchalant style is also on display. Shari White, a Skate Witch and Mess Skate Mag co-founder, was a fixture in wrangling the skaters together and getting the video done, and carrying the torch of the shop’s ethos of caring for scene. “Shari was there for everything under the sun,” says Farrar. “From filming and editing, booking accommodation, travel, food and skate spots, as well as mental and emotional challenges, she covered it all.”

Antisocial Summer by Shari White and Anjelo Fajardo starring Rick McCrank, Breana Geering, Dustin Henry, Una Farrar, Amadou Diallo, Hasumi Iida, Ryan Bjorgan, Connor Belvis and more.

“cherry”

Supreme (New York, NY)
Directed by William Strobeck (2014)

Dylan Rieder, wallie to backside smith as seen in Supreme’s “cherry” | Bronx, NY | Jonathan Mehring

At the time of William Strobeck’s paradigm-shifting debut full-length video, Supreme was still privately-owned, many other skateshops were dabbling in pricey cut-and-sew clothes, and it was providing countless cool skaters with chill jobs, oftentimes making connections that led to careers in and out of the industry. 

Today, they’re still giving skaters jobs, but the brand has changed hands a few times. However, “cherry” was a pivotal moment not just for Supreme but for skate videos in general, blurring a web edit’s nameless montage with full-length aesthetics and a $150-a-hoodie budget. 

If a skate shop video is a means to highlight a store and the skaters surrounding it, positioning local up-and-coming youngsters alongside the established and respected grown-ups, then “cherry” took the formula to Hollywood proportions. It turned their shop kids—Tyshawn Jones, Kevin Bradley, Sean Pablo—into overnight superstars as Jason Dill and Anthony Van Engelen concurrently brought them into the first lineup of Fucking Awesome as a hardgoods brand.

Some of the other shop locals included pros like Alex Olson and Dylan Rieder. Both stylish and scrutinized in their own rights, Rieder had already delivered a hell of a part when Olson’s guest tricks appeared, and by the saxophone solo of INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart”, it was clear you were getting something unprecedented. “I don’t remember what I expected from “cherry” upon first viewing, but by the time Rieder’s part began more than halfway through,” wrote journalist Mike Munzenrider about the part for Quartersnacks. “It was obvious I was watching something different than what had come before; [Dylan’s] section made for a further break from the past.

Gospel

Venue Skateboards (Richmond, Virginia)
Directed by Will Rosenstock (2017)

There are some places where you expect there to be a scene. People skate everywhere but scenes usually exist because of one of three things: a plethora of reasonably skate-able street spots, a good shop, or worst case scenario: a public skatepark with no good shop nearby. If you asked me when I was younger where I thought big scenes were, I would have picked predictable urban hubs; Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Miami, New York City, and Boston. Richmond, Virginia’s Bust Crew was integral to me eventually understanding that what’s going on in smaller cities is usually cooler. 

In the case of Richmond, there’s a good shop, Venue Skateboards that fortifies a healthy scene. “Maury [Blankinship], the co-owner of Venue, set the foundation for Richmond,” said Quasi Skateboards videographer and Bust Crew ringleader, Will Rosenstock. “He always pushed everyone to get it done and led by example. He and his wife Kim celebrated 30 years of Venue and 11 full-length shop videos last fall.” Rosenstock got Dominion 2, an old shop video from what would eventually become Venue, and fell in love. “I bought a VHS copy off an older kid in my neighborhood and it was the only video I watched for at least two years.”

Venue’s hard work paid off, and by the time filming started for Gospel, the scene was rich. One of its brightest stars, Gilbert Crockett, had become a household name in skateboarding while rooted in (and finding new routes around) his crusty hometown spots. “All the younger guys were starting to get hooked up for the first time,” he said about filming for Gospel. “Ty [Beall] went pro [for ScumCo & Sons] off his part, Gil filmed his part while simultaneously filming for a Quasi video, and Maury and Travis [Pulley] were in their forties filming some of the coolest stuff I’d ever seen them do.” Leading by example, indeed.

Gospel by Will Rosenstock for Venue Skateboards starring Maury Blankinship, Travis Pulley, Ty Beall, Daniel Ravenal, Caleb McNeely, Will Rosenstock, Erich Bielefeldt, Josh Swyers, Caleb Ocasio, Gilbert Crockett and Jon Rowe.

Reason To Believe

Faith Skate Supply (Birmingham, Alabama)
Directed by Joel Dembowski (2006)

James Hardy, smith | Thailand, 2009 | Chad Tim Tim | Published in Closer #8 (2024)

When Peter Karvonen opened Faith Skate Supply in ‘95, it was one of Alabama’s first skate shops, meaning that in addition to trying to make the shop a financial success, there was also a scene to build. He took inspiration from a neighboring shop’s video. “Ruin Skate Shop really levelled up what a shop video was back then, and being in Atlanta, they were our closest neighbors to keep up with.” As the scene in Birmingham grew and coalesced around Faith, it became clear that it was time for a video. 

“Whether [the video] stoked out the local kids to have something to strive for,” Karvonen said, “or whether it showcased talents to the outside world,” he knew it was an opportunity to show off the scene and make connections from the city to the rest of the industry. 

The end product, Reason To Believe, showcased the teenage years of one of the Faith locals, the late James Hardy, eventually leading him to the big leagues. “James had a growth spurt during filming and we had to trash half of his footage,” Karvonen said. “The difference in power and size of tricks suddenly levelled up immensely. He really came into his own talent while filming that video, and it caught the eye of Jamie Thomas and Jim Thiebaud. It jump-started his career.

Out Of Body Experience

Orchard Skateshop (Boston, Massachusetts)
Directed by Armin Backman (2010)

Orchard Skateshop’s Out of Body Experience starring Jerry Fowler, Kevin Coakley, Bill Orsi, Jeff Valcourt, Lee Berman, Fritz Mead, Broderick Gumpright and “friends and family from Boston and beyond”.

The boat sailed a long time ago on meritocracy in the skateboard industry but it’s always a treat to see somebody who doesn’t get paid to skate giving it their all. Case in point, Orchard co-founder Broderick Gumpwright of Cape Cod, who filmed what would become the ender in a video featuring Jerry Fowler and Kevin Coakley parts, while working on the floor and moonlighting as a valet. Broderick rules, is big into metal detecting now, and helped inspire a 12-year-old Brian Reid. 

“I was big on all the Cape skaters,” says Brian Reid, who saw the video at 12. “It showed you could do the thing when you came from my area. Seeing Jahmal [Williams] was pretty sick too. I remember imagining I was him.”

Getting the video for Christmas also sent Reid on the same path as countless other Cape Cod skaters: up Route 3 to Boston, which is where he’d eventually earn his name on a DGK board. “It definitely made me want to get out and explore the city, seeing how many different spots there were and how many people were up there skating was kind of an eye-opening thing,” he says. “I remember feeling that chilling feeling you get when you watch someone skating that hypes you up.”

Welcome to MIA

MIA Skate Shop (Miami, Flordia)
Directed by Josh Stewart

Ben Gore, frontside nosebluntslide | Miami, Florida | Josh Stewart

Miami spots have been in blockbuster skate videos for decades, but Josh Stewart’s b-roll and edit on Welcome to MIA make the city outside of the Challenger Monument Triangle stand out. There are beautiful shots of palm trees, art deco buildings, neon and beaches. The city’s ties to skateboarding are on display too, with MIA’s owner Ed Selego tapping Habitat teammate Fred Gall, and Steve Nesser for guest tricks in the friend section, a mostly-night time part from one time-MIA-transplant Jahmal Williams, and a double part from Brian DeLaTorre to close things out.

MIA unfortunately closed in 2017, but the shop’s influence lingers on through Ben Gore (who filmed one of his first full parts for the video) and Ryan Garshell (who helped film it and would go on to found GX1000). It’s perhaps unintentional, but DeLaTorre’s New York-heavy part and the video’s closing cinematic shots also reveal a destiny that befalls countless Floridian skaters: making a pilgrimage to Brooklyn and ending up staying a while

Welcome to MIA by Josh Stewart starring Joel Meinholz, Ben Gore, Ed Selego, Paul DeOliveria, Jahmal Williams, Chris Williams, Danny Fuenzalida, Forrest Kirby and Brian DeLaTorre.

Baby Blue

Blue Tile Lounge (Toronto, Canada)
Directed by Devin Guiney (2018)

Blue Tile Lounge’s Baby Blue starring Bobby Dekeyzer, Morgan Smith, Lee Yankou, Jed Anderson, Evan Hay, John Lennie, Pat O’Rourke, Joe Yates, Dylan Barnes, Jay Brown, Ryan DesRoches, Nolan Waller and Darrell Smith.

Neither of Toronto’s biggest spots — Toronto Dominion Centre or the late bank-to-curb under the CN Tower — show up in Baby Blue. Instead of seeing what carted-around pros would hit on a filming trip, this video is all about the gem spots that require locals’ polish to really shine. Ryan DesRoches wallies out of the end of grinds on a windowsill ledge, Dylan Barnes unlocks a seemingly unskateable rock with a pair of quick ollies into a nosepick into a steep banked side, and there are tricks and BGPs from The Bunt’s Cephas Benson and Donovan Jones. 

Being the biggest city in Canada by population, the local pros also contributed. Jed Anderson mixes a pro snowboarder’s comfort with long handrails and hubbas with a skater’s shove-it out sensibility, and we see Morgan Smith and Bobby De Keyzer stacking clips together on a road trip through upstate New York. It also is bookended by parts from fallen local skaters, Justin Bokma and Darrell Smith, framing it as a love letter to the ties that bind a local shop and scene together.

Penal Code 100A

FTC (San Francisco, California)
Directed by Aaron Meza (1996)

Scenes from the introduction to FTC’s Penal Code 100A by Aaron Meza | Top row: Bobby Puleo, Scott Johnson, Mike Carroll | Middle row: Kelch, Karl Watson, Shamil Randle | Bottom: Keith Hufnagel, Marcus McBride, Mike York Photographer | Design by Sammy Spiteri Published in Aaron Meza’s interview by Anthony Pappalardo for Closer #3

Penal Code is a tapestry of legendary pros “just cruising” parts — Keith Hufnagel, Scott Johnston, and a shared one with Rick Howard and Mike Carroll — held together with guest tricks via LA-based videographer Socrates Leal and NYC’s R.B. Umali. You can feel the friendship that ties the post-Rocco California’s early tech legends together here, and they’re only enhanced by Aaron Meza’s deft open format soundtrack.

Penal Code 100A transcends the pantheon of debate for “best shop video” — it’s one of the best skate videos of all time. Although Bobby Puleo and gritty cellar door spots is memeable at this point, and respect to the best bulkhead skater of all time, this part is special. Lines at Pier 7, daytime clips in California sun, and a few nighttime NYC shots for good measure set a high bar.

Nick Matthews for Venture and Uprise

Uprise Skate Shop (Chicago, Illinois)
Directed by Blake Matthews (2022)

Nick Matthews, ollie at Chase Plaza as seen his Venture X Uprise part | Chicago, IL | Bart Jones

The spot where they used to sell DVDs at your local is filled with hats, socks, or some other accessory now, but this is not to say that the shop video can’t evolve with the times. For a few years it seemed like the Matthews brothers were producing so much footage that the industry didn’t know what to do with it all. Why not give three minutes of it up to share between your truck sponsor and the shop that helped you land sponsors? 

“Nick and myself would just film with no plan on where it was going to go,” said older brother and filmer, Blake. Inspired by previous videos from RQ Boardshop and Uprise, the two of them set out to make their mark on Chase Bank and Chicago’s other infamously immediate bust plazas. 

Matthews rode the momentum into a Venture colorway, and leaned locally for the accompanying video. “The majority of the footage is in Chicago, so it made sense to make something with Uprise.” Chicago has gotten more shine in the past few years than the two decades before them in skate media, and if you’re wondering why, this is a great place to start. Uprise is, too.

Nick Matthews for Venture and Uprise by Nick Matthews

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Ian Browning is a journalist and contributing writer to Closer based in Brooklyn, New York whose work explores the intersection of skateboarding and wider culture. His writing has been published in Quartersnacks, Plank Skate Mag, Village Psychic, Jenkem, Eater, and Eggs Report, a photo book about the Boston skate spot ‘Eggs’ published by Orchard Skate Shop.

This story originally appeared in Closer #12 under the headline ‘This Thing of Ours: What Makes a Skate Shop Video A Skate Shop Video?’

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