With Old Cameras and Trippy, Lo-Fi Visuals, Jackson Casey Is Making Skate Videos Fun Again

Jackson Casey is a 23-year-old filmmaker and skateboarder from Michigan who's behind some of the best independent skate videos coming out today. And as with every other art form in a world under the Internet's reign, he's producing more adventurous work using way less than his big-wig contemporaries, who are armed with pricey camera equipment and relatively huge budgets.

Last month, he released Couchlock Odyssey, which served as the first proper introduction to Pyramid Country, the skate company he started with friends. I caught up with him recently to get a peek behind his process and of what's ahead.

MOTHERBOARD: With all your work you're able to get footage out of a Sony VX1000 that looks unlike most skate videos.

Jackson Casey: Yeah, I spend a lot of time color-correcting every clip. I try to make them subtly different to where it has its own look. You can still tell it's a VX, just not—I don't even own a camera right now actually, I'm borrowing one.

All the VXs I've had in the past two years have had something fucked up. The lens will be glued on or something, and I'd get weird lens flares. A lot of times things get mistaken for something I did in post-production, but really it's just a shitty camera. That's kind of why I started to edit the way I do, because I'd have some shitty cameras that were glitching a lot.

What other cameras do you shoot with? What do you edit with?

Lately, I use an old Sony Hi8 camera primarily, either that or a VX1000. From time-to-time there will be some iPod Nano footage in there—just kind of whatever, really. To edit, I just use Final Cut Pro; Adobe After Effects a little bit, Photoshop just a little bit, but mainly just Final Cut.

Over the years you guys have amassed a little bit of a cult following on the Internet, and you guys put years of hard work into these videos. How do you deal with the Internet's sense of entitlement to get everything for free? Worship Friendship and Boyish got physical releases, but Couchlock went straight onto the Internet. 

With Boyish and Worship Friendship, I didn't have anything to attach to it. I'll put out a DVD, people buy it for a month, then the whole thing's online or forgotten about and gets swept under the rug. I don't really mind it ending up online. It is frustrating after putting a lot of work into it, but it's not the biggest deal to me.

With Couchlock, I just put it straight online because now I have something to attach it to, it's promoting Pyramid Country. It's a relief to now have something else to offer as well as the videos.

As far as shooting and editing, are you completely self-taught?

I did teach myself in that I didn't go to school for it or anything. I actually have to give all my credit to an online forum called Skate Perception. I remember on my first account, I put a video up and everyone hated on it so hard. I really wanted to make something people would like. I was like 13; I'd pay a lot of attention to what people would say on there. If I hadn't ever stumbled upon that website, I probably wouldn't have gone any further with it than my driveway.

What's your editing process like? Is it just you holed up in your room, or is it more collaborative?

I usually just stay up all night for a few weeks. Ryan Sublette and I pick out the music together usually. Other than that, I just edit by myself. I like to have a couple close homies to give me some feedback. The collaborative side lately is with JJ Horner. He makes all the 3D art.

Growing up, one of the best parts about watching skate videos was discovering new music, but nowadays it seems like every big skateboarding release just recycles a David Bowie or NWA or Judas Priest track that everyone's already heard 100 times. You seem to be a little more meticulous with your song choices. When did skate-video soundtracks get so fucking dull?

I don't know, I think that a lot of people don't take skateboarding videos that seriously. Some of the music I've used, I might not listen to in my car or my bedroom, but then I'll feel like it'd go really cool with some footage, like a score to a movie. A lot of times it's not really music, it's just sounds. Ryan Sublette, who also makes music under the name Adeodat Warfield, his stuff is featured a lot in the last two videos.

All your work carries a distinct style because of the cameras you use and because of your editing, do you ever see yourself shooting in HD with a newer camera?

I'm not opposed to it. I can't really see myself being able to afford it or my computer really being able to handle such huge files. That's kind of what's limiting me from doing it actually. I'm not really into the idea, but I'm not against it either. I feel like a lot of people make HD videos and don't really know how to use an HD camera. I would say that I don't expect me to go HD, but if I did I'd like to do some completely different shit than I've done before. There are a lot of avenues you can take with that that you can't necessarily take with a VX.

On multiple occasions I've seen coverage of you on ESPN's website. How'd that happen?

I don't know. I was fucking pissing my pants too. I was really nervous. Andrew Canon works at ESPN and approached me with the idea. He's from Phoenix and I've skated with him a few times. It was definitely kind of a nerve-racking experience, but it also made my parents think what I do isn't quite as dumb as they used to.

Are you guys working on a full-length Pyramid Country release?

Yeah, actually the next thing we're working on is in July, we're going on a trip to Portland and San Francisco. We're going to do a Thrasher exclusive—a little trip video. So you can except a little Pyramid Country trip video in August.