Behind ‘In the Gutter Looking at Stars’: the new Australian Converse Cons video with filmmaker Izrayl Brindson

In the Gutter Looking at the Stars is the first video project by Converse Cons’ Australia division.

A video that features the incredible team of Noah ‘Nog’ Smith, Reef Condon, Corey Young, Astro Marty, Pat Roberts, Jedd McKenzie, Louie Dodd and Nathan Jackson each hand-picked by the new team manager Jacob Boyd-Skinner. Two years in the making the video features footage from trips the team went on to Adelaide and Regional Victoria as well as a bunch of footage in the skaters’ locales of Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle.

I caught up with the filmmaker behind the project, Izrayl Brindson the day after the Melbourne premiere to talk about the project. 

Congratulations on finishing the video! How do you feel now it’s done? 

I’m stoked. I am really happy that it’s out. It is the first time that I’ve done a video for a shoe company and I am so stoked that it is for Converse. Converse’s international videos are my favourite, so to do one for Australia I am really happy.

This is your first time doing a video that is longer than a part right?

I did Spitfire Scenic, little bits with Brass [Nick Boserio] and then the Come Sundown stuff. This is the first video with a big group of people. I couldn’t have done it without the contributing filmers, they helped out a lot and I am super thankful. My son was born halfway through, so it was a pretty full-on period.

How did you get involved with the project?

About three years ago I had heard that Jacob [Boyd-Skinner] got a job at Converse and was trying to revamp the skate program. So, I sent him a message on Instagram letting him know I’d be keen to do video stuff if they needed anyone. He called me I flew to Melbourne pretty soon after to film an ad for Instagram with a few of the existing team riders. From there Jacob was like let’s keep doing more. A few months later Jacob had put on some new people, and I came down to do a regional Victoria trip to film a tour video. It ended up raining the whole time and we didn’t end up getting as much stuff as we hoped. I said to Jacob that I think we should save the footage and keep filming for a longer video, from there it turned into this.

We went on a trip to Adelaide in December and that was so successful. If it wasn’t for that trip, I feel like the video would be three minutes.

Was that regional Victoria trip the official start of the video?

Yeah, we were supposed to make the tour clip, but Jacob and I decided it would be better to try stretch to it out and make a bigger project.

Who is in the video?

It’s Noah ‘Nog’ Smith, Reef Condon, Corey Young, Astro Marty, Pat Roberts, Jedd McKenzie, Louie Dodd and Nathan Jackson. Jacob has done a really good job at putting together a team that works really well, everyone compliments each other. Everyone fits in together, even Jedd is a bowl guy, but his footage still fit in so well.

Yeah, Jacob did such a good job with the team.

Yeah, he has never done it before either. He has put together this incredible team, he’s done this video, it’s all thanks to him. He’s done something that so many people before him have tried to do before him at Converse in Australia and failed but he has succeeded.

It is so impressive. How was editing the video?

It was incredible. I had complete creative freedom over the video. Jacob basically just told me I could do whatever I wanted. I worked with Aaron Winsbury on all the typeface titles and Marcus Dixon did the main title. I chose all the music too, when he watched the video for the first time with his boss, his boss was like ‘Man the first song is pretty loud’ and I had to explain that the whole thing was the whole thing starts slow and ramps up. That was basically the only feedback I got.

How was it for you living in Newcastle working on the video when the rest of the team is in Melbourne and Sydney?

Personally, I like operating in that way. I’ll do three-week stints in Melbourne, and it would just be three weeks of trying to film as much as possible. It’s nice having that time limit, I feel like we end up having such a good time and it’s productive too. I would always be so excited to come down. I was coming with my wife and our son too, so it was a good excuse to get away from Newcastle.

Every time I spoke to anyone who is in the video, they would always mention how good Jedd McKenzie is. How was it having him on the trips skating so different to the rest of the crew?

Man, obviously he’s a transition guy but he is just so good at skateboarding. We went to a bump-to-ledge in Adelaide, Corey popped the tile for it, and everyone kind of got over it and sat down after half an hour or so. Then Jedd rolled up and 50-50’d first go, and everyone just lost it [laughs]. He ended up nosegrinding it, but I didn’t put it in the video because it didn’t fit in super well with his transition skating, so I’m sorry for that Jedd. He is the best, he is one of the main guys that ties the whole crew together, he is just so down to earth. There is no ego with him, he is just so genuine and friendly with everyone. By the end, if you ask anyone on the team about him, he is the favourite.

I’ve never filmed vert skating before, but he was always so understanding if I ever botched the filming, he would always be down to try it again. He is just so mellow. He is probably my favourite person to film on the team.

Who has your favourite footage in the video?

I love everyone’s footage, everyone has really good stuff. My favourite clips would be this tre flip Nog did in the Central Coast, the footage I filmed with Reef in Adelaide and Pat of course all his stuff was really good this frontside flip he did at a Hungry Jacks in Adelaide. That whole session actually was incredible.

Yeah, what’s the story behind the Hungry Jacks session?

We saw a photo of the spot from an Instagram spot page. We couldn’t get onto the guy, Eddie who runs the page to find out where the spot is. Reef and I were looking from above at every single Hungry Jacks in Adelaide trying to find it. We couldn’t find it and then Eddie responded and told us where it was, so we drove out half an hour away from the city to go to this spot. It is this perfect kicker over this flat gap. It had a bin and parking block in the way, so we moved those. We started skating then this worker came out and started beefing us. He came out and he’s like twenty.

Supposedly there’s this thing that misogynistic guy Andrew Tate does with his hands and the guy came out doing that with his hands. Jedd saw and just screamed out ‘You’re not fucking Andrew Tate buddy put your hands down’. The worker just goes ‘Alright you guys want to skate it, I’m going to have my break’ and he lays down in the middle of the gap. We were arguing with him for forty minutes, and then he went inside and called the cops. The cops came, they didn’t really care they just told us to not skate the kicker. Then they bailed and we started skating again. Reef did his tre flip first try and then Pat did his frontside flip after twenty shots, it was so perfect. As Pat landed it the cops pulled up next to me and the sirens rang, the cop came out of the car and was like ‘Mate that was amazing’ [laughs]. We left and got back in the van, and we were all so hyped. While we were driving, I was like fuck it, let’s prank call them. So, I called the Hungry Jacks back and I put on this old lady voice, Marlene Thompson. I was like ‘I’ve just come in to get a Chicken Nugget meal and it’s missing a nugget’. I went on this whole thing for like twenty minutes and I was getting kind of over the prank call, and I was like ‘You sound like a little fuckwit’. He clicked onto it and was like ‘Have fun on your fucking skateboards you losers’, we all started pissing ourselves laughing. It was so funny.

Holy shit. That is amazing [laughs]. For your last few videos, you’ve come up with some good names for them, this one is no different how did you come up with the name ‘In the Gutter Looking at Stars’?

It’s from a poem by Oscar Wilde, he says ‘We’re all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars’. On the last day of filming for the video Nog and I were in Woy Woy at this crazy bookstore near his house, we were just going through books and Nog pulled out this Oscar Wilde book that has the quote on the cover, and I was like ‘Yep, that’s it. That’s what I’m calling the video’. 

Also, the Converse star, too.

I didn’t even click with that and then I told Jacob that’s what I wanted to call it. He asked why and maybe this is a bit negative but making the video was pretty mentally challenging at times, but in the end the positive was that we finished the video and are really happy with it.

A stroke of accidental genius. Do you have any last words and anyone you want to thank?

I want to thank my wife; we had our son in the middle of filming the video so obviously there were a few points where I thought I would have to hand the video off to someone else, but she was so down for me to keep doing this. My son too, he’s super young but thank you to him. Thanks to Olly West I stayed at his house a few times, Nick and Britney Boserio because I stayed at their house a bunch too. Jacob of course, this video wouldn’t have come together without him, I can’t speak any more highly of him, he smashed it. All the skaters and all the additional filmers I couldn’t have done it without them. Thank you to all the musicians. Aaron Winsbury and Marcus Dixon for doing the titles, Andrew Nash and James Turvey for giving me feedback on the video. Thanks to everyone who was involved.