Josh Malone “Atonement”

Trailer

Chappy (@chappy.jumps) sat down for a brief conversation with Josh (@jushmelon) about his process and some of the special moments in the film.

Chappy: Between the opening shot, music, and the religious iconography throughout, the whole video is tinged in edgy catholic shame. What is it you’re atoning for with this video? 

Josh: We had this idea that the spot was our cross, or the spot was our church. Going to the spot—when I’m there, everything is washed away, maybe my sins are washed away. When I’m out there working— and I really thought about this project like work— it was a totally different world. An escape for sure. 

Chappy: They say that amateurs wait for inspiration to strike, but professionals go to work.

Josh: Yeah, I’ve had a lot of fun doing parkour, but I wanted to try my hardest and really push myself for this project. And not in the “spin as many times as I can” way that I have in the past. I think there’s a lot of clips in the video that mean so much to me but might not mean much to anyone else, just because of the mental battle I was going through. I tried to choose challenges that forced me to go out and get scared, even if they might even have been easy for me once I broke that mental barrier.

Chappy: What made you want to move in this direction stylistically?

Josh: It was originally Egg’s idea. They were kind of the creative director on this project, and they took the idea and ran with it. I really wanted to step back and not be the editor, and only represent the athlete, the body. Egg was building lines for me at spots they found, and keeping me responsible for getting clips. 

atonement product photo
“Atonement” Shirt
$30.00

Designed and hand printed by Trevor Kunkel onto our favorite blanks. Merch for the project “Atonement” featuring Josh Malone, live on our site.

Chappy: If the spot is your church and Egg is building your lines, does that make them your minister?

Josh: If this was a religious experience, then they definitely guided me through it. I would be telling them to coach me. I really like being coached for some reason, especially because Egg wasn’t telling me how they would do the line, they were telling me how I needed to do it. 

Chappy: In most of these clips, after landing you seem almost unsurprised or simply frustrated. I feel this resonates with anyone who has pushed for a line or a trick until landing it is no longer satisfying. Which of these lines was the most taxing for you, mentally or physically, and why?

Josh: Probably the gainer to one-and-three. It was so exhausting and I was really just forcing it around. I was also really anxious that we were going to get kicked. I was rushing to get it done fast, we literally showed up and I just started throwing myself at it until I was moaning on the ground. Also the double side. I was crying after the first send. Like I hit the ground and just started sobbing. And sometimes I feel like it can come off as cringe or extra, but I’m outside of those feelings and I’m just in my space, my church. I’ll be screaming at a session, then I’ll do the hard thing and start crying, then I’ll go do it again. It speaks to where my head was at the time. I wasn’t in the best place, and it always felt so good to scream. I really like battling my demons at the spot.

Chappy: How did you decide you wanted a clip of a double cork from atop a moving vehicle?

Josh: Oh man. Fuck, there’s a classic skate clip where this guy climbs out of his van, and does a—is it a kickflip or a tre-flip?— either way, he does it off this van. And I thought that was sick as fuck. We went out to film and every spot was bust, but we found that empty parking lot. 

Chappy: In a video bursting with ender potential, how did you manage to settle on your final clip?

Josh: I would say that half was because the video was cut short thanks to my ankle. There were other things I wanted to do that could have been the ender. The Winona Ditch clip felt really right to me because of how much other action sports have been inspiring us lately. It’s a well known Denver skate spot, and having parkour clips there alongside skating, bmx, and snowboarding, makes it relatable to those other communities. I also did double a-twist, but we settled on the backflip because everyone can appreciate that clip. 

Chappy: Totally, sometimes less is more. So, this video is rife with tension, between the clips themselves, between your emotional states, the spots, even the b-roll. Was that intentional?

Josh: Yeah, the tension that I was bringing to the spots was very real. I was in business mode and we were there to get things done. While that brings me so much joy, it looks so painful, like I’m in a certain kind of hell in the moment. There’s this push and pull, like I can’t get to that happy place unless I put myself through hell.

Chappy: At the risk of using another edgy catholic word, it’s almost like you’re shrivening yourself. Like bareback, cat-of-nine kind of shit.

Josh: I definitely knew that I wasn’t going to make a good part if I was comfortable. I tried to find as much discomfort as I could. 

Chappy: How do you approach editing your projects to evoke the feeling you want? 

Josh: Me, Ross, and Egg looked at this as more business than pleasure this time. We’ve had so much fun together, but we wanted to see what we could make if we really pushed this. Training was on the schedule just like our day jobs. Egg, Ross, Ezra, Leo, Trevor— I may have suffered doing the tricks, but they suffered filming me too. Filming was almost harder than the tricks most days, and you could probably say the same for the edit. We all put ourselves through hell to work on this, and it sucked in the moment, but we aren’t gonna grow if we’re comfortable. We gotta slog through the mud and see what we can get done. 

Closing thoughts from Josh

I’m super grateful to be in this position, to be one of the chosen few who get a Commons part, and to have people who want to watch me move. I’m grateful to all my homies who have put the work in beside me. Show your friends who skate, bike, whatever, show them parkour. Thank you for watching, I’m stoked to get this video out.