Artefact – Nick Richards bids farewell to London

An interview with filmmaker Nick Richards about his independent video, artefact, which you can watch here.

How did you get into making skate videos?
Soon after discovering skateboarding through a school friend who lived up the road, I found myself in A&E with a broken arm. I’m from a rural place and I’d just met all these cool, interesting people who I suddenly had no reason to hang out with, so I decided to get a camera. I found a point-and-shoot digicam in the Argos catalogue, begged my parents for it and went out one-armed filming with my mates in a cast and full-arm sling. I got really hooked on it. I was mesmerised by skate videos. I remember thinking Adio’s One Step Beyond was the maddest shit I’d ever seen, all the motion graphics and whatnot. I was a nerdy little kid trying to replicate all that stuff on my home computer.

Are there any early video projects that you’re especially proud of?
We did one or two full-lengths as kids, which were always really fun. A bit later on, I did a project for Red Bull in Bangkok (Siam Siam but Different). I was pretty proud of that because I put a lot of time into pre-production. I was out there for 10 months figuring out where all the spots were and trying to get the go-ahead for the budget. That project was my baby. I picked the people I wanted and made it happen. 

What prompted your move to Thailand in 2014?
I tried living in London the first time in 2013. I did what I could to stay there, but video (work) opportunities were not as easily available as now, so I went back to Cardiff with my tail between my legs after almost a year. My best mate Danny Williams – who’s sadly not with us any more – had just moved out there, and he said: “If you’re not doing anything in Cardiff, I’ll get you a flight and you can come and stay with me.” I had about £2000 in the bank from a couple of Red Bull projects I’d done while living in London, so I thought: “Fuck it.” In terms of working out there, I’d made those Red Bull connections already, so I figured anything could happen. That’s how Siam Siam but Different came about. It was kind of the golden era when you could approach Red Bull with an idea and get it commissioned, which was fucking amazing.

Moving on a few years, how did your Nocturnup series come about?
Daryl (Dominguez) came up with the idea after a trip to Thailand when he skated predominantly at night. The first episode was just Daryl, Dylan (Hughes) and I. Considering there were only two skateboarders, it was really productive.   

How did you find the schedule?
It was all right, but seeing only an hour of sunlight before going skating did make us delirious. It probably wasn’t the brightest idea for a project, but aesthetically it was quite interesting and obviously there was no one about at night, which made access to a lot of spots easier. It was an awesome trip and we got the bug after that. We went to Hong Kong the following year then Taipei the year after. It was a recurring thing every winter up until 2020, when our trip to Singapore got cancelled because of the pandemic.

During your second stint in London, you have balanced freelance work outside skateboarding with work for skate brands like New Balance Numeric and Vans. How do these fields of work compare?
My work isn’t generally in skateboarding, so when I get paid to do little skate trips here and there, it’s fucking awesome. You get paid to do what you do in your free time anyway, and you get to do it with professionals, so you see that side of it. Freelance is a funny one. You’re just jumping from rock to rock a lot of the time, but it all adds up and helps towards your overall living. A lot of skate brands don’t pay too badly. You’re probably going to get a third or a half of your usual rate – or maybe even your full rate, depending on the client – but that’s fine, because it’s a block of work.

What type of work do you do outside skateboarding?
I’ve done a lot of work with production companies as a camera operator, and more recently, as a DOP. It’s a bit of everything really: promotional content and events all the way up to TV shows.

You’ve recently wrapped up filming for an independent project with a working title of artefact. How did this project come about?
After the Baglady video I worked on (Pack Light) wrapped, I got drafted into a project through Harry (King, Red Bull), another Greetings from London film. I made one back in the day, when I was living in London the first time around. This one was part of a series for which different crews filmed scene edits in Glasgow, Manchester and London, culminating in a fourth with Jamie Foy, Jake Wooten and Margie Didal skating those cities. I really enjoyed working on the London project because I got people involved who I was already filming here. They got paid per clip, so I was putting money in their pockets for going out skating. People were pretty gassed to come out and we developed a crew off the back of that. We all became friends and that led to this project I’m working on now. 

The scope of this project grew from a short farewell-to-London video to a full-length. I remember you were planning to leave London in autumn 2024 and set a deadline for the end of that summer.
Yeah. Leaving London was always on the cards because the rent where we (Nick and his wife, Mithi) live goes up every year and we reached a point where we didn’t want to spend any more. In terms of the project evolving into a full-length, we were accumulating clips on the timeline pretty quickly. We had 20 minutes after a year and now, after two and a half years, we have 35 minutes and a lot of it is pretty good stuff. It got to a point where people were getting so much footage, I started to think about individual parts.

Is it fair to say that with some exceptions, the crew is comprised of lesser-known skaters?
Yeah, absolutely. That wasn’t the plan, but when you go out with people who are sponsored, you don’t know where the clips are going to end up and if I film something, I’m usually quite precious about it. I want to do something with it myself. Regardless of whether they’re well known or not, everyone in this video can get really good clips. Most of them work nine to five and put whatever time they had towards the project, which I’m really grateful for.   

Like Al Hodgson, who we also interviewed for this issue, you are a dedicated spot hunter. Your spot map is pretty well known in London skate circles, with around 800 locations pinned. 
I’ve had it for a few years now. My memory isn’t the best and I might not even remember what’s down the road, so the map really helps.

What’s your process for finding spots?
(Google) Street View. Google has a 3D render for London. It’s like playing The Sims. You can zoom in on a ledge and if you can’t see it properly, you can just go on Street View and see it as it is. In London, when you actually go to check out something you’ve found, usually it’s not even a spot. It’s all part of the fun though and if you put in the groundwork, maybe one in five ends up being a pretty legit spot. 

You usually drive skaters around London when filming skateboarding, which is uncommon here. Talk us through some of the benefits and downsides.
It’s really good in winter, when it’s under five degrees out and you don’t want to walk between locations. You can light up spots after dark more easily too. It’s also really good for getting to the harder-to-reach places that public transport doesn’t really serve and if you’ve got a few people in your car, they can rifle off ideas and you can just drive to different places. The downsides are: the congestion charge, traffic, car legs and the privilege of deciding not to skate the next spot because getting there was easy.

Who has impressed you most from the crew, for whatever reason?
Chris Oliver because he’s 10-20 years older than most of the people in this video and he’s got more drive to skate than any of us. He’s got a full part and let’s just say it’s not stuff you’d expect from a 44-year-old. Aside from Chris, I’m always impressed by Jack (Thompson) – he’s just unbelievable – and Ranga (Josh Harper) too, for his total disregard for personal safety. He’s done some fucked stuff.

For the camera nerds out there, what set-up did you use to film this video?
I’ve been using the Canon XF200 with the (Century) MK1 fisheye.

From your perspective, what is the value in making a full-length independent video in 2025? You often hear that the format is dead or dying, yet people around the world are still regularly putting them out.
I guess it’s not dead, really. In my head, it is (laughs). That was part of the attraction of making this video and partly why I called it artefact. I felt that skateboarding was missing it (the full-length format) a bit. In terms of the value, personally, it’s not really about the end result. You get to hang out with a solid group of mates for an extended period of time, work on something you all think is worthwhile and encourage each other.

You’re moving from London to Cardiff next month. To what extent is this a farewell-to-London project?
It was always going to culminate with me going. The idea was to leave something behind that encapsulated my time here and the friendships I made.

Do you plan to film skateboarding in Cardiff?
Possibly. Harry Deane is an excellent filmer doing a good job documenting the scene there already, so I don’t want to interfere too much. I’m actually just looking forward to being a bit closer to nature and part of the reason for moving was to give our dog a garden, so there will be a lot more dog walks and chilling out. Cardiff’s awesome. It’s starting to get all these state-of-the-art skateparks and there’s Spit & Sawdust, which is insane. CSC (Cardiff Skateboard Club) is holding it down and has been for years. The scene is really strong, so it will be nice to feel part of that again.