Don Luong is the man behind the Tum Yeto videos, a very talented filmer and editor. Following the recent release of Foundation’s “Today Tomorrow Forever” I hopped on a call with Don to talk through the video, some standout tricks, his editing process, and more.

🌀: Don, thank you for being down to chat. The video premiered a couple of weeks ago, then dropped online. What were you more nervous about: the premiere or the online release?

1,000% the premiere is always going to be way more nerve-racking. The thing about releasing it on the internet that is a little harder is that all the internet trolls come out, and you kind of have to block out that noise because for ten good comments, one bad comment can just destroy all the good that came out of it, you know?

So over the years, I’ve just kind of learned to ignore all comments, really good and bad. It sucks because people in my generation in skating, everyone’s so active on Slap, and they just send me all the good stuff. And I’m like, “Dude, I don’t even want to see it,” because I just know I’m going to want to go on there and look at what people have to say. And then I’m going to get like one insanely detailed, negative comment, and it’s just going to ruin me, you know? So I have gotten really good at not looking at comments. But to answer your question, premieres are always way crazier. Live reaction, the build-up, the whole team being in the same room.

🌀: The video opens up with an introduction part for Jessie Darnell and later features a Tanner Lawler section, who’s also new to the team. How did you decide where to include them in the video as the new members of the squad?

That’s a good question because, with this video specifically, it’s the first video that I’ve helmed from A to Z, just me. I didn’t have to get approval or creative input from anyone, which is such an honor for a brand to give me this type of free rein. With Toy Machine, it’s Ed and Sinclair. After Sinclair left F, even Todd Swank was like, “Just make it weird. Make it artsy. Make it cool. Make it raw.” And I’m like, okay, well, I’ve always kind of done that. I’ve kind of shaped the Foundation aesthetic over the years. It was weird to put together a video and not have anyone tell me or even go to anyone and be like, “Oh, maybe Tanner should have first part. Jessie should be here. Ruby should have first part.” You know what I mean?

To answer your question, there is no real answer to that. I just kind of went with my gut. With Jessie, no one knew who she was coming into this video, so I think putting her first kind of gave her the most shine she could get. I always like it when I watch a video, and the first person I see is someone I have never heard of. With women’s skating, how much it’s changing and evolving at a rapid pace, I think she’s a part of that. She’s been filming in the streets for five months or something. She’s so new to the game. And I think just giving her the shine was kind of my goal with her being first.

And then, Tanner skates ledges a lot. I didn’t want him next to Austin because he skates ledges a lot. So there are little thoughts in that sense, but it wasn’t some strategic board meeting like, “This guy needs to be here. This girl needs to be here.” There are just little things that I thought of, and I just ran with them. I think Jessie’s song really informs the first part too; it’s high energy, has a good drum beat, just stuff like that.

“I think showing the struggle of skating is important, especially these days, with how fast the internet moves. Just showing how hard these guys and girls work was really important to me.”

🌀: The intro to Aidan’s part is one of the more memorable parts of the video to me. I thought that was a really cool way to show how hard he worked for that clip, and then the short skit perfectly leads into the next clip. How did you come up with the idea of Aidan jumping in his truck and that quick skit?

I think a lot of skaters go through that same self-destruction battling a trick, and you just see the five-second product of it in a video part. I think I was weirdly, indirectly influenced by that Bobby de Keyzer part when he skated that plaza, and he’s missing flat ground tricks in lines, and they’re just running everything, you know? I was like, “I’ve never seen anyone make a ledge plaza feel and look so interesting.” Obviously, Bobby DeKeyzer is incredible. But that kind of made me want to show a lot of bails too.

We went back like five times for that; you can see in the outfit changes. I think showing the struggle of skating is important, especially these days, with how fast the internet moves. Just showing how hard these guys and girls work was really important to me. But the little skit, that was just me wanting to do something different. I had the footage before I decided to make the skit. It started with the Front Wallride 180; this guy was cleaning that same window for like 30 minutes. I was like, “Dang, how much Windex is he going to use on that thing, bro?” He was just wiping it over and over, so I started filming him and just panning over to Aidan because I thought it was funny. Then, Aidan landed it while he was still cleaning the window. I was like, “Oh, that’d be cool to cut to or use somehow.” But I had no plan.

Fast forward a few months, Aidan battles this Crook, and we finally get it after five trips. It reminded me of when Blake jumped into the water after the Switch Tre Lip in the Dekline video. He didn’t tell me he was going to do it; I just kept on following him. With Aidan, he didn’t tell me he was going to jump into the truck, but I just kept filming him, and he jumped into the truck. It was like a glorious moment for both of us.

Once I started piecing the video together in my head, I was like, “It’d be cool to do something weird. What do I have that’s weird?” And then I kind of pieced those two together. It’s funny because I had like these grand ideas of Aidan jumping into a truck, and we were going to build out this entire world in a room, and have him interact with it. And then, just timing, resources, everything didn’t go in my favor. So we just shot him in a dark studio, and after the shoot, I was like, “Dude, this is going to suck.” And then obviously, the power of editing, right? You can just kind of make things interesting, add some color, add some effects. If I were going to be honest, I wasn’t too happy with what I had planned and what came out of it, but it seems like it got received really well, and people liked it. So that’s all I could have hoped for.

🌀: So when Aidan was trying the Front Wallride 180, did he know that guy behind him was cleaning the window? Was he trying to land it before that guy was finished?

No, he definitely did not know until we watched the clip. What’s funny is I think he just battled the trick for a little while, and he was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” He didn’t even think twice about it.

🌀: Well, thankfully, he got it before that guy was done cleaning the window!

To be quite transparent, the trick’s awesome, but say I didn’t have the intro sequence to piece it together, I don’t think the Front Wallride 180 would’ve made it into his part. But it ended up working out really well. I’ve just been working with Aidan for so long; he puts so much of his heart and life into skateboarding, and I just wanted to make it more special than we ever have. I put a lot of thought into Aidan’s part. I just love the dude. We’re still doing it, and I’m grateful to still be doing it with him. So yeah, it turned out pretty cool, I thought.

🌀: Yeah, he definitely shined. I wanted to ask about one specific clip of his, the Front Board Pole Jam. That was insane. What went into that?

Dude, that was such a battle. He works so hard. To call it a jam is an understatement; it’s pretty much a straight-up pole, and it barely has any kind of angle to it. There’d be days when he couldn’t even get himself to try it because, if you do what you don’t want to do, you’re landing on your back or head from like a nine-stair drop.

The day that he did it, we tried to bend it more with a truck and sledgehammers, and it never went. We tried so many times to make it a little bit mellower, and it never worked. He just ended up doing it the way it was, which is pretty funny.

“Whatever you’re good at, I’m going to try to get you to do something that you’re not good at. Just because I think that’s important in skating, to try and put yourself in uncomfortable situations and push yourself.”

🌀: You have a long-time connection to Furnace and have filmed shop videos for them in the past. How is it to have Tanner, who works at Furnace and is a part of that shop family, now also a part of Foundation?

I think Tanner and Austin, especially because they’re from Long Beach/Orange County, it makes me feel really old because they’ll say things like, “Dude, I grew up watching your videos,” and I’m like, “Grew up? What do you mean, grew up?” So that’s one thing that kind of trips me out: just to reflect on how long I’ve been doing this. These guys are a good number of years younger than me, and they might have still been learning how to skate when they watched my first video, which is psycho.

Tanner, I can’t say enough good things about him. He’s always so down. He’s down to help anyone at any spot. If we have a spot planned for him that day, but there are nine people who have spots in mind, he’s like, “Oh, let’s just go to their spots first.” He’s so selfless and so down to fix the spot, find a spot, give ideas, take photos, and make Instagram edits. He would hate to hear this, but he’d just be an amazing brand manager one day. I don’t think he wants to do that, but he’s just so good at being productive. You know, I don’t even need to tell you, he’s like the best dude ever.

We would joke about getting him involved (with Foundation) because we all skate together so much. Justin Reynolds would always joke with me and be like, “Dude, Tanner…” And then one day, Austin pitched it to me, nearly on a freaking deck, like, “Hey, this is why Tanner should be on. He does this, this, and this.” In a very genuine way. And I was like, “Dang, that would be cool, let me see his footage.” And when I saw his footage, I was like, “We gotta do something with Tanner.” It was like he worked backwards in the sense that the hard part was already taken care of, me liking him as a person, that was no question.

One thing I did with Tanner on this part was I just pushed him to try some different stuff. Let’s get more well-rounded and skate other stuff than ledges. I love the way he skates, but I’m going to do that to anyone, no matter how they skate, you know what I mean? Whatever you’re good at, I’m going to try to get you to do something that you’re not good at. Just because I think that’s important in skating, to try and put yourself in uncomfortable situations and push yourself. I think that’s where I kind of pride myself, is trying to get skaters to do stuff that they didn’t think they could do.

🌀: Yeah, someone going outside of their comfort zone can create the most memorable clips. With Tanner, for example, people might remember that Back Heel over the bump to bar more so than a ledge trick, because it was unexpected.

He did a wallride over a five-stair rail. To him, it was really easy; he did it like ten times. It was small, but Tanner on a wall? Why? What? Just to show that he can do it, because he’s so good. He could do everything. It doesn’t have to be the craziest clip; I’m all about variety in skating.

🌀: In Simple Magic’s article about the video, it’s mentioned that Ruby picked the song for her part. I was wondering what your reaction was when she initially showed you that and said that she wanted to skate to it?

I’m a big fan of Big Thief, and I knew of the song, but I just never thought of anyone skating to it. It is a very specific type of vibe. Tanner couldn’t skate to that, or Aidan couldn’t skate to that. The song has so many layers to it, highs and lows, so when she showed it to me right when I listened to it, I was like, “Oh, this could work.” And it was funny because I threw like three songs her way, and she’s like, “Girl, this ain’t it.”

I don’t know how to pick a song for like a really tapped-in 19-year-old girl, you know? So, her being able to choose it was really special because when she showed it to me, I was like, “Yeah, I know this song, this is going to be perfect.” That seems to be the crowd favorite of the video, song-wise.

“That right there is the most important thing between any filmer and skater: if you have that bond, you’re going to capture the moments that are more than just tricks.”

🌀: Ed is a lifelong friend of mine, and I know he filmed a ton of Ruby’s part – what’s it like having someone else film the majority of a part in a video that you’re editing? In that instance, do you talk to the contributing filmer about how you’d like them to film or how you want certain things to look?

I think that’s definitely a case-by-case scenario. The first thing Ed had that I loved was the HPX extreme. So that right there is like, okay, the look is taken care of. With those two specifically, it’s not hard to see that they have a special friendship and bond. That right there is the most important thing between any filmer and skater: if you have that bond, you’re going to capture the moments that are more than just tricks. So you can tell Ed’s very close with Ruby; he can get in there and film her in some more vulnerable or quiet moments. When you love someone, you notice those things more, too. I like to think I have a little bit of that with everyone on the team. But, with Ruby, she and Ed are so close, they live close to each other, and they skate with each other every day.

I kind of just knew that Ed would give me what I needed. Sometimes you get the contrast to that, where someone sends me the tricks and nothing else. I’m like, dang, I need more than that, you know? And maybe the filmer doesn’t have the type of relationship with the skater to film more than that, or maybe they’re not into filming that kind of b-roll. I’m not one to really micromanage contributing filmers. If I need something specific, then I’ll ask, but I kind of just use what I get or just get it myself. I think that’s kind of the best way to go about it, because I don’t really want to make people change the way they work when they don’t work for the brand. But, to bring it back to Ed, I fully trusted that he would give me everything I needed, and he did, times a thousand. I think that bleeds through to Ruby’s part. That part makes me feel a lot of things. I love that part.

🌀: Yeah, it turned out great. We just touched on Ruby, who’s a new pro, and then there’s Austin, the other new pro. At what point in filming for this video did you know they’d be going pro around the release of the video?

In a perfect world, I would have turned them pro a little further apart, but that’s just how it went with back-end production stuff. When we started working very seriously towards this video, I knew that they were both going to be pro by the end of the video. Just their work ethic, communication, and personalities, they just ooze pro skater. They do everything that is “expected” of a pro skater.

My main kind of gripe with turning skaters pro is when you’re kind of questioning, “What’s everyone going to think if we turn them pro?” I feel like that’s very common in our world. The first question any skater asks when they see someone get a board is, “Do they deserve it?” And I don’t think there’s a question in anyone’s mind that these two don’t deserve it. So, it was an easy decision to make.

🌀: Yeah, they definitely earned it; it’s cool to see when people work hard and get what they deserve.

Ruby’s a 19-year-old transition skater, and Austin, I could’ve turned pro 3 or 4 years ago, and no one would’ve questioned it. I just like how different a journey they’ve had in pro skating. Foundation’s really lucky to have both of them.

🌀: Austin has some Baltimore footage in his part. How was it being on that trip and filming him and the crew?

That was just me, Austin, and Georgia; we stayed with Myles Willard. It was just all of us working on different projects, since I work for both Foundation and Toy Machine. I think I used all of the clips he got on that trip. It was like a week long, and he got five clips. That’s pretty crazy to think he went on one trip and got five clips for his part. By the end of the trip, he was like, “Dude, like I’m tapped out on spots, Baltimore had nothing left to offer me.” I was like, “Yeah, because you skated every single spot.” He’s just such a professional; he almost knew exactly what he was going to do before he even got to the spot, just by looking at a photo of a spot. With the Backside Grind on the bump to bar with the L, we just found that while driving, Myles was like, “My homie Ollied it,” and I was like, “Austin, you could back grind that,” and he was like, “You think?” And we pulled over, then he’s rolling away 30 minutes later.

🌀: Wow! I’d love to get into your editing process of Jesse Lindloff’s part. He’s so gnarly and seems to skate anything; I feel like there were a handful of clips that were ender-worthy. Can you take us behind the scenes of editing this?

His part was the hardest to edit, for an array of reasons. And I think it was pretty fitting that I edited his part last, just because it was like, “Alright, videos done, let’s save the hardest for last.” I wanted to make sure that everyone was happy with their music. I think that’s really important, and Jesse’s just got a way different music taste than me. I definitely had to, I don’t want to say compromise, but I had to just go into it with a more open mind of, “Hey, I’m not the one putting my body on the line for these tricks, let’s make sure the skater is just as happy with it.”

If it were up to me, I would have used either the Nose Blunt on the wall in Seattle or the drop in on the Bam sign. But both those spots have been skated so much, so we wanted to use a spot that hasn’t been seen, so we used the Board Slide. Like every skater, he had like such high hopes of getting like an ender, ender. But dude, he’s so gnarly, everything that he wanted to try could have literally killed him, so he didn’t end up getting what he wanted towards the end. But I don’t think anyone would ever feel like the part was incomplete.

🌀: It’s funny to hear that, because it felt like there were a handful of ender-worthy tricks in his part.

He’s so gnarly, he’s criminally underrated. That guy should be front and center in everyone’s mind. Just watch him skate a mini ramp or something, and you’ll realize, wow, this guy is so special. I got a lot of help from Nick Cohen and other contributing filmers, but I was able to film a good handful of his clips, and every time I was just in awe of his magic. He was born to ride a skateboard.

🌀: Thanks for sharing all of these stories and the hard work. The video turned out amazing. I’m always so excited when a full-length video comes out. So thanks for making another one.

Thanks for The Skate Loop, you do such a good job putting out content that is engaging. I think it’s a testament to what you’re doing when you get pro skaters DMing you their clips, just expecting to be on the page. I think that’s a huge compliment to you. I think you’ve got to pat yourself on the back. I know you do it for the love, and like, it’s work, dude. You’re spending a holiday, on your day off, working on this website. I think that’s really cool. I think we need more stuff, like The Skate Loop and more people like you. Just skate rats that are just down for the cause, you know?

🌀: Thank you, that means a lot!