Spotlight Chicago — An Interview With Mark Dunning About Deep Dish & ‘Terminal’

Intro & Interview by Mike Munzenrider
Photos by Mark Dunning, Alex Hupp, Frank Verges & Mike Heikkila

It’s rare that a skate video is so clearly evocative of the time in which it was made. There’s a sense of pandemic emptiness that runs through Terminal, Deep Dish’s latest video, nearly all shot in 2020.

Mark Dunning, lead filmer and editor of the Deep Dish series — now up to eight titles — says one of the reasons he makes videos is to shine a light on Chicago skateboarding, because he says it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. He also says he’d long sought a particular shot of Chicago, showing it as “deserted or forgotten,” something which he says that he finally achieved in Terminal. Perhaps that purposeful emptiness was heightened by the past year.

It was under COVID-19 conditions that Dunning, a year ago living in New York City, says he made his way back to his hometown Chicago. With rumors of New York going into lockdown and the uncertainty behind it, he says he and his girlfriend packed their car and drove west, thinking they’d work remotely for a week before heading back.

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Fool’s Spring

Adrian Vega via Giovanni Reda. This photo really does justice to how gnar tricks on this bank are.

Zach Moore (director of last summer’s remix blockbuster, “Jake Johnson: The Movie“) is front-running for delivering 2021’s best laughs so far. A)The Ultimate Skate Songs Collection” envisions skate videos’ most iconic music in the format of a late-night TV commercial for a CD box set. The plot twist in this one is so brilliant. B)A Caption To Die For” pays tribute to Thrasher‘s often absurd video captions in the form of old-timey newspapermen by way of classic Hollywood film noir. Give Zach Moore his skate Oscar.

This likely got to you last week, but ICYMI, Cyrus was the latest guest on The Bunt.

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Day Poker

We really blew it on missing this one in the 2017 color coordination piece. Iconic tho.

Here’s an eight-minute recap of the Hardies event at Blue Park this past Friday, which includes the best angle of Tyshawn’s kickflip over the table longways thus far.

The Man Who Films spent a lot of time in Rockaway this past summer and made a fifteen-minute video entitled “Beach Genius.” Everyone knows that Rockaway isn’t the most abundant part of the city for spots, so shout out to those guys for managing to avoid all the skateparks in all but one clip. Includes a mini Phil Rodriguez section where he somehow turns one of those blue bus shelters into an actual bank. And it’s also perhaps the first time in human history that there’s been a transition from Nicki Minaj to …MF Doom. Good vibe the whole way through, and the right amount of ~different~ ♥

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Saved

2014. Photo by Emilio Cuilan.

Truly elated that we can begin a Monday Links round-up as we close out the summer without a link to a petition ♥ There’ll definitely be some formal news coverage of the day — which turned into a T.F. reunion rather than a rally — but caught this slideshow from Eric Cruz on IG earlier if you’re looking for pics. We should do a T.F. reunion the Saturday after every Labor Day every year, no? Like Bastille Day, but for Tompkins.

Tyshawn Jones is on i-D magazine’s cover this month, and they put their feature with him online.

The governor of New Jersey has been making the media rounds as of late. Fred Gall is the guest on honor on The Bunt‘s season finale.

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