So, yeah, this video will not change the world or save BMX. It will not blow your mind or destroy your senses. It has some technical glitches because I don’t know what I’m doing (and I’m doing my best to not go back and Lucasing the whole thing, although my OCD is a very tough opponent). What it is is a guy having fun on his bicycle, which I think should be enough.
I spent part of the weekend dealing with a dog with explosive diarrhea and part of it filming/reviewing clips for the Steven Nowak 39th Birthday Riding Film Extravaganza (and Ice Cream Parlor). It occurs to me that actually writing about the process behind the SN39thBRFE (and Irrational Hatred of Green Vegetables) makes it seem like this is some serious thing with a lot of thought and planning put into it.
Let me assure you, it is not.
This will be another of a bajillion poorly conceived and edited web videos which will be seen by ones of people all over my house. However, I am full of neurosis and also the owner of one of the best domain names on the planet so, since I’ve been told by people who are both pro and against my new titties on Monday format that I should write more and writing about the creative process seems to be more interesting than telling you about the joys of my super exciting job of sitting in front of a computer, FTP’ing things all day and troubleshooting config files.
Also, seriously, I over think stuff. Which brings us back to the Steven Nowak 39th Birthday Riding Film Extravaganza (and Steve, Seriously, You Should Come With Us to Masago Steakhouse and Thai. A Guy With This Body Knows Food). I’ve been reviewing clips trying to find some narrative thread, where there is none.
——-SNIP——-
So, I wrote that a few months ago, shortly afterwards (like the next day) Mojo died and I kind of lost the plot on the whole Steve Nowak 39th Birthday Video Extravaganza (And Mandy, Don’t Let Indy Ride His Bike in Sandles). But after some time spent feeling like ass, and then some time spent at work trying to launch a brand new website featuring technology none of us had used before and then some time on vacation after doing that I’m back, and I may have found a song.
Ahhh BMX. I would imagine that my relationship with you is somewhat like a guy and his ex who gave him herpes. He mostly doesn’t think about her, but every so often he goes to pee and it feels like someone has shoved a lit match up his wang hole and thus it is with BMX. I’ve pretty much not cared about BMX for the past however long, but my wife’s co-workers kept asking me if I knew what Vein was. Had no clue.
So, Vein is a “mail order company.” But not so much a mail order company like, say, Dan’s or Albe’s. It’s really more of a direct seller. This isn’t the first time a company has tried this. That was basically Nirve’s hook ten years ago. Eventually they started selling through local shops and finally they just dropped the entire damn brand and started over using the name they were using everywhere else, anyway (I always kinda hated that they re-structured before introducing the Voxom two piece cranks which were supposed to be revolutionary I wonder if they actually paved the way for Wom/Twombolts).
So, there is a precedent for what Vein is doing. While Nirve was, in the end, a failure (they did bring the world Stephen Murray) they were also way ahead of the curve. a decade ago Amazon was really just starting to be a profitable business. The fact that on-line would be a long term, valid, sales medium was really just becoming obvious. So that’s a feather in their cap. Unfortuantely, hating on anything that Eastern is even remotely involved in could replace both Flatland and Dirt in the X-Games as a legitimate BMX discipline. So that doesn’t look good. Me, I like ‘em as well as I like anything else. I do like that they just straight up say “Look, this is the same thing everyone else sells you, just cheaper,” so they get points for honesty. They lose some points for having some eyeseeringly ugly, Carolina specific, color combinations (and I don’t care if you miss the Hornets, there’s no excuse for this). Overall, if I’m going to give my money to this guy or that guy for the same product, all things being equal, I’m pretty much going to give it to the guy who’s going to charge me less and since my local shop closed down on-line is probably the way to go.
Time will tell, I guess.
Meanwhile…
Nike is shuttering the 6.0 brand. Of course, every time Nike does anything the chirrens on the internet get up in arms about how Nike is evil because they use sweatshops (note how that article is from five years ago, finding current information takes more time than I feel like spending) and how you should wear BMX rider owned shoes (when challenged, none of the kids screaming about sweatshops can tell you where Loteks and Orchids are made). Everyone is excited, Nike’s dead, they’repulling out of BMX, now people will magically buy XXXXX and Nike’s going to lose a ton of money also Nike was only in BMX for the money and left when it was gone (yes, those previous two statements directly contradict each other, but really). Also, if you have anything good to say about Nike you’re equivalent to someone who turned over Jews to the Nazis.
I’m not sure how many Black collaborators there were during WWII, but…
The usual arguments apply, of course, it seems silly that major corporations should treat BMX as a charity on which they lose money. All companies leave when the money’s gone, usually we call this “going out of business.” People wear what they wear, I wear adidas almost exclusively, have for years the existence or lack of existence of an adidas BMX program means nothing to me or, and also Nike isn’t killing its BMX program, just the 6.0 brand.
From my understanding Nike 6.0 worked something like this. A dump truck full of money pulled up to Bubba Stewart’s house and started pouring money into his garage. Any money that didn’t fit was split up among all of the other alternative sports athletes. Except for skaters, the skaters got their own dump trucks full of money to divvy up. Folding what was 6.0 into the larger Nike Athletics organization directly probably doesn’t change a whole lot of anything except instead of wearing “6.0 Swoosh” shirts their athletes will be wearing “Swoosh” shirts.
A couple of weeks ago I bought a .25x fish eye converter and a 18-55 Canon kit lens. While shooting the Steven Nowak 39th Birthday All BMX Riding Old Man Video Extravaganza (and Mini Mart) I took a few snaps. I’m not sure if I’ve really got a handle on it yet, specifically how it reacts to my camera’s autofocus and metering. Anyway, here’s a couple attempts at doing something good…and failing. Click for larger.
Adam - Toboggan over the hip at Mountain Park
Steve Nowak, Tippy Toeing over a hip at Brookrun
Inside 1101 BMX. Did you know Jimmy Greene could talk? I didn't know that Jimmy Greene could talk.
As I alluded to in the previous installment of Video Killed The Mystic Negro (which I will retroactively refer to as “Pt. 0: The Clone Wars) I have been recruited to record The Steven Nowak 39th Birthday Riding Film Extravaganza (and Backdoor Way to Get George Back on His Bike*) despite my complete and utter lack of knowledge as to how to film or edit. So, Saturday I spent more or less all day filming HD and SD footage of Steve doing stuff (I also dropped in at 1101 BMX and heard Jimmy Green speak. I didn’t know Jimmy could speak).
We also watched the new Demolition video. They may as well have called it “Nothin’ but Rails,” sweet Lord, thank you for Daves Osato and Dillewaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard and Tate Roskelly, otherwise there would have been nothing there to hold my interest.
Since I don’t know what I’m doing I spent yesterday morning trying to edit together all of the bails and foot downs into an “almost made it” edit. Just to see if I could. It was then that I realized that the software that came with my point and shoot would be inadequate for the task at hand. Well I realized this when reviewing the nearly finished work it became obvious that I had accidentally trimmed a clip and my software wouldn’t let me replace it with the unedited clip.
Well, that was kind of bullshitty.
So, I did what any rational person would do, I went out and bought a copy of Avid. Now, I don’t know how to use Avid, but I figure it’ll let me do whatever the hell I want. Of course, if anyone out there has any editing tricks I’m all ears. If you know any editing tricks which will cover up a complete and total lack of filmographic talent I’d be willing to pay for those.
Anyway, below is a video that was made by someone who kinda knew what they were doing.
*Still have no plans to ride, and if I do I’m not telling. I’ve come to the conclusion that riding is something I only enjoy alone.
So, there has been a request that I film a BMX web edit for a buddy. I kind of left the request up in the air as here is my complete knowledge of video production:
My phone shoots 720p video
My point and shoot shoots 1080p video
D got me a pocket video camera that shoots 1080p video
You may notice that nowhere in that list was any knowledge of shooting or editing video. Also lacking is a proper video camera. However, I am intrigued by the idea of shooting video, especially since I recently bought a computer that can actually handle editing HD video (unlike my previous laptop which could barely handle displaying HD video). As is my way I am intrigued by the idea of shooting a video and even more intrigued by the conventions of the BMX web video.
Not really, however, after throwing myself into The Come Up and its comments section (also Ride and its comments and Vital and its comments) I have come up with a list of what to expect if I masochistically go forth with this whole video thing.
1. You Must Have an Encyclopediac Knowledge of All Videos Which Came Before You This is the most important rule. If you don’t know every video by every rider who is more or slightly less famous than you you may end up recreating a move done by someone else. This is bad, Freestyle BMX thrives on individuality (as long as you dress properly, ride parts by one of the handful of approved companies, don’t ride parts by one of the many unapproved companies and generally behave in a way that fits in with the prevailing fashion). The last thing you want to do, ever, is recreate moves done by someone else in a video. To be fair the number of people who can pull of a 100% original video can be counted on one hand, but that’s just details.
You also never want to use a song that anyone else has used in a video section, ever. The “song jack” – even if completely unintentional – is like showing someone a bukkake video that you shot with their mom. Actually, I’ve never seen someone who’s been “song jacked” actually care, mostly its other people who get all worked up about it. The “song jack” is like showing a bunch of strangers who have no communication with the person in question a bukkake video you shot with a woman that looks kinda like their mom.
2. You Are Homosexual As BMX is dominated by 16 year old boys and grown men who act like 16 year old boys the worst thing that you could possibly be is attracted to other men (if you’re a chick and attracted to other chicks, that’s hot). Beware that, if you are the subject of a web video the performing the following will be roughly the same as admitting that you bottom for George Takai:
Riding park
Riding street
Riding vert
Riding trails
Racing
I was going to say riding flat, but I think we’ve all come to the conclusion that riding flat is very, very hard and nobody cares.
3. Your Music Sucks
Let’s say you manage to get by without actually song jacking anyone (which given the proliferation of BMX web edits vs. the creation new music is almost impossible) what the hell do you do? Every good song ever written has already been used by someone, this is just a statistical truth.
NO!
Remember, 16 year old boys. You know what teenagers hate more than anything? Music that came out before they were teenagers! There is a wealth of music to be used and since BMX is all wiggafied there is a wealth of music made by White people which has never even been heard of by the vast throngs of middle class caucasian males that make up the sport. So my suggestion is go old or go metal. For instance:
Jesus is Love is arguably the best song Lionel Richie ever wrote (Alabama represent, bitches!). It has the dual advantage of being completely unknown by your average BMXer and pissing off half of them (remember, if you actually are a Christian the worst thing you can do is be a Christian because the act of existing means that you’re trying to force your beliefs on BMX even if, uh, you’re doing no such thing).
Or you could go the exact opposite way. Here’s some porno-grind from Cock and Ball Torture. I have no idea what the lyrics to Enema Bulldozer are, but do I need to? It’s a song called ENEMA BULLDOZER!!!!
You could also go country, but let’s be honest, modern country is all just really bad 80s pop music anyway. You may as well just ride to Poison.
4. Even if You Manage To Avoid All of the Above…
Someone will still bitch. Honestly, just do what you want to do. BMX is not serious business, it’s grown men riding bicycles designed for 12 year olds.
So, given what I know, can I create a video that pisses off the least most least most a good number of people? Sure. Will I?
If you’re planning on going this year (and given that I’m currently on a BMX Sabbatical I will not) here’s the info for this year’s Twilight Jam. Click the pic to see it full sized.
In this video a kid who three years ago had a trick bag that consisted of back flips and weird one handed x-up/toboggan things does every foot jam variation. I thought he had flair to tail taps, but not in this video, apparently
Decibel Magazine’s Deciblog has a new(ish) section up called “Justify Your Shitty Taste,” where their writers have to justify their love for an unlovable album such as Judas Priest’s Turbo or Metallica’s St. Anger or anything that Varg has ever done.. As far as ideas go it’s a fairly awesome one and one worthy of thievery, by someone else obviously, I’m way too lazy to follow up on this. However, I offer out into the universe the following idea:
Justify the shitty music in your video part.
It’s no secret that BMX videos are often set to some of the shittiest music known to man. It can be argued, in fact, that the only videos ever released in BMX that didn’t have shit music are, the handful of videos that use Refused “New Noise,” the original Macneil video which used Suicidal Tendencie’s “Thee Feeling’s Back” and Standard’s “Stronger Than All” which used Prong’s “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” (although in that last case the song was edited so terribly that it almost loses points. How did the Macneil folks manage to extend that ST track seamlessly and Standard couldn’t do the same to such an obviously re-mix ready track? Is it because they’re in Iowa?).
Of course there are obvious problems with this idea. Granted all I know about modern BMX “culture” I’ve learned from the comments on The Come Up, but there’s a good chance that asking a BMXer why their musical taste sucks will result in a poorly spelled, grammatically atrocious homophobic rant. And, of course, the obvious answer is either “money” (good music isn’t cheap to license) or “youth” (hey, fuck you, I got Look What The Cat Dragged In for CHRISTMAS when I was 14, I know youth based bad musical taste).
Still, I think someone should get on this. Stat. Defgrip guys, are you listening?
