for a little while i've been a member of global-flat.com. it's a site dedicated to BMX riders who practice the discipline of flatland freestyling. as you may know, i too practice this discipline, and i've been fortunate to meet with some very good people from Mass on this site.
on Oct. 25 i hooked up with a bunch of guys from the Boston area. they congregate in a street hockey rink in Cambridge right on Charles St. upon my arrival i first met Rick. we first corresponded over global-flat.com. he told me that he too was a 35 y/o getting back into flatland freestyle. though married, and with children, he has made an effort to get back into a sport that he enjoyed once as a teenager. so we had a couple of things in common sans the marriage and children.
later in day more riders began to show up, and the scene was becoming more active with rider pulling off all kinds of spinning moves. initially all i could do was watch and envy at their skills, hoping that one day i could do all that.
i got to know some of them and found out they too were in their 30's, and though there were a few in their 20's, it kind of solidified my impression that, at least within the states, flatland freestyle was being practice mostly by the older crowd who lived through the glory days of BMX during its roots in the late 70's and 80's.
conversely, on an international scale, flatland freestyle is dominated by a younger crowd.
it's funny when you meet people who share the same interests as you. there's this phenomenon that occurs where you seem to do better at executing moves in the presence of others than alone. or perhaps it's just me trying to impress them, and i just got lucky. either way i felt as if anything can be possible so long as i practice with a peer group.
for example, i've been trying to nail down a pedal kick tail-whip (non-foot jam style). on rare occasions alone i'd get it, but it's mostly a miss. but in front of these guys i was able to get it down no problem. it even seemed like an effortless move. last night i tried several attempts of them in my "backyard", and damn it if i couldn't get it at all. what happened?
well, back to my story...
so i brought along my camera in case i had the inclination of recording my experience there. the guys seemed pretty cool with me taking some videos of them. so i started shooting manually, following them around trying to get some good angle shots. these were nothing but random videos that were taken of any riders as they rode by me. a few times i mounted the camera on a tripod provided by another rider name Rich (the second rider to show up at the rink). this way i could be in some of the footage.
after spending 5 hours with these guys, i decided to retire, go home, and review all of the videos taken that day. i recorded about 5GB of MPEG1 video, 640x480 @ 3000kps on my Sony DSC-H9. what was i going to do with all this footage? put it to music, of course. i told the guys that i would most likely make a music video out of them, and post it on Vimeo and YouTube. no one objected to the idea.
so i spent that week importing all these videos into a Final Cut Xpr project, picking and choosing which clips of footage i liked best. tried to keep all the riders well represented throughout the project while at the same time maintaining the actual time line of recorded events. i added a few scenes of myself, but mostly focused on the more experienced riders.
once i had initially selected all of my clips, i began to think about the music i wanted to use. like most of of my projects i was going to pick one song and use that, but i didn't have anything that would cover the 8 minute run-time. so instead i decided to use multiple samples of songs about 1~2 minutes in length. i'd mix up the tempo and style using Drum n' Base, down-tempo, and hip-hop tunes. i chose six song from my iTunes library i felt worked well in in certain portions of the video. the end result was a nice mix that, not only would keep the viewer entertained, but seemed to play well with the video.
later i started to notice moments in the video where some unintentional choreography took place between the riders and the songs. this gave some ideas, and decided to rework the video to get more of this incorporated.
i don't know why i never though of this before. that was one of my intended design for my AMV, Dyson's Revelation.
so i continued with the process where it started to take me into a different direction. more editing was done, and more thought went into the presentation.
in the end i took it about as far as i was willing to go. this video project almost became an obsession. i wanted (almost needed) to complete it by the end of the week; no more. it took some good time away that could have been spent riding. especially now that time is becoming so precious cause the air is getting colder, and i don't have a place to go ride during winter season when the snow starts to fall.
i've posted the video on both Vimeo and YouTube. so far the responses have been positive. and though this project took time away from riding, it was a lot of fun to work on. it left me thinking that i'd like to do more of these kinds of videos. perhaps i will, if the guys let me. and who knows, in time i may get better and have a nice featured moment in one where i'm doing more than a mere pedal kick tail-whip.
all-in-all meeting these guys was a good experience. one i hope will continue as i practice the discipline of flatland freestyling. global-flat.com is a great place to meet other riders in your neighborhood.
peace,
@riel
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