Interview by Andrew Brady and Jeremy Cliff

Joe Simon can easily be called one of the pioneers of BMX videos. He and his company (along with co-owner Gaz Sanders) released the first BMX DVD filmed entirely in High Definition, and were the first (as of late March 2008) to offer a video on a high-definition disk. Mutiny recently revealed their latest video project to the BMX community; an eight-minute BMX video filmed entirely in HD. The video has generally received vehement approval from the BMX world, so I decided to approach Joe and Gaz about doing an interview, discussing both the video as well as their predictions and philosophies on filming and the future of BMX videos.

The photos on the site show a ton of equipment; what did you use for shooting the intro, as well as shooting the rest of the video?
I wanted the intro to have a cinematic feel to it and after SOBP I wanted to do something a bit different. I had this idea for a while and had been holding off until the last project was all done. We had an awesome time shooting this! Everyone was placing bets on how many times it would take each rider to pull his line. Ryan won by pulling his in just 2 tries.

For the intro we used -
Panasonic HVX-200
Brevis 35 adapter with Nikon 50mm, 85mm lenses
Kessler 8 foot jib
Indie Dolly w/ straight track

The rest of the video was shot 99% of the time all the time using the HVX-200 with some static shots on the Canon XHA1. I also had a few shots using the Glidecam 2000pro.

What are your influences when making BMX videos, both inside and outside of BMX?
There’s tons of good talent constantly coming out of the BMX world. But I really enjoy the work of Dave Parrick, Stew Johnson, Ryan Navazio, Joe Cox, Will Stroud, Chad Shackleford. Outside of BMX I like lots of films, but Michael Goundry’s work is the stuff that has stuck out most in my mind, shit’s amazing.

You decided to include multiple options for viewing the video, one of which was Apple TV format. Do you feel this is a good way to bridge the gap between full length DVDs and web videos?
I think the Apple TV and the like are the future of TV and entertainment. I bought an Apple TV about a month ago and I’m so Stoked on it. Rent HD movies with out leaving your house and I can watch all of the Mutiny HD stuff without having to change discs, just click a button.

I hate watching Youtube videos or any web videos in a mini window with shitty compression, it just ruins it for me. The equipment is here and affordable, the hosting is there for sites to be able handle the bandwidth and traffic for cheap. Make it look good! Even with the HD download, if you have an HD monitor you are watching it in HD, and for free! That’s awesome, better then watching it on a DVD!

Now of course a web video is a web video but online payed downloads are the future. Filmers/editors barely make money in BMX as it is, if a company can’t make money on videos then the creators will never make money. But with online downloads I think it would be more profitable for a company. It will still take lots of work to make a full video because not just anyone will be able to sell them with the big download company’s, you will have to have a proven track record and good marketing.

Do you feel there is a viable interest in hard copies of high definition videos, or any BMX videos for that matter? If video follows music, discs may soon be obsolete.
Right now you have Blu-ray that has won the HD war but I think discs will only last a few more years and then it will be just like iPods and music. (But at least with Blu-ray you won’t be able to copy the disc or upload it online, and once the player prices start to drop in price below $100.00 lots of people will have them.) But I think the online market is the way forward. There will be multiple products just like the Apple TV coming out this year and once they start blowing up then discs will start to die. You will have all your movies on a flash drive, you just back them up on Blu-ray data discs or DL DVDs or Holographic discs.

Just like how you can buy music from iTunes, what if you could buy BMX videos? Instead of paying $15-$25 for a DVD you could pay $1.99 - $9.99 to download it in HD. It would come with a digital booklet and you could view all of this huge on your TV! And with the encryption the videos would not be uploaded all over the Internet.

Brandon Hoerres had some real good clips, is he going to be featured in more Mutiny videos in the future?
Brandon is a big part of our team, he had a few clips in SOBP but that was just when he was coming back from a major back injury. Before we made our trip to Canada last August he had not been able to ride for over a year! We are super stoked that he is feeling better and killing it again. So you will be seeing a lot more of him.

Using jibs, dollies, stabilizers, etc. take some time to set up, and take longer than normal to start filming a trick or line. Do you feel that filmers should cater to the riders’ time frames, or should a rider have patience and wait for the filmer to be ready? Or should there be a compromise between the two?
It really depends on the situation. You have to compromise because as a rider sometimes you just want to get it done and its either now or never. And I take all of this into consideration. Is the spot a bust, how long is it going to take to film?

If you look at photography they spend more time setting up and making sure the angle is right, as a videographer you have to do the same thing. How many times is the video guy standing around with the camera ready to go 10 min before the photographer is ready? I’d say 9 out of 10 times. With that extra time you could be setting up a really cool shot. That’s how I look at it.

With that being said its not possible to carry around all that equipment. On my backpack I have 2 cameras, shotgun mic, tripod, skateboard and my Glidecam. Even with that I’m set up before the photographer is. I only use the jib or dolly if I have it in mind for a spot before hand and we have the time to use it. Even then sometimes a nice static shot looks better. It’s all about the art, your style and what moves you!

Has anything ever gotten shut down by security or police officers due to setup time for a shot?
Knock on wood! So far I’ve never had a problem. I’ve even had cops show up and be stoked cause they think we are filming something important with all the equipment. They will just hang and watch! I think having a pro-setup can help in more ways then one.

What are your future plans, video-wise, for Mutiny?
We have a lot of cool things planed for this year. I can’t say much about it now but it’s going to be hot! We are entering a new era for videos; it’s going to get pretty crazy.

Adapt or die!

Thanks to Gaz and Joe for being a part of this interview. You can check out the video by going to the Mutiny Bikes Web Video page.

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