interview- jeremy deme and presence

Dialed Canadian videos don’t come out very often, so when I first saw some of Jeremy Deme’s Presence series, I took note. His videos feature awesome riding from lesser known Canadian riders like Greg Flag and Corey Dewey, a tasteful and artistic production style (just check out the trailer below…), and a lot of amazing spots you’ve never seen from Quebec. Jeremy also contributes to his local scene in other ways, among them putting on a street jam series known as the Presence Jams. The newest Presence video just dropped, and Jeremy was nice enough to answer a round of questions for this blog. The video is available through Ten Pack in Canada, Empire in the States, or directly by e-mailing filmpresence@hotmail.com.

Trailer for the newest Presence video, out now.

How many Presence videos have you made? How do you feel the project has evolved?

This is my 3rd Presence vid, the first one Corey Dewey and I made 3 years ago. We went with the self title for the current DVD because I feel it’s the first one that really represents our scene, which is what everyone involved have been going for since starting Presence. I think that we’ve come a long way, each year I’m happier and happier with how things turn out. With the projects we have for 2009… I’m sure this year will be even better than the last!
 
What motivates you to put together videos and street jams each year? Describe the Presence jams a bit.

In terms of videos, I get more and more stoked on my friends riding each year. If I can capture their riding and all the good times we have on camera, I’m stoked.

The Presence jams came about last winter, during winter hibernation I had the idea and started thinking of ways to make it happen. Then it came to me, 3 sick Montreal street spots, 3 different days. I asked a bunch of companies if they would be willing to help out and most said they were down right away, which was amazing (huge thanks to Ten Pack, Animal, Profile, We the People, Red, Seshin, Alienation, Kink, Macneil, Hell on Earth, Micreation, Coalition, and Skavenger). All of my good friends were stoked on the idea and helped make it happen. The idea is to get as many riders from Montreal, Montreal surroundings, or anyone visiting Montreal together for a good day of riding at a good Montreal street spot. It’s not everyday that everyone is able to get together and ride so this is the perfect chance to do so. There’s only good times, and no stress, basically going for the complete opposite of the contest atmosphere. Everyone seemed to have a good time last summer so I’m hoping people will be stoked on them again this summer.
 
Describe the Montreal scene for those of us who have never been there. How do the spots and riders compare to other cities that get more attention?

The Montreal scene is basically a bunch of good friends having fun on their bikes as often as possible. I don’t think there are any two scenes or cities that are alike, so it’s hard to compare Montreal to other places. I’d have to say that one of the things I love about this scene though is that all my friends and almost all the Montreal riders always seems to have alot of fun on their bikes. It’s just constant good times mixed in with alot of good spots and good riding. Nobody stresses or is only out riding to prove anything, people are just going with the flow wherever we end up riding. The other thing with Montreal is that there is an amazing amount of street spots spread out across the city, there’s always something cool to ride.

Tell me a little bit about the newest Presence video. Who is in it? Are there any big surprises? Did you do anything special or different for this release?

The new Presence video features most of my buddies/MTL dudes: Corey Dewey, Mike Fiz, Greg Flag, Eric Trepanier, Justin Kirnan, Mike Cardin, Albert Krolikowski, some footage of me (unfortunately) and more. The least big surprise to me was how much Greg and Dewey Shred, those guys are just way too good. Other than that Eric Trepanier and Mike Fiz worked really hard on their parts and they came out really well. I changed camera setup before filming this video and was really happy with how the DVX footage came out. We filmed most of the DVD in Montreal, along with some footage from our trip to NYC/Philly, and weekend trip to Boston. There’s a bunch of bonus stuff including the Presence Jam footy.

Second Presence Trailer.
 
Was it a conflict at all putting together those two parts for the Seshin video when those guys were going to have parts in this video as well?

Greg and Dewey are honestly a dream to film. They are always doing amazing things on their bikes so it’s easy to film a bunch of stuff of them. We knew the Presence dvd would be all street so we knew we could use any park footage we had for the Seshin edits. We also wanted to save any road trip footage for the Presence DVD. After that, Corey and Greg just chose what they wanted to use for Seshin and what they wanted to keep for Presence. I had more time to edit their Presence parts though, I’m really really stoked on how they came out. Corey and Greg really killed it this summer, anyone reading this should check out their parts in Presence for proof.

Presence Toronto Trip (from the vimeo page, these are clips that didn’t make it into the full-length)

What do you have planned after this video is released?

We’re working on 2 big projects for 2009, one which we’ve wanted to do for a while now and that Canada has needed for a long time coming, and another which will really give people and idea of what the city of Montreal is all about. I think well leave it at that for now, but expect 2 different films around this time next year.