anchorage premiere/video details

There will be a premiere for parts of the video October 17th in Anchorage. David is organizing it, so I don’t have a lot of details yet, but that is the date and it will correspond with some kind of demo in an arena.

We will likely be showing two out of three parts of this video, “7500″ which is the roadtrip video I put together this summer (it’s about 12 minutes long) and “The Hinterland”, which is a documentary style edit about bmx in Alaska (it’s running around 28 minutes right now).

The traditional edit (i.e. rider sections…) is coming along. Andrew is filming his last clip this week and then we’ll have all of the footage, most of the edits are well on their way. This video will be called “burn this”; it’s about 80% footage from the other two edits and 20% new footage. It should be about 25 minutes.

So, if that is confusing, the entire project is kind of three separate videos. The running time for the entire project will be over an hour so I wanted to split it in a way that made sense.

I still have hard drives full of extra footage so I will continue to post bits of it periodically.

review: let’s get mystical

Just two years ago, Mutiny released Stoked on Being Pumped. They had a killer ad campaign, a great trailer and cinematography that left any video maker with their jaw on the floor. Yet miraculously the average rider didn’t care for it that much. I believe the word “boring” was thrown around a lot (I didn’t share that opinion, but it was a fairly common criticism).

Let’s Get Mystical should bring the naysayers on board this time around. Not only is it visually stunning, but the Mutiny team really brings it riding wise. The three major standouts in this video are George Boyd, Hanson Little and Brandon Hoerres. George and Hanson are newer on the Mutiny team and Brandon, for back of a better term, is back. Hanson Little is kind of a bike rider’s bike rider, he does lots of classic tricks and enjoys sending a good sized gap. Brandon Hoerres and George Boyd are on the tech street side, but they ride primarily rails, and not ledges, which makes it awesome, and not boring.

Let’s revisit my predictions from the Shola review. I did, in fact, like this better – by a whole bunch (and not because Shola was bad). I didn’t think I would like any of the sections better than Chester Blacksmith’s or Darin Read’s, but I absolutely liked the Pennsylvania trails section better than both of those. To be fair, it was trails, and it was shot on film stock, so as long as the riding was decent the other sections never had a chance (call it a personal bias).

The structure of the video is loosely based on trips, and goes well with the image they’ve set up for their team. There are trips to the Northwest, England, and the Midwest, followed by a really long texas section. Normally all the motages would give me a webvideo vibe, but this has enough structure before breaking down into the Texas section that it still feels like they’re telling a story.

Anyways, buy this, it is the best video that will come out this year. (that’s, of course, assuming that Anthem 2 and Empire will Dave Parrick their way into 2010 – then I wouldn’t be so sure of my prediction)

slocan bowl/mat ridgeway

Slocan is a village of about 300 people in the Kootenay region of BC. Somehow this tiny town raised the money for an incredible concrete bowl, and we stopped there on the trip this summer. Right before we left for the weekend, we discovered that there was some kind of grand opening there on the day we had planned to go, so a few of us stayed at Andrew’s parents’ house the night before (waking up really early) and the braver of the group went and slept by the bowl. The bowl has a mix of metal, pool and rock (!) coping, boasts a decent speed line and has a few nice hips. Ridgeway and Andrew were both going off here; Andrew did some of the bigger tricks and Ridgeway just has a way with bowls. I’ve said it numerous times this summer, but Mat knows how to separate bowl riding from hitting quarterpipes. Take a look at his line here, which is on the website because I missed an angle. Immediately he found a drop-in line where he jumps out of a wedge into a big quarter, he never pedals, finding a good speed line, and keeps enough speed to hit a line out of the bowl too. Watching him ride Penticton bowl was one of the best things I saw all summer, and he barely did any tricks. Actually, I’m going to throw a clip of that up too now that I think of it.

Things I’m stoked on about this:
1. It’s pretty much dark
2. He basically pedals as fast as he can and drops into a corner
3. The slasher carve on the extension

Photo

This is my new baby (Nolan aka “Wolf”), and my 2 year old (Levi).

Chillin

presence online

In my opinion, this was the best Canadian video to come out this year (and in a long time).

“i think i can obama my ford before he can obama his ford”

The greatest tv commercials of my childhood:

Nolan Scott Hoffarth

Congratulations Shawn and Sadie on child number two. Post a photo when you get the chance!

I’m in Connecticut

Thought I’d post some life content for once. If you haven’t been paying attention to this blog lately, then first you should go back and look at some of the content from my awesome trip across the country, and then you should know that I moved. A long way. Anchorage to Hartford is approximately the same distance as Anchorage to Tokyo. This has been a big change for Sally and me; moving here we literally knew nobody apart from a few loose aquaintances from my job interview and one bmx connection. As exciting and new as that sounds, it’s weird being absent community for a bit.

My first observation of the East Coast is that there is a lot more of everything. There are dozens of indoor skateparks within “Alaskan” driving distance, a number of cool cities nearby, and two Hockey teams close enough to go see a game. People are not meaner, although they do like to honk more. The dirt at the trails is made of clay, but it is surprisingly slow for a riding surface at this point in the season. Even though the population centers are packed, there are still more places where there’s nobody, than there are where there’s somebody – at least in Connecticut (tell me who I’m paraphrasing and I’ll send you the last shirt I have left).

It’s strange being a real adult. I got to work every day in a building with 4,000 people and look at figures representing billions of dollars (and no, none of it is taxpayer money). I feel less motivated to ride during the week, but more motivated to ride on the weekends. I haven’t taken my camera out once since I got here, and have enjoyed just riding my bike. I really enjoy my job, and the types of people who work there. I think that makes me a nerd. We have a real apartment with a garage, and the town we live in only has about 3,000 people.

I do actually hope to share some footage from here soon. As it turns out, there is lots of room to adventure, and a lot of famous spots to visit too. Sally and I plan to go to a different city every Saturday, so I will bring along a point and shoot to document some of our finds. I’m generally pretty good at spotting things from videos. This Saturday we’re going to Providence, RI.

Ok, that’s enough “I” statements out of me to last a while.