A DIY filmmaking project earns recognition at film festivals
Maybe six or eight times a year, when there’s a break in the commercial work that keeps the lights on, I shoot a variety of photo and film personal projects. Photography projects are typically pretty quick, even when I’m lugging around strobes, and they’re instantly rewarding. A single frame can be a timeless image that forever tells a story of who, where, when, and what a subject is doing. Film projects are a different beast. Not only do they require significantly more, and completely different, equipment, they also require more shooting time, need a concept and generally some kind of story arc, plus numerous hours of post-production to weave the footage into a cohesive piece.
Personal projects are often my favorite ones to make (Hell, I’ve made two feature-length DIY film projects [Downhill Speed and Reach For The Sky] that were almost entirely self-funded, which I shot and edited on nights, weekends, and vacation days that together took a combined 4+ years to complete), because often there’s not really an agenda, rather shoot whatever looks cool and then cook something up with those ingredients. Of course, these projects are only possible because I’m fortunate to have an inner circle packed to the gills with heavy hitters in mountain biking, dirt bike riding, and now snow sports. This is convenient, because I’m a style snob.
The Birth of a New Mountain Biking Film Project
On a chilly morning Saturday in February of 2024, I planned to film a little winter mountain bike video project with a handful of the Tahoe-area shredders (Jonathan Gibbons, Damon Iwanaga, Jack Lilyquist, Jett Lloyd, and Treyton Maskaly) and whip up something from whatever footage was acquired. The morning of that shoot, Mr. Gibbons asked if his buddy “who rips” could come along. Thinking “birds of a feather…” of course I was open to having another shredder join the riding crew. Unbeknownst to me, the guy who was going to show up was Connor Gallart.
After 11 years on the job, in 2012 I quit working as a staff photographer and writer at Mountain Bike Action magazine and moved from Santa Monica to Santa Cruz to work as a creative producer and copywriter for Specialized Bicycles Global Marketing division. During my years living in Santa Cruz, I’d occasionally shoot photos of the famous (and now destroyed) Post Office dirt jumps. Connor is from Santa Cruz, and during the years I shot there he was probably 14 to 17 years old and turning heads as one of the next elite dirt jumpers in an area that had produced and developed some of the top freeride and slopestyle talent of the early 2000s.
Capturing the Vision
The plan for that winter day was pretty simple. We’d all stroll down a Reno-area mountain bike trail in Virginia City, NV, for a couple of hours and just shoot what presents itself along the way. This area is one of the few zones that is often rideable when all other nearby trails are covered in snow—a hillside made of sand and volcanic rock known as Geiger Grade. Wild horses meander about the unforgiving mountain bike trails, and evidently Mark Twain once lived up the road. Regardless, no one would ever confuse this elbow-chewing pile of gravel for Whistler Bike Park. Yet, we paint on the canvas in front of us.
My shoot plan was to mix up focal lengths, compositions, and frame rates with a handful of great riders sending it at each shoot location, figuring if it went as planned I might get enough engaging footage for a tight little action edit, perhaps 90” long. We shot on a Saturday morning and by Monday morning I shared the final video with all who were involved. Below’s the project resulted from that day. (I like to scour the online public domain film archives to find old-school footage to put the action shots in context.)
Before shooting, we all gathered in the dirt turnout at the bottom of the riding area. Connor and I were acquaintances from the Post Office jump days, but I hadn’t seen him since 2015 during the last sessions days before the jumps were plowed. Coincidentally, he and I ended up riding in the same shuttle truck to the top of the trail. During this short drive, he mentioned he’d stopped riding years ago to join the military. But, he’s now back on his bike and wanted to once again make it a focus of his life and return to riding full time. Hearing this, a lightbulb went off inside my head. I mentioned we should go shoot him on his home turf in Santa Cruz, and also have him tell his story of growing up near the Post Office dirt jumps and that riding scene, plus talk about his return to riding. My thinking was if we make this short project about something (the story of him growing up in SC and his return to riding), plus include new riding action, we could be on to something. Action shreddits are fine, and I’ve certainly made plenty; yet in my opinion shooting action is the lowest hanging fruit in both photography and filmmaking. Therefore, I’m always looking for a way to integrate a unique story with engaging action.
Evident in that Virginia City riding video, Connor still has the skills (he’s the one throwing backflips in the long-sleeve black jersey on a downhill bike). So, I was pumped to put our heads together and make a short doc-style project.
Typically, from March until Thanksgiving my schedule is full with commercial work, so when I had a few days in between gigs this past May, I pointed my Suburban work camper toward the Pacific Ocean to shoot with Connor in Santa Cruz. We shot the afternoon I arrived, and then again the next morning and that afternoon. Although we didn’t really film all that much, I felt I’d acquired some ingredients I could cook with. Upon returning home, I organized the footage, but put editing it into something on the back burner as I immediately went back to previously scheduled work.
Turning Setbacks into Opportunities
About a month later, I was preparing for my first downhill mountain bike race of the 2024 season. To make a long story short, I made a mistake, crashed trying a new line, and broke my arm. I’ve been racing bikes since I was five years old (BMX from ages 5 to 15) and downhill since 2000, but have only ever broken a few bones. Regardless, the injury required surgery and I missed the entire summer and riding season and couldn’t touch a bike again until October. Really only my inner circle of friends and colleagues, plus fellow competitors at that event ever knew I’d broken my arm.
After feeling sorry for myself for a day or two, I realized I could take advantage of this newfound downtime… So, I sat down at my computer with my arm in a super-bulky splint and attempted to edit. Surgery was on a Tuesday and by Thursday I could kinda move my fingers on my right hand, but couldn’t move my wrist at all. After some trial and error, I rested my arm on a towel so my fingers were near the same level as the trackball I use to edit video. Although couldn’t use the keyboard and only really had a few functioning fingers, I got to work. I began editing on a Thursday morning and obsessively fine-tuned this project around the clock over the weekend (my Tacoma truck is a stick shift, so I couldn’t really go anywhere, anyway), and by Monday had finished the short mountain bike film project you see below.
As luck would have it, during the handful of years I lived in Santa Cruz, my home was broken into and a fireproof safe was stolen. Inside: dozens of sheets slide film of my favorite photos from my early days (switched to digital cameras at some point in 2005) of shooting full-time for Mountain Bike Action magazine (from age 22 to 34), plus several hard drives of digital photos, which held nearly all of my photos from the Post Office jumps. Knowing there were other photographers in Santa Cruz who’d shot at the Post Office jumps, I reached out to Ian Collins. A big thanks to him for his photo contributions from the Post Office jumps. His photos really helped tie the historical aspect of the project together. I licensed a handful of his shots, so about ⅔ of the black and white photos in the project are his and the rest are the handful I have remaining.
Festival Recognition and Final Thoughts
I’m my harshest critic and relentlessly tough on myself in everything I do, so I don’t put much weight in the opinions of those who judge photo contests or film festivals (from my experience, film festivals often exploit the creative IP of a filmmaker for their own profit and the one(s) who made the film project get practically nothing in return. I digress.) However, occasionally when I feel I have made something people might dig, I’ll throw a photo into a contest (I’ve still only ever entered three contests) or personal film into festival and see if something sticks.
For a zero-budget, DIY mountain bike film project that evolved inside my head while shooting another DIY mountain bike film project, I feel what Connor and I made together turned out alright. Since completion, I’ve entered it in a few film festivals that had short film categories. To date, it’s two for two, and has been accepted to both the London Mountain Film Festival and the Mammoth Film Festival. It’s fun to see the effort Connor and I put in being appreciated by these festivals, which feature several multi-million dollar projects (and our budget was our effort, and basically my cost in gas from Reno to Santa Cruz, plus coffee and donuts [I find glucose, carbs, and caffeine keeps morale high]). Moral of the story: make stuff and show people. And, when life gives you lemons, add vodka and get back to work.