ImEugene

NKTLDK/FILM ENTRY #5

So “Nozomi Killed the Last Divine Kibou” is done. Post-production work is complete. The only thing thing left is some papers that need to be signed for liability and right to use image yaddy yaddy yadda ireallyneedtogetsomeoneelsetodothepaperworkformeeventually-type things that I dread but it’s part of the game so I’m gonna game it but something I’ve been experimenting with is the use of test audience to gauge reactions.

The hardest thing for me is to view the project objectively. I know every single nuance designed into the film. I know the story inside out, from character motivation to their often unsaid backstory, there is literally no one who knows this movie better than I do and thats simply cause the majority of the design of the project was by me. I won’t say entirety though, each actor brings their own interpretation of their role and the story and their acting is the end result of that. They’ll ask you what you think of a take and I look at it objectively and simply judge whether it works or not. They may feel like they could’ve done better but that’s simply the nature of art. There’s a lot of things about this one I feel could’ve been done better but oh well. Some of the actors and crew members have viewed the final project*. Even though I value their opinions of the short film, I don’t rely on them in the entirety because like me, they simply know too much so that’s where the test audiences come from.

Once again I called on a wide variety of people of people to view it. Some are the type that’d call themselves cinephiles, others think Avengers is the best movie ever and everyone in between. My goal was to create a project that has some artistic basis but at the same time wide reach. Someone who has mastered that is Christopher Nolan. His movies are very approachable and creative but it’s not obsessed with being so artistic that it loses viewers. It’s probably why he is one of the few directors today whose name alone will sell movie tickets, it’s why he’s able to get such massive funding for his original projects when every other studio is trying to play it safe with sequels and remakes that already have a following. I wanted to do just that. It’s a samurai/ninja type action movie and honestly who doesn’t like that?!

It is artsy. It’s black and white. I’m pretty sure I revealed it in a previous post but it’s a product of technical error than a creative decision which is actually the most common thing people who don’t do art don’t know about art. I’m ok with it. The story is a lot more vague than I wanted it to be. This is due to certain scenes not running as long as I hoped and cutting down lines. A lot of expository lines were cut and my biggest worry was that it may have been too much. I don’t want people to watch it and think “ok…” in a legit way, I hope that is arouses question and thought but about the themes and messages involved, not the entirety of the movie itself. I don’t want it to be another nonsensical art movie and I just label it “abstract”. Lines were cut, some were forgotten and I overviewed it. Filming is over so I have to work with what I got. It’s not exactly the project I imagined when I was writing the script and designing the process but it’s close enough. That’s just the process but does it stay true to what it was about. I ramble sometimes (everyone who reads this blog knows) and my ADD mind makes it hard to follow, I don’t want this movie to be a visual rambling. Once again the test audience is the only way I know if it’s successful.

The idea is that they give me honest feedback and if enough complaints were made about a certain aspect of the movie, than that aspect is a weakness. I then determine if I can fix it or not. What I showed was the most polished version of the movie. The actor and crew feedback definitely had some common points of criticism and there were small changes made here and there and suggestions were implemented. What we’ll call the control group saw was what I felt was ready to be pushed out as a final product. Asking whether it’s good or not is a terrible question in my opinion. Number one even if you put out the worst thing, people will say it’s good not to crush your feeling. Which is good cause it just means people aren’t that terrible but as a way to systematically try to evaluate the project it’s awful. The most important pieces of information to me was the specific feedback.

Firstly I asked everyone “Did they get it?” and the answers were interesting. Some people got the gist of the story but were lost in the specifics. Others implemented their own assumptions to fill in those lost spaces. Others didn’t even care for the specifics and just understood it for the bigger picture. Everyone seems to get the general idea of the movie which is a relief because I really tried to create something that was little on expositions and more on a mood. Of course the story has to be understood to attain the right mood I was going for so the fact that as minimalistic the movie is at times, it worked in that aspect.

Because a lot of the plot based elements of the story didn’t have proper exposition, I didn’t know if the non-linear storytelling method would be confusing. I tried to ante up on visual storytelling with this one but I’m still very unexperienced when it comes to proper cinematic storytelling. I work hard and study it because it’s what I love to do but it’s all theory until you give it form. This is where things got kind of weird. It seems that some people got certain key story elements and others didn’t but it’s not consistent in what they got and what they didn’t get. Like the first half of the movie was confusing to some but to others the last half. Both parties were right on their assumptions when I asked them so I know the information was there but it seemed like there is a lot of ambiguity in the story where no one is able to catch all of it. I don’t think anyone understood all the elements. Even weirder is that it doesn’t seem to matter somehow? In my personal understanding of the project, I thought that all of what I construed as the basic points of the movie would have to be understood for it to be enjoyable and feel like a coherent story but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The basic idea/message/theme is well understood and any ambiguity doesn’t seem like a let down as far as the control group perceived but just another mystery in an already rather vague story. Which is unexpected.

There were changes made to the short due to the control group’s feedback which kind of gives me a bit more confidence in the group and myself as a filmmaker. There wasn’t any common point of criticism or trend that warranted anymore change so that’s that. It’s done. This week I really need to get the paperwork done and that’s the biggest hassle. Some people might get mad that they got they got filmed but have zero screen time.. but it is what it is. They got compensated. The next project has started but it might happen slow or quick, I don’t know.

We call him Watchman. Not because that’s what he calls himself, it’s actually what he calls us but you say the same phrase over and over again and it becomes a thing. It’s kind of weird to think about cause the nickname he gave us and the nickname we gave him is the same. “Watchman! Watchman!” is what he would say when he entered the store. It started with my dad first because he’d watch over the customers to see if anyone steals. Plenty of opportunists in this neighborhood but that’s how it is over here. Soon it spread to my coworker, then my brother. I’m consistently the youngest so I’m Watchman Jr. 

He’s about my father’s age, late 50’s to early 60’s, a night time customer. There is always a distinction between night time customers and day time customers at the liquor store. If you’re an all day customer you have a problem. He comes in wearing his neon yellow construction vest each time so I want to say he comes in after work. A skinny man, Black-American, wears glasses that seem to cover about half his face. A bit gaunt, maybe that’s how he is, but I’d like to imagine that years of heavy labor never allowed him to gain a pound of fat on his body. He buys Milwaukee 6-pack and maybe a shot of Gilbeys. That’s the cheapest beer combined with the cheapest and smallest liquor. It’s the beer and liquor of the homeless but in this neighborhood where the most common complaint is how hard times have become, the savings choice. You can tell a lot by the drinks people choose. A working class guy like him coming in to buy the same cheap stuff everyday, he favors the buzz over the taste. He knows exactly what the price should be so he’s probably frugal and a bit of thinker at the very least. Plenty of people come in everyday, buy the same thing, never aware of how much it is. It’s just part of their daily program. Give a $20, take the change, go home. It’s certainly not because they’re wealthy to the extent money is no longer an issue, just that the lack of money has become an ingrained issue. But Watchman notices. He always makes noise when the price increases.

I tell the few who notice the same programmed response. Everything is going up. Rent is going up. Gas is going up. Food is going up. So is liquor. It’s at that point they come to realization that’s its a universal truth and even us being “prestigious” business owner of something like a liquor store are just mere pawns in the games of a world much larger than any of us. But that doesn’t stop the complaints, they see the store owner in front of them. They have a direct connection to the man who prices every single item in the store. This isn’t McDonalds or Walmart where they’ll be crushed by the corporate steps. All they have to do is complain to make their voices heard. Unfortunately it falls onto my father’s deaf ears and they know that. They know that if put in my father’s shoes they’d make the same choices. It’s a business, not a charity. We have to remind them that sometimes. 

But Watchman never makes his noise in a serious way. More like something to fill the void of silence. He’s certainly a peculiar person. He espouses the negative stereotypes of his race. He pretends to hide beer in his vest and run away. Complains incessantly for no reason. Asks for free every single time. Tells us his plan to get away with a free beer. It’s as if he plays a caricature of his race, complete with exaggerated manner of behavior and speech. Like a meta-level social commentary. I find the theory of it funnier than the reality. It’s kind of uncomfortable cause it’d be like laughing at what I think a minstrel show was, besides he’s just a regular old black guy who works construction, so I don’t know what to take of it. I think he realizes this, he’s perceptive, goes back to noticing the change in prices. Now he talks about marrying my mom and he tells me it’s ok to for me to call him daddy. He never takes his change. Always the same return when I try to give it to him, “Son put that into your college fund”. It’s about 7 cents max. I return the favor when he’s a bit short but that’s rare. 

In a lower class neighborhood like this there a hood moments. It’s usually a culmination of a guy whose just had enough. That movie “Falling Down” with Micheal Douglas, he plays an office worker who just had enough of the life and has a break down leading up to a chain of events where he ends up with like an RPG on the boardwalk and in a confrontation with the police. That’s kind of what a hood moment is. It’s hard out here. People are always watching their back, distrust is high amongst each other and the larger world itself. Life can’t get any worse, to some people prison is literally preferable because at least in there you’re taken care of. In the real world, you can easily end up in fate worse than that and you see just that all around you. Stress just builds up. You end up living a life with a permanent chip on your shoulder cause you have it worst. You can bring up starving kids in Africa but nobody has actually  of us have ever seen a starving kid in Africa, that’s just TV and you see all sorts of things on TV. Hood moments always transpire over the smallest infractions, it’s never really about the infraction. Like I said it’s a culmination of all the infractions over the course of lifetime and a deep seated somewhat rightful resentment of the world. That small infraction is just the straw the broke the camel’s camels back. But when you’re stuck in a neighborhood where everyone is like that, everyones on edge, everyone is one straw away from something like even murder, it leaves everywhere a powderkeg waiting to explode. But this is a liquor store so it’s a big powderkeg. This sentimentality exists everywhere in the country but what separates the hood from upper middle class is that in the back of everyone’s head, they have nothing to lose so it’s dangerous.  

My dad from time to time have these hood moments. People come in disrespecting him because of his race. Complaining about prices after he’s already explained the situation to them every day  before that. Dealing with homeless people who smell of a literal human shit and at times even cleaning it. My mother’s complaints which are perfectly logical in her head but not based on any type of actual evidence. Just dealing with the same general petty bullshit that the hood is rife with on a day to day for most of his day, for most of the year. It has a way of weathering down a man’s spirit. 

Our neighborhood passed a law banning the use of single use plastic bag. It’s been the biggest source of complaints. It’s probably because of the environment and the recent push to protect which I’m all for but that’s because I come from a bit of money. People around here have more immediate issues to address than something abstract like global warming. Those words are in the same playing fields as Dow Jones or the conflict in some place in the world where no one can point to it in the map. People already pay 5 cents per bag because of the county tax and now they’re telling us that we can’t have plastic. It’s absurd to the people here. Its worse particularly in the liquor store (everythings worse at a liquor store) because beer is chilled so when it leaves refrigerator it naturally gets wet because of the humidity or whatever science behind that. Wet paper = ripped paper. You need to legally be able to cover the alcohol to not get an open carry ticket and in a neighborhood where most residents don’t own cars and the cops are fierce, that’s an imperative. Combine that with the economic situation in which the cheapest single paper bag bought in bulk costs more than the 5 cent charge the government requires so we’re losing money on every bag which is more or less required for every purchase. Legally we could charge more for the bags but when the major chain grocery stores across the street who buy bags in what probably seems like millions in bulk can get away with the 5 cents, we can’t. We can’t increase cause we’d seem like the greedy ones. People don’t already want to pay 5 cents for a bag they don’t like. It’s a perfect storm for the making of a hood moment. 

“Your writing isn’t talented, it’s gifted”, that’s what Professor Collins said to me. I’ve never been good with compliments so I said a meek thank you and made note that I do write a lot. I didn’t want him to think that I just came into class and wrote the initial assessment essay and it happened to be to his liking. That there was real work behind it. Years of writing on some blog that had a small but I’d like to think a dedicated following. “You have good pacing and your word choice is excellent, you’re a visual storyteller and it shows in your paper”, it felt good for something you’ve been working on for a while to be recognized outside of it’s regular sphere of influence, you feel like it has real merit. “You’re grammar and technical skills are God awful though… but we’ll work on that this semester”, I looked at the grade it was a C+.

He was an interesting person. One of those people with a natural magnetic charm. He had absolute command and control over the community college class, there was an underlying respect that he garnered. Not through any type of authoritarian means even though you knew deep inside he’s absolutely capable of just that. He was a people’s champion of sorts. His accent thick like molasses as he puts it. A southerner who quit construction in his nowhere town in a nowhere state. I don’t like to bash the culture of the South cause I don’t think it is all as bad people make it out to be but he did come off as someone who outgrew the culture of ignorance that the South can sometimes be. He one day just drove to Baltimore during the height of the crack wars, found a place near John Hopkins (which if you know is absolute hood), got a college degree and began teaching. He looked like a shorter Woody Harrelson. Weathered face and a wit crafted through years of experience. Not the dry phrases people like to repeat, there was tact in every move, every word. It was immediate, it was sharp. This combined with these blue eyes that would pierce right through you. There was a lot inner turmoil and intensity in them. He hid it behind a kind smile though, even though that looked somewhat practiced. He was a dying man, I think. The first day of class he mentioned that at times he maybe absent and there would an assistant teacher in class to help him, all due to treatment. I wasn’t sure if anyone else caught it but I wasn’t going to press the matter. 

During that semester he really let me focus on the technicality of writing. A mixture of warm compliments and unflinching criticism. I respected that in him. I tend to coast through a lot of writing based class cause years of writing puts me on a different level than most my peers whose hardest work is 2 pages double spaced of the effects of the Spanish-Civil War or something like that. Not to sound like I’m bragging cause my math level is at a 7th Graders at most but I do write and I do it often. I got a C+ the first paper. That’s good enough, next paper I wrote I did more of the same, usual stylized stream of consciousness that I grew accustomed to. I’ll just coast on by and think about movies. The paper comes back D-, he tells me he wants to speak to me after class. I didn’t really get it then. I don’t think I did better or worse than the first paper. After class he takes care of all other business and we discuss the paper. He starts with his first few brief compliments than back to his unflinching criticisms. The paper had every symbol and line imaginable, marked beyond repair. He told me to turn to our writing handbook to see what each sign meant and fix it and he’ll add 10 extra points or something like minuscule like that.

See at that point I respected him a lot as a teacher, a person and as a man. A teacher cause his devotion to the subject was clearly there and he maneuvered the class to make the sour subject of Literature more approachable. I do not like a lot of liberal arts teachers, it seems often they’re just hacks who stroke their own ego using big words and empty ideas hoping to impress a student body that’s forced to be there. He wasn’t that. There was certain conviction. As a person, I respected him cause a Southerner like himself can easily categorized but he outgrew the parts that didn’t seem necessary and embraced the one that were. Our assistant teacher was Ms. Johnson. She was the usual cool, hip, down to earth, black teacher from the city living her life to make the world a bit better. It was an odd juxtaposition but you could tell Ms. Johnson approved of Professor Collins “one hundred” as she would hiply state. I think he even called himself white boy a few times. It made him all that much more approachable to the different type of people that constituted the class. As a man I respected him cause as the semester rolled on and life drained from his face, as his eyes grew more tired more weary. He still put on his best two shoes and persevered. That’s the trait of a real man. That conviction never unflinching, pressing on even when it’s so hard. You hear people talk about needing a day off for “mental health” and I don’t disagree with that, I’ve done it myself but that type of will Professor Collins showed during that semester was something else. Those heavy coughs and that handkerchief he kept around, a testament to his coming fate. 

I wasn’t going to give him a hard time though. If he’s going to take the time to give me some pointers than I’m gonna take my time to do him right too.At a certain point it was looking at the pluses and minuses that determined if I did well or not. At one point he made note that he put a smiley on a paragraph cause he liked it. It all felt like that book Tuesdays with Morrie. It’s about a sportswriter spending time learning with his old professor who is slowly withering away from Lou Gehrigs/ALS. I’m trying my best to be an adult these days, not some punk ass entitled kid who thinks just cause I write more and I do slight better than my peers that I should have a better grade and when I don’t, cry about it. This is a challenge he placed upon me as a man and it’s up to me to meet that challenge and I tried my best. C+ if I did good. D- if I didn’t. It was tough. But every paper the same few encouraging words followed by the poignant criticism. Re-write it and I’ll give you 10 extra points. I rewrote it each time and took on whatever extra credit given. 

By the end of the semester he was missing class more often and Ms.Johnson would be stand in. At no point was his health ever mentioned really after the first class when he mentioned attending treatment. I didn’t know whether to address it or not as we grew more familiar with time. In the modern world, it’s ok for men to discuss feelings. I don’t look down upon that at all. If that’s all someone does when we hang out, that’s something else but to share a moment of candid thoughts from time to time, we’re only human and have one life and that life can be overwhelming. I can understand that. Professor Collins was old school and that approach I don’t think was necessarily something he’d find solace in. He presented me a task and I respected his will and met with that task the best I can. I kept my mouth shut and my head down and did the work. What he’s dealing with is clearly full time and if there’s a moment where he can just badger me for my terrible sentence structure and not think about anything else, well that’s the man’s way. 

I wasn’t going to fan out on him. He was a lot smaller than I imagined, slim figure, a real quiet demeanor. Which is funny because his riding is well known to be the opposite; loud and vicious. He had no visible tattoos besides two small but very noticeable ones on the top of his hands. It yelled to me, “I don’t give a fuck” and here he was in front of me. I absolutely was not going to fan out on him. I definitely was a fan though. It’s that quiet demeanor. That I want to be left alone look about him. It’s his weathered face and eye, youth has definitely took a toll on him. I had this image of what he’d be like and somehow he subverted all that but also exceeded it. That phrase, “so punk it hurts” and you look at him and you got that. 

My friend Omar was there, he doesn’t ride so he didn’t know who he was. It was so weird to see Omar oblivious to someone that will truly rest as one the greats in BMX. It was good though. I remind Omar that this guy was in the X-Games at one point and we geek about it. I don’t remember the interaction all too well. Most of it was small talk, the legend wasn’t exactly the friendliest guy. Not mean, just quiet. We were in the living room with the guy who I was staying with, who’s another BMX royalty. Omar knew that though. He did his google research when we were heading over there and I gave him some historical context but for whatever reasons I can’t remember, our middleman was gone and it was just us three. Me trying my best not to say whatever comes into my head. The pro maybe hoping that I don’t make this weird, I don’t know, I don’t know what it’s like to be him but I’m sure that happens and Omar oblivious to it all, just chilling on his phone. Our middleman was gone for too long. I think it was him who initiated the small talk. Our mutual buddy introduced us as riders I think and that we’re with him. Nothing new in this community and I want to say he asked where we were coming from. The next thing I remember was the look on his face when we told him that story.

Omar and I was traveling through the southwest coming from Los Angeles and heading to Florida. It’s a lot of desert and a lot of driving. Thoroughly enjoyed cause Omar and I both enjoy that type of slow burn travel, car driving can be. I don’t remember where cause the desert blends the landscape into one but somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona. It was night. The land was flat and barren. Thinking back on it, it was cool to be around that endless sand and pure darkness due to man’s inability to conquer those lands effectively, that’s what I like to think at least. Omar felt a certain resonance with the desert, it’s most definitely cause he’s Egyptian. Sand is in his heritage. Sand people will love the sand but it was the stars that he remembers. He always speaks of it. 

We were in Death Valley the night before that incident, this was just stupidity. We setup camp. Omar says he’s going to take a nap. I wanted to take a hike to the mountains. It seemed easy enough because the land was so flat and easily navigable. No trees to get lost in. You see the mountain and you head there and you head back. I told him a few hours but he might’ve already passed out from trip exhaustion so I just walked. Little by little the mountain grew bigger. At a certain point I remember being at the step so I thought time to climb. I hate when people say I climbed a mountain cause I imagine ropes and nails being involved but it was just a steep hike up. I’d get to a certain point and I’d realize there was a higher mountain to be climbed so I continued. I’d get there and the same thing would happen. So I continued. At some point I got near the top and it was cold and windy. The peak was full of loose rocks and God knows how far I was away from camp. I looked behind and our camp was a speck. I looked in front and there were more mountains across the valley. I felt that it was possible to walk through that valley to get there too. A lot taller mountains. It kind of annoyed me, the "extreme” side of me that got me into this predicament but what are you gonna do? I just knew there was never going to be an end to this pointless pursuit so I sat down to smoke some weed. Which is really hard when you’re on top of a mountain and it’s windy as hell. I remember finding some small rock overhang type thing and laying down and trying to block the wind and smoke. Too bad the wind was seemingly blowing in every direction but it ended up working. 

I’m a loner stoner. I heard that term somewhere and always felt that applied to me. I hate being around people when I’m doing all that. I don’t smoke anymore by the way, not relevant to the story but just a tid bit to throw in there. It was ideal though. Stoned on top of a mountain, away from everything. In a barren landscape, no distraction. Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with me but as I get older I just accept myself for who I am. I’m not going to try to fight it anymore. I’m a proud loner stoner (not anymore). I remember praying up there like some Biblical story. I don’t remember what I prayed for but it was probably something very general. I don’t like to pray for specifics cause I feel like I’m being too needy. I do remember I asked for a sign if God was out there cause I do remember those Biblical stories. I waited probably all of 10 minutes and remember thinking how stupid I was to ask for that. Why the fuck does God have to entertain me? It was stupid. It was getting dark, I started to head back. 

Remember that barren lands can’t get lost thing? Well it was dark and I couldn’t see in front of me. No civilization, no light. There was a bit of moonlight and starlight but starlight don’t do nothing. It was all disorientating. I remember thinking, I have to head in a straight line back to make it. If I can do that, I’ll be ok so that’s what I did. It was anxious cause once I got off the mountain there was no camp light speckle left so for a few hours I walked in the what seemed like absolute darkness in pure anxiety hoping I don’t get bitten by rattlesnake or scorpion. “This is why they call it Death Valley”, I was thinking. I stayed straight to my path and I got back but where was I?

The camp was gone. It looked like the spot but I wasn’t sure. Everything was gone. I checked around it definitely seemed like it was the right place. There wasn’t any other campground for like 10 miles or so and I definitely wasn’t that off. Omar was gone, so was my car, and everything I had. I remember there was a new camp sight being built up. I didn’t want to seem like some desert serial killer by heading to them directly cause I came out of seemingly nowhere so I waited until they were outside their tent to say something. I asked about the whereabouts of my camp and mentioned Omar. It’s always weird to use race as a way to describe people to white people. Amongst minorities, it’s whatever but race is very sensitive topic to white people. Normally I’d call him “tall Muslim dude” but I think I called him “tall Egyptian dude”, it seemed more PC. They told me he packed up the camp and took my car to the nearest station to use the phone and report me missing. I was gone for maybe 5 hours most. I politely thanked them for their time and began to curse Omar’s name repeatedly on top of my lungs for the next few minutes. Eventually I wore myself out and laid on top of the picnic table there. I didn’t want to be bitten by rattlesnakes or scorpions. It was cold, it’s very cold in the desert at night. I remember looking up and seeing the stars as clear as I ever saw them. It was quite a sight but the mixture of the temperature and unease of feeling stranded still lingered in my head. I couldn’t enjoy it fully. Eventually I saw a familiar car roll up and Omar got out, “Bruh I thought you were dead”. He reported me missing. We discussed if we should head back and tell them I was found but I think we both settled it was too far and we didn’t care enough. Apparently a group of Norwegian girls came wanting to party but Omar was too busy trying to find me to entertain them. God really is cruel sometimes. “What were you doing up there, trying to talk to God like Moses?”, Omar sarcastically said. 

At this point it was me and Omar yelling over each other to trying to tell our viewpoints while simultaneously defending our own actions. Omar defending himself and myself still cursing his name. I must have repeated “it was five fucking hours” quite a few times that night. This BMX legend was throughly intrigued, his eyes were wide from taking it all in. That’s when I told him that story. “So we were driving at night in the desert and there was semi in front of us”. Omar started bursting out laughing uncontrollably right then, he knew exactly where this was going. The legend looks over to Omar still laughing maniacally, eyes still wide, not saying anything, actively listening. 

So we were driving at night in the desert and there was semi in front of us. It was late at night. Must have been like 3AM. Omar was dead, not literally obviously, not asleep either, but in quiet sedation. I was on autopilot. It’s the desert and there’s no cars around ever besides this one semi so it wasn’t tough. At this point no one was talking, not cause of what happened earlier but we probably smoked ourselves stupid and only had minimum brain cells keeping us going. I was about 15 feet behind the semi truck. Some people like more distance but I’ve been driving in Los Angeles, there is no concept of distance there. Bumper to bumper. When you’re on autopilot that’s just what happens. “Hey pull back a little”, those were the first words out of Omar’s mouth in a while. “Why?”. “I don’t know just do it”, I remember thinking Omar gone smoked himself paranoid but out of courtesy I relented. Not because it was hard to do but I was too tired to deal with any type of special requests at this point. Even the most idle chatter felt like work. A few moments later the tire on semi burst. 

The trailer slid around and narrowly missed hitting us by a few feet. My autopilot changed from cruising to life saving immediately and I had to dodge the large tire debris and the truck which came to an abrupt stop. If Omar didn’t tell me to preemptively to move back, we would have most definitely been destroyed by the trailer, maybe even dead I was thinking but we escaped it all without any scratches. We left the truck behind. Terrible thing but it didn’t flip and I was on flight mode. I look over to Omar and he was still awake with the same expressionless face he had before. He definitely witnessed all that happen but didn’t seem at all moved by our near death experience. “Yo.. we could’ve died”, trying to vent out some of the stress from what just happened, trying to figure out what happened. “I’m not afraid of dying man”, he told me. It was like that high school edgelord reply and it annoyed the shit out of me. “Dude! We almost could’ve fucking died, did you not see what just happened!?. “I’m not afraid of dying”, he said to me again in the same monotone voice and expressionless face. I’m pretty sure I ranted for a bit and he sat there unmoved. A day later, we were still driving in the desert, its endless after all and suddenly all at once it hit him and he burst out all crazy crazy. “WE COULD’VE FUCKING DIED WHEN THAT SEMI TIRE BURST AND TRAILER SWINGING!”, not his exact words but with that trademark fast pace, loosely jointed sentences and ideas, yelled at decibels way too high. Something I expected him to be immediately after it actually happened but a day later it seemed to late. At that point personally all the happenings subsided a bit but I was thinking all sorts of crazy around the surrounding details of what happened. Did God speak through Omar... I still don’t know. I like to think that is what happened. I gave him so much shit for playing hardman “I’m not afraid to die” shit and he’s over here having some sort of strange delayed mental breakdown over the incident. That we could’ve been two dead kids in some mortuary, thousands of miles away from home if it wasn’t for some strange sixth sense happening. Maybe enough of Omar’s brain cells finally recovered and it was finally processing what happened. 

I wished I could say I dwelled on it more but maybe I’ve grown a bit too apathetic or cold, I don’t really know if there’s a difference. I saw that poster on the store wall and immediately knew it was you. 

I was ready to go home after a day of work that night. It was late. On a weekday I remember cause it was only my coworker and I. We did our usual dad jokes of “Sorry I have to see you tomorrow”, I guess a way to joke about our general displeasure with our jobs. It’s far from perfect but it’s what we have to do and it’s not entirely bad. I saw you in the parking lot in front of the store laying face down. I figured you were another drunk and came over to reprimand you. There’s been a lot of heat from the local government about the vagrancy problem as if we were the ones that cause it. I remember going to a board meeting for our store and one representative had a moral objection to what our store does, little does he know so do we. “But this is America” we tell ourselves, something a neighborhood consisting of mostly immigrants know exactly the meaning of, to justify our fall from moral outrightness, our fall is owning a liquor store. A legal drug dealer as some have put it. 

You were laying in a pool of blood. That’s when I knew something was wrong. First I thought you might have fell on your face but it seemed much more serious than that. My coworker came over to see and it was obvious that you were a target. He told me to go home and not speak of it. He knew the ways of the neighborhood but I told him we should at least call the ambulance. He said that this is not a situation for us to get involved with and he quickly brushed me towards my car and immediately left. I was parked and saw people walk by, quickly looking at you and immediately looking away. It was not a situation they wanted to get involved with either. I waited a bit hoping someone else would intervene but the same look away happened. I don’t blame them. You’re a local drunkard who messed with the wrong folks. These are hard working people with friends and families all over the neighborhood. It’s either their people or you and they chose their people and nothing wrong with that. There is no room for ideals here. The neighborhood can be cruel sometimes and they’re all very well aware of that. 

I came out and told you I was going to call the ambulance. You were very incoherent but you seem truly against that. You seem to gesture you were ok but your face was covered in blood and you were unable to move right. I called the emergency services and told them our location. There were a lot of “I don’t know” thrown around in that conversation on my end, one part because I didn’t, other part cause I’m here to make sure you have the best chance of survival, that’s it, nothing else. They asked if I thought you were attacked and I didn’t know how to answer that. I knew you were but I didn’t want to get involved in this either. I said to them it was a possibility but that I didn’t know. I figured thats the best I can do. So we waited.

During that wait I knew those kids were the ones that did this to you. You seemed extra choked up when they walked by and they did so twice. Very slowly, very deliberately. I gave them a quick glance just to assess to situation but I knew it was dangerous to look too long. I remembered what an old gangbanger once said. A guy who looked like he could play linebacker for the Redskins, covered in tattoos, claimed to do 2000 push ups a day, which is probably more fable than truth but he looked the part. Real street guy, real street mind. He told us the scariest out here were the kids who felt they had nothing to lose and the street to gain. I’ve heard a story about him backing down from shrimped armed kids because of that. Now those same type of kids are lurking behind me, their glares just piercing right through me. I didn’t have to look to know that. In my stomach I knew it was them and after what seemed like a long five minutes, they hit the corner into darkness of the alley and left. Maybe.

I’m most ashamed of what came next but I reprimanded you. “Te esta mi tienda de papa”, I think that’s Spanish for “This is my father’s store”. If there is one thing Spanish and Asians mutually understand is the importance and respect of family. It’s in our blood and culture. I wanted you to know how much I hated all this right now. I called you stupid. I called you a problem for bringing this in front of my father’s store. You laying there beaten to pulp, I just yelled at you. I was so mad that you put me in this situation. In this parking lot where numerous others have been killed before. During the late night, just me and you, alone with every figment of my imagination working against me. I was mad that I was in the stronghold of one of the most notorious gangs in the US, infamous for their cruelty. A place supposedly where one of their high shotcallers calls home, lurking somewhere in the neighborhood, maybe one of our customers too. I wish I could say I comforted you during these hard moments but I didn’t. I just hope now that me being there was enough. I was being selfish. You cried a bit. I don’t know if it was because of me or from before but I noticed you silently pouting away. I took a single photo. I know why. Not to immortalize this situation in anyway like it’s memorabilia to my life experiences or anything like that but sometimes life is hard and I don’t think people believe me and that chips away at me too. I deleted it since then. 

A lady came by. She was about to walk away too but in last minute judgement of good heartednessm she turned around and asked what happened. I told her situation and the little I knew. She began to ask you questions about the ordeal in you guy’s native tongue. She used the word “gangas” extra silently and your body almost jerked in reaction. You denied it, blamed it on being a drunk, I knew from the little Spanish I spoke. Maybe they were lurking in the shadow still and you were scared, I would be too. She didn’t press on. I think she knew too. The ambulance came and I quickly slid away and headed home before they could ask anything more out of me. 

A few months later I come into the store and I notice the poster. It was you, your head bashed in but surgically fixed the best it can be. It’s obvious they took a part of your skull out to save you, probably some internal bleeding and pressure from what TV taught me. It didn’t say whether you were dead or alive. From what I can tell, it’s probably a better fate to be not alive cause a good portion of your head is missing and I can’t imagine that not causing some trouble. Your eyes looking in different directions, they felt dead, catatonic. Never to see the world the way it is ever again, maybe in your story that’s better. They wanted to know if anyone knew you. If you had any family. Everyone denied knowing anything, it’s just the way it is. If I was there I’d just say the same line, I have family here too. It’s terrible the picture to reference you was one where you looked like that. Even in the news they put at least some flattering photo or at least a mugshot where you could look tough but I imagine they didn’t have too much too work with here. Not the first one I saw but at least Bacardi’s poster had him looking peacefully dead. A combination of Winter and malnutrition was probably what got him though. I don’t know whats worse. Quick moment of tear or the slow decay that I saw Bacardi go through.

Her.

“Kris... I can’t wait to see your name on the billboards”. It’s not something I ever mentioned wanting but she said it to me. Her voice calm with a certain genuine tone. A habitual liar but she’s also an honest person. Some people won’t get that. I did. I think that’s why we got along so well. We were two kids of country blumpkins who dreamed of the stars and didn’t know any better. You always saw it so well where you lived. You truly marveled under their light. I don’t think I ever saw them like you did. Your eyes shown bright, full of hope, full of anticipation for what came next. I wasn’t there for that stage but it seemed very hard from when you spoke of it. 

After those words. You made me promise to give your sister a better life if I made it in life. All my transgressions were immediately forgiven as long as I did that. Somewhere in you, you already gave up. I told you, I could do at least that but no promises. You already knew the answer. I’m not much but I’m honest and straight forward which makes me predictable with certain things. We were supposed to escape it all but I knew it was doomed since the start and so did you but we pretended well for those following long years didn’t we? But there was something there that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Two people who could at least listen to the other and pretend like we made a difference in each others lives. It was something.

In the end. You spared me when you had no reason to do so. I guess a part of me spared you too. We did that little dance where we didn’t know who did worse. I still live with it being me. That last smile. It hurt to look at. It was almost defeated. Those green eyes that were proudly mix of grey felt more grey than green then. And when you came back last time, you were in need of help. It must have been bad to eat that strong pride of yours. You said the usual words that’d charm just about anyone else but that time I saw through. Those rare moments where I did let you get by and I said nothing. I got it. So I did what I can. Which isn’t near enough that I would do if I could do more. Thanks for getting it too. 

River Runs Between...

We had that official announcement that was your Native name. You thought it was so ridiculous but I think that the side of me you did like. You were Native... and Mexican you never let me forget that too but Native was what was interesting. You seemed like it. Someone so beyond the expectations and universal brainwashing of the world. In that sense you were the most interesting person to me even though you would describe yourself as simple and plain. When people talk about spirituality I was used to crystals and scented oils but you always had this sense of self assuredness in your place in the world, it was something you never questioned. Someone who just merely understood, to be around that was to tap into something else. You never thought much of it all, even your heritage which covets some kind of strange status to mainstream America. To you it was an excuse to go to the Pow-Wow a few times a year. You also knew why you didn’t go and just receive the free money owed to you because of your blood, you knew it wasn’t all that free. You were perfectly made for what you were made for, and you truly realized it. I can’t get over that but I don’t think you were made for me. I remember when we went to the Native American Museum you were so embarrassed when I kept telling you take back what was yours. That all in the museum belongs to you anyway so it wouldn’t be stealing. You can’t steal what was stolen remember? You told me to be quiet because you hated me making a scene where everyone was overlistening but you smiled all the way through.

I was at the most selfish when I was with you. I’m sorry for that. But I can say that I tried my best everyday with you and that’s something you agreed when it all ended. I’m a proud person and you know that. I’m not someone who needs confirmation from a lot of people but I seeked it from you. You spoke only truth and to sometimes hear those truths was what I needed. You understood people naturally, I didn’t and despised them back then and you would defend them. I thank you for that. You always saw the better side, truly. All those years to never hear you utter a single curse word but those few times you did, it definitely hurt a bit more. I’ll never forget when we were out in the mall. I was making the usual dumb joke that you’d laugh at just the sheer stupidity of it. We laughed harder than anyone else there and in the corner of my eye I saw this grandma, alone, just looking at us. She had the most sincere smile on her face seeing us interact the way we did, we were relationships goals. It was then I knew everything with us was ok. 

We are lucky to meet people who carve us into more. We’re all pieces of work and to meet someone who takes the times to polish us up. We’re lucky to find something so rare. In a time where no one seems to have time for anyone but everyone, you always did for me. I wouldn’t be half the person I like about me if  it wasn’t for you, in that sense no regrets ever. It’s funny, I think I grew up the most with you. I hope you saw the best side of me too and there’s a small part of you at the very least can say “Kris really helped me with that”. You really could be a model if you wanted to. 

Most Retard

We called each other the same pet name. It was weird but so normal. I’d say it then you’d say it back to me. It just became part of our weird vocabulary and lingo. You only called me by my name when you were mad, which I wish I could say was rare but it was pretty regular. It was either me or the world. You kept me humble in a way that only a short asian girl can. You told me I wasn’t shit when I was winning. You laughed at me with sheer malice when I made any mistake. Of course when you were serious and I laughed at you, I was absolutely the worst and in your words “never took anything seriously”. When I was feeling myself, you told me I was ugly and my forehead was too big and my eyes too small. You told me I was lucky that you liked ugly guys. Very few people could put up with that, I was lucky to have. 

We never got each other but we got each other. You knew why I lived the life I did and didn’t question it. I tried to know why you did yours but that’s something you’d rather not talk about. I made sure I never made anything too big of a deal. We laughed hard those years, that’s it. Mostly you at me. Even with the constant barrages of insults and criticism once in a while you showed your soft side that was unusually quiet. The calm between the storms. When you last called and you spoke unusually soft. You were scared. We broke up a while back but I never got angry at you like everyone else so I think thats why you came to me. I promised myself years ago if a relationship is ending and those years were good as they always were cause I stayed, that I wouldn’t tear you or anyone down. We’re lucky to even have these moments, hopefully one of them lasts a lifetime but its not less if it doesn’t. You were so angry, your voice couldn’t keep up. It wasn’t the usual. You slowly let it out. And I’d kept shut and listened. I didn’t know what to say to you and I feel bad for that. I did think what is the most important thing for you to hear at that time and what words will mend you the best in the long term and I said those words. You told me I was like a dog that one time. You said it in your usual sort of dismissive tone but I think inside you were glad I was.

NKTLDK/FILM ENTRY #4

There is this whole artistic debate of style’s relationship to substance. Some people say style itself itself substance while others say style without substance is just pretension. To define substance is kind of hard in itself but here’s some examples to clarify the idea. A cake that looks delicious but isn’t, is case of style without substance. On the opposite end of that is music like punk rock music where style is the substance because punk rock in itself is not technically difficult. Since most of you are riders, the idea of someone like Ryan Taylor vs. Chase Dehart. No one will disagree that there is substance to Ryan Taylor’s riding. He can 1080 frontflip. Is it aesthetically pleasing, landed well... not necessarily but the substance still exists. Chase Dehart is the opposite end of the spectrum. His riding is not technically proficient but there is so much style that there is worth in it regardless of it’s lack of what some people would say is a technical substance. You can see it from both ends and in some cases style is substance, in my opinion in the case of Chase D, big fan of his riding. Other times it’s like the cake, it’s pretty but it fails on a functional level and doesn’t pass. I’m kind of wondering that about this short in the works. 

I’ve mentioned that a lot of the stylistic decisions I made for this short were unplanned and only utilized cause it serves a solution to problems that I have with the short on a technical level. Pretty much to distract from the actual lack of what I personally perceive as substance. I’ve watched a MasterClass series with Martin Scorsese, who is universally lauded as one of the greats of our time. He made Goodfellas, Wolf on Wall Street, Silence, Last Temptation of Christ, a lot of movies that people enjoy. At some point in the MasterClass episodes where he teaches filmmaking, he mentions that it’s ok to be open to decisions that are forced upon you. That ultimately the film serves the story and if it strengthens the communication of the story, than to be open to it. I guess in my case I want people to not look be distracted in what I think is technically bad filmmaking. I made it interesting. Spiced things up. Hopefully the viewer will watch it and think, oh that looks cool and after a few minutes it just becomes part of the picture and not a second thought. 

Don’t get me wrong. My favorite directors and movies are all very stylistic people. I think it’s amazing when people push any art form and really make it their own. Movies kind of loose that because of how the media works. It’s all filmed in a very predictable way at times. You can see it with BMX. Certain editors and filmers do more. You know Rich Forne’s filming when you see it. You know Charlie Crumlish’s editing when you see it. Whether I like it or not is secondary but I do appreciate the pushing of the art form to different boundaries. Some people excel in pushing traditional into even more higher grounds. I think Navaz was a lot like that. Talk is Cheap is probably top three favorite DVD’s for me but what he did with that is nothing really new on a surface level, on a technical level it’s astounding. He just made the format a lot better. That’s his thing. 

But in this narrative form, things are more open ended to change. There is less an expectation for a formula. Sure if you’re making a hundred million plus dollar movie than staying to the formula is probably best because it is an investment to people. You don’t want to create something so artsy that people will be turned off but that ability to be artsy still exists. I don’t think in BMX or any type of documentation type project that mentality exists to experiment and create. The focus is to showcase the tricks and rider and if some editor made something so different that it took away from that, then it’d kind of defeat the purpose of the whole video, making it not good. It’s style with no substance, in that case. It’s like one of those edits where it’s 3 minutes long but the first minute and a half is just a prolonged intro to show some fancy shots but then when you actually see the actual riding clips, it’s all filmed like trash.

I put the trailer to 300 by Zach Snyder up there. I loved it, I still like it but it’s not what I aspire to create. It’s very stylistic, it’s probably what it is because it was that stylistic. Ultra slow-mo epic fight sequences. Some crazy color correction. Some weird industrial music to get you pumped. I’d be honored to create something like 300 but it’s one of those things you have to do right and I’m not sure what I created is done right. I’m my biggest critic, take that into consideration but I don’t know. Sometimes all this art feels like a giant con. trying to convince people that what I got going is good but as the creator I look at it with expectations for more. It’s nothing new and I’m still very fresh to all this process. It’s something that all directors elaborate on. To get over it, finish it, put it out, learn from your mistakes and move on to create the next one. I know that’s what I gotta do. 

NKTLDK/FILM ENTRY #3

PRIOR ENTRY

I made my decision a while back. I went with the smaller but more artistically in tune band. The other band, the time frame didn’t work out, the sound wasn’t exactly what I was going for, and for us to work in their studio it was just too far away. I couldn’t justify the following they had for the amount of other drawbacks involved. Remember some of your favorite bike riders with tens of thousands of followers work part time or full time. Who knows, it could very much be the same with them so I didn’t put too much weight on it. 

So I asked the band member(Mark) who I wanted to be involved in this if I could oversee production and he was immediately enthusiastic about the idea. We passed around notes on e-mail and text to figure out the direction we were headed in for the soundtrack. I was more self assured I would say cause I honestly took a listen to his discography and thought everything he did is near perfectly in line with what I wanted to accomplish with this particular project. So even if it was my first time working with another artist, I didn’t have the jitters too much. I told him that but I was happy to see he was still running in his mind how things can go and what he can do. It just shows that he’s thinking about the project in a serious way and most of the time that’s all that you can ask out of people. In that sense I felt like I made a good decision. Maybe the bigger band wouldn’t have taken this project half as seriously, which is understandable cause they have more responsibilities to attend to. All speculative but still reasonable points. I gave Mark a playlist (NKTLDK PLAYLIST) and a list of notes on what I like about each track particularly. He was based in Chicago which is 12 hour drive from where I live. Not too bad for a guy who spend way too many nights living in his car, wandering around aimlessly. I’ve never been so I always like to go somewhere new. They have legendary food that I really wanted to try. I was going to bring my bike to ride the seawall and meet Nick @challengerbmxmag cause he’s up there and he gave me an opportunity so wanted to thank him. Mark said I could stay with him and his fiancé, he also registered us a room for a sound space so Chicago me and Omar went. 

Omar and I are people on similar wavelengths. He’s the closest thing to a real life mad scientist most people will ever met. I would’ve taken him on this trip anyway but a real big advantage to having Omar around is that he is familiar with my project but also musically trained. I played piano when I was 7 for like a year and that’s it. I knew the sound I wanted but I didn’t really know how to go about eloquating it. I have no idea about any type of technical details or the process behind music at all but it’s an art and I’m well aware enough to know that there are certain parameters that can’t be done cause of equipment or style cause that’s the nature of art. I figured Omar is aware of the big picture of the project and him being there could definitely help out and ultimately I think it did. Mark did get a rough cut of the edit but it’s changed drastically since when I sent it to him. I worked on it literally right before I left to go to Chicago. Exported it directly to my Vimeo but it failed. Which isn’t surprisingly cause the computer has been extra janky with it’s memory bank nearly full with the unprocessed footage in it and yes I am running it out of an external hard drive too for the people who are more aware of the editing process. 

I chose doom/drone metal approach to this particular project. The short film is naturally a bit ambient and melancholic so it fits the general aesthetic of doom and drone already. I mentioned already the project is black and white because of technical issues and I thought that genre of music would compliment that. There’s always been a weird tie in with karate/samurai/ninjas and hip hop. I’m pretty sure it goes back to the explosion of popularity associated with Wu-Tang but it’s persisted to the modern day with things like Samurai Champloo and Afro Samurai. I wanted to do something different and take a different approach. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, just that I thought Mark was capable of producing something I’d like. I always read online stories about inexperienced directors blowing out of control with ego because “vision”. I always thought that was ridiculous. Of course there is a perfect in my head like any other artist but I’m an inexperienced filmmaker, if I was master filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick, I think I can be a bit more demanding but I’m not. I’m just a guy with an idea and a lot of inexperience in how to achieve it so to be demanding is just completely ego based. I set the parameters and Omar and Mark can figure it out. If I don’t like the direction then I think I can step in and say “let’s try something different” but that’s it. I gave them the playlist, Omar knows what the project is about and Both him and Mark are a talented musician in their own right, I wanted to let the song flourish on itself rather than try to mold into how I think it should fit in my brain. I wasn’t too fussed. Mark brought up this idea of incorporating “Eastern Chords” and giving them a doom layering. I had no idea what that meant but Omar explained it as certain cultures have certain stylings that are associated with that culture so what Mark means by Eastern Chords is the pattern of sound most associated with East Asian cultures. I was feeling that cause I’m sucker for conceptual ideas like that and we are making a samurai movie. It’s not something that is overtly prevalent when you hear the soundtrack but it’s one of those tid bits of information that one day you can share and it makes that experience in hindsight even richer. 

I can’t write about BMX anymore which is evident if you follow this blog. It’s been on and off for a while. Even the topics have diluted itself to more open ended humanistic subjects because honestly I don’t spend my time thinking of what to write on here next like I used to. I’ve said it so many times before, that I’m gonna change things up and keep it going but it falls through cause I just can’t. I always wanted it to stay strictly BMX cause that’s initially what ImEugene is about. That was the parameters of the project and to sway from it feels like inauthentic. I’ve been filmmaking and it’s honestly pushed me to be more flexible so a lot of subjects will change that topic or whatever I’m more personally involved in. It’s all disgustingly self-indulgent but I think I’ve said it before, being somewhat ADD and writing down the thoughts that are racing at 100 miles a second, I can understand what I’m trying to accomplish better and the steps to get there. The goal is to make great films and understand that process. It’s one of hell of a process to try to understand too. 

This site has changed throughout the years though. V.1 was The Atavism which I just posted throwbacks only. To keep the history alive cause I found myself only watching old videos and figured there should be a place dedicated to just that and people liked that. Bigger media companies jacked that under their own banner, which for me was a bit flattering. Annoying also but what are you gonna do, in the end the same goal is in place. V.2 was when I changed it ImEugene cause some road biker had a bike blog called “The Radavism” which is just like the most cereal box name but whatever. I wrote in depth about BMX on a very regular basis, which I can say is completely original in concept and that I don’t know of any other websites that did it similarly to here. I never looked at skate company and said to myself “I’m gonna do that”. In that sense I did create something unique within our own BMX culture. Of course that was copied too. I’m an artist, not a business man. It’s definitely annoying but I also think that people who truly are about BMX should be the ones continuously pushing it since I’m more or less done here the initial cause is still alive so whatevs. I love riding but everything else I could care less for. 

Sometimes it takes a bit of time to appreciate the true nature of something. Like your presented with something heavy in this case Ruben and you have a bunch of preconceived idea of what it should be ie Grounded or Forward. When it doesn’t meet that box you already placed it in, you’re kind of left wanting. Maybe even a bit disappointed but that’s an unfair assessment to give. It’s not seeing the work for what it is and judging the merits from that but what the viewer thinks it should have been. If that was the case Ruben should’ve just stuck to doing flipwhips when he was in that period of his riding. 

Ruben is a transformative rider. I say that cause there are four distinct transformations in his riding that very different from one another but show the same chord of progression. We have Ruben that was first sponsored. This is contest era Ruben. He showed promise as a rider on a technical level and the style he would best be known for later on will begin to creep in. Like I said he was doing flipwhips with front brakes I’m pretty sure. That’s hard to imagine with the Pollo Loco now but he was definitely there. 

The next era transformations what we remember about Ruben the best. Definitely at the height of his career; the Forward-era and the Grounded-era. The Forward-era is definitely where his signature style is there. He is no longer a contest or pro rider, his street finesse is amazing. The tricks he was creating were next level but at the same time they weren’t following the same line of progression that the rest of BMX was. This was when Ruben’s riding was beginning to be in it’s own path with very little outside influence. Because you look at Ruben’s riding and you don’t necessarily see that. It does follow the simplicity that his peers at T1, Taj, Joe and actually lot of BMX was moving towards but at the same time was very different. Like wallride to no footer to table, who really does that? Who tries anything like that even now? The different between Forward Ruben and Grounded Ruben is that Forward Ruben while very different still retains a lot of the technical stylings that he had before. He still does 360 whips and wallride to whips. I want to say this era is the most popular because it’s the most relatable to the general riding community. It’s where we can look at it and understand it cause it’s uniquely Ruben but not too different where it can possible alienate people. Not alienate as in they hate it but alienate as in they’re unable to watch it and and put themselves in his shoes. It’s the most relatable I guess. 

Grounded-era was real different and I think a lot of people didn’t know how to take it. It was the start of Ruben’s riding simplifying a lot and taking a different direction with a similar approach. At this point Ruben has dropped whips completely, something he was well known for prior. He’s dropped nearly every trick besides wallrides and tables. The two prior era Rubens were technically proficient with the rest of BMX but when we were presented with Grounded, it was new Ruben that has been minimized a lot. Nothing new, there’s nothing older in the book than a rider getting tired of being progressive and coming into an interview talking about quality over quantity and focusing on doing right by the spots than the trick. It’s a real thing. But then their riding digresses a bit because of natural age and what not. The thing about Ruben is that it follows the same formula but what constitutes doing the right trick for a spot is drastically different. He almost strictly one of a kind setups and does the tricks that do them right but then he does absolutely mind blowing maneuvers on those spots. It doesn’t seem like he took a break from riding but truly honed in one aspect and pushed that. It doesn’t come off as digression even though Grounded was literally nothing but gap to wallrides and weird maneuvers. It’s weird to even call it tricks cause it’s hard to even describe what he did in the moniker of trick names. At the same time Grounded-era Ruben was different and unrelatable to a lot of people. It wasn’t bad just Ruben’s riding has completely separated from the rest of BMX. He’s still riding the chord of his core style, in Forward you see his penchant for interesting spots but with Grounded it is all about the spot. 

But now we got to the last iteration of Ruben’s riding. Which came very late in his career. I give that credit cause he could’ve totally copped out and just do tables on bowls and no one would bat an eye, Ruben has done more than enough for the story of BMX. But still he makes a drastic transformation. He’s no longer able to go as a big he was in Grounded. I’m pretty sure he had a pretty heavy back injury for a while. He’s very limited in what he does but then he changes the game for himself again. I don’t know what to call them but Ruben tricks. He tables out a manuel on the top of a quarter and pumps it. It’s clearly influenced by all the surfing he does cause his bowl riding is somehow reminiscent to it. He rides the bowl like he did all those interesting spots before, an attentive notice to the all aspects of it. His style is completely minimalized at this this point. It’s nearly 100% style and no tricks to mediate it. Which is really weird to think about cause the differences in how people do tricks and perform that is a big part of style but to get rid of trick factor means that Ruben’s style is born from just riding in its simplest definition. How he airs, how he performs tireslides. The way he gets from one place to another. It’s all very different but very Ruben. 

Like I stated in the beginning, it’s hardest to appreciate Ruben at this stage of his riding. I’m sure some young gun who knows nothing of Grounded or Forward can watch this video and think “that’s it? He just did tires slides and airs” and you really can’t blame him. Yes that’s what Ruben did, let’s not forget his age and a back injury plays a big part of this but yea that’s it. But that same person if he remembers this video, if anyone does a turnbar manuel on the edge of the quarter, he’ll quickly associate it with Ruben. Whether they like it or not, it’s memorable and one of a kind. For the older people, they’ll appreciate Ruben in his whole context. They remember the different styles he experimented on and be astounded that he still has it in him to change riding as he feels fit and look good doing it. Definitely applaud him for the continued effort. It’s like that with a lot of music. You listen to some artist and you really feel what they do. Album after album, they do the same but slightly different and you still feel them. But after a hiatus they come back and they talk about another album. You’re expecting something in their prime but then that’s when you set yourself up for disappointment. They put it out and its unlike anything before. They changed. The world changed. We changed. But somehow we expected them to not change as if that’s not the only true notion in the world that change in inevitable. You’ll be slightly disappointed but then years later you’ll come back and give it another listen and be like that wasn’t so bad. It’s actually pretty good in the context what it was. You’ll appreciate it for continued effort to push music cause honestly the worst thing that could’ve happened was them to try to recapture that original sound and just not meet it as if they’re still living in the glory days of yesterday. But to hear something different and new is proof of continued effort. I remember hearing someone say there will never be another Ruben and that’s absolutely true. It’s also weird how I knew this was edited by Joe Rich before it finished. Post-rock. Check. Pictures with some Ken Burns effect. Check. Strong emphasis on surrounding and journey. Check. It’s Joe Rich. 

Ruben Alcantara ft. Hanson Little & Joe Rich

Abacus by Eagle Claw

6400 Miles with Ruben Alcantara (2012)

NKTLDK/FILM ENTRY #2

Filmmaking can become a very bureaucratic thing. It’s weird cause you hear about it all the time through tabloids with famous actors and actresses, the politics, the gossip, all over some 2 hour movie that may or may not even be a piece of art. It’s kind of engrained in it’s essence. It’s a collaborative art form where a vast group of people have their roles. Some in front of the camera, a lot behind. Naturally anything that involves a group of people you can expect a certain level of this bureaucratic process to show up. Take group projects in college and high school. A natural order occurs. Some student takes the lead, other leech on, with all players in between. Sometimes they go smoothly, other times it’s absolute chaos. Making these shorts is comparable to that. Everyone is a cog in this movie making machine and some cogs can be replaced, others... not so easily.

I’m gonna call myself the project manager cause I told myself I’m not gonna call myself a director until I make a real feature length. It’s one of my quirks, plus no one calls me that unless sarcastically cause it’s such a heavy title that is to be earned and not self proclaimed, at this point I’m entirely a self proclaimed “director”. My job as project manager is to oversee everything and connect everyone to their designated places. I’d say around 50% of filmmaking at this point is doing just that. System organizing. Keeping tabs with people. Making sure conditions are met. Meeting with everyone. Analyzing logistics of production. Actor 1, 2, and 3 are available Sunday. I need them to finish an outdoor shoot. I check weather.com and it seems like it’s overcast Sunday. I look at the footage of the day before and look at the sky. It’s clear as day. Sunday is suddenly a no go cause the clouds in the sky don’t look right. Continuation is broken. The project is at a stand still for no other reason than mother nature. Every day the project comes to a stand still is another day where the equilibrium is at risk. Say Actor 1 cuts his hair cause we all do that. Well there goes the whole project for another few month. Then the seasons change and all the footage is wasted unless we legit wait another year. Now Actor 2 doesn’t believe in the project cause it’s well understood it’s hopeless so he ghosts out. Things have a way of just falling apart so easily. That’s why honestly I think that 50% of my energy towards the project is rightfully making sure it runs as smooth as possible. Cause either I’m gonna be put in less than ideal position and I have to make call often times on the spot. Run a series of mental what ifs, in a matter of a few minutes because we’re filming outside and day light is fading away quickly. It’s a weird mind game, this system organizing. Then there’s a few other hats I have to always wear so there’s no shortage of distractions.

Today’s problem is less immediate but more of that bureaucratic nonsense. It’s about the soundtrack. I have a clear direction I want to take it genre wise. Which is a start. I cannot use the band I want to use. The hope for this project is that it gets some film festival run, with that comes copyright issues and all that legal mumbo jumbo that BMX doesn’t care too much about. But for this project to have even the slightest hope in making it, it has to be by the books (or at least seem like it). Famous songs by famous musicians is the easiest way to get disqualified. So even before I looked for music I scrapped the songs playing in my head. I needed something similar. 99% of copyright free music is trash. Not an absolute figure but a good guess I’d say. All hope isn’t lost though. Music is probably the biggest art form that is communicated and partaked in. There is no shortage of musicians and songs out there on interweb to try to collaborate with. I’m a broke artist and more than likely they’re a broke artist. It’s a mutual understanding thing. No one is profiting so no one is losing more than usual. So  I went through my channels and found some bands that are interested. 

Now here’s the issue I’m pondering right now. I gave everyone who showed interest a fair listen. Some bands are clearly better than others, some aren’t bad just not what I’m going for. Others are clearly not what I asked for but they decided to try to give it a shot anyway and I gave it a listen but once again it is clearly not what I wanted. I got it narrowed down to two bands. One is more or less, artistically the perfect fit. It’s the vibe I’m going for. The music is already produced so it’s a matter me and the band discussing it specifically just to make it happen. But like I said they already showed interest and there is a mutual starving artist understanding from this. I’m a no one, they’re a no one. Not in a demeaning way on their half, cause their sound is definitely pro. Just the following hasn’t happened yet or something. Even though I don’t particularly put a lot of weight to that, it is something that comes into play. 

The second band is pretty good. Ideally not exactly what I want though. It’s a bit of a different sound, not totally off but not ideal like the first band. What they offer is a larger following and the ability to do an original score. They seem to do alright with themselves. They’re touring musicians. They got merch. Some local record deal at a city where something like that has more weight. But I spoke to one of their members, they can’t do any of that until November. 

See Band #1 already has the near perfect song but it’s not original. There is a certain giddiness with the idea of an original score. The problem is I’m not assured that the original score will be something of my liking. I hate the idea of them working on the original score (something they seem to show a lot interest in pursuing anyway) and I just not feel it. If its at that point then I can not use it and just waste their time, something no one likes to do. Or I use it and feel like I didn’t pursue the vision I had for it. Which sounds egotistical probably cause it is but art can be that way sometimes. When you spend all this time pushing this project to completion and literally supervising every detail, it’s hard to compromise. 

It’s something that’s been in my head for a while. A part of the reason is probably cause how much I partake listening to podcasts due to my driving heavy schedule, another aspect is a friend has been talking about starting one and asking me to figure out the technical aspects. So naturally I got to thinking.  Let me say I don’t think podcasts are easy. It’s one of those things where it seems easy cause it’s just a person or two talking into a mic but there is definitely a hidden level of complexity involved with it. It’s easy to take for granted what goes right but it’s easy to also notice what goes wrong. These are what these podcasts did right and some of them what I think they did wrong. 

The Nine Club with Chris Roberts

Yea, yea I know it’s skateboarding. I hate how much I bring up skateboarding these days but it’s a culture we can directly make a comparison too and try to understand our own culture better. Let me start out by saying I think The Nine Club is perfect the way it is. The sound quality is excellent. For the Youtube page, the video component is a nice subtle extra but not necessarily a needed extra (more on that later with Feeble Talk). But all in all what the Nine Club got right was their hosts system. 

It’s certainly a manufactured design, no doubt. Each member of the cast play a  a certain position that brings each interview to its fullest potential. There’s a trifecta that’s happening. Chris Roberts as the main interviewer and the funny man, Roger Bagley as the analytical one, and Kelly as our perspective / the support. This is extremely well done. Chris Roberts is a former? pro skateboarder so he knows which direction to take things. There is a certain level of base knowledge that is understood and allows things to move at a good pace, it’s not that high cause I don’t know the difference between a kickflip and a heelflip but I still follow 99% of it. He’s able to be socially fluid enough to allow tangents to run if they’re important or interesting but also smart enough to notice when they’re not and be halt them effectively. He’s task oriented on the big picture which is the skater’s story but he’s not a stickler. You can see him subtly and sometimes overtly guide the interview along but it’s never too awkward, they always maintain a certain level of conversational flow that makes it an easy to listen and not seem like a Q&A. 

A big aspect about Chris Roberts is that a lot of personality of the show derives from him. Which I imagine is hard thing to do. Often times interviewers are not really interviewers, they don’t ask questions to dig deeper into the subject but merely ask questions to profess their own opinion on the matter. You see it with a lot of podcasts and it comes off all very self indulgent. The extreme cases you can see with a lot conservative radio where the interviewer will literally speak more and speak louder than who they are trying to speak with. Chris Roberts is able to make each interviewee work and he never tries to grab attention away from them. He has this self-centered character shtick he plays with his manuel jokes but they always start and end real quick and only brought up during times where the joke is maximized. He is aware of his position as an interviewer and not a personality show, and the show is better for it. 

The problem with Chris is that he lived the skateboard lifestyle but outside of that I’d hardly call him a skatenerd, that’s where Roger Bagley comes in. Roger is always on point with his info. What he’s able to do is give context to what the conversation is about. We’re talking about your average skateboard pro, they’re rarely spokepersons. A interviewee can say he spent 4 days on the Blind video and end it at that. What Roger will chime in with is how 4 days was the average time to film a skate video in the 80′s cause cameras were rented, how that video became seminal culture piece due to whatever circumstances it was in at that time. He makes the information that the interviewee gives substantial and fills in whatever blanks the listener may have. All 3 of them do this but it truly Roger whose info is on point. Chris Roberts is kind of unsure. Kelly just remembers what he remembers but Roger puts the details in and his voice is the information to be trusted. Otherwise it’s just guys talking shop. The good thing and bad thing about Roger is that he doesn’t talk much. He doesn’t try to guide the interview in anyway unless it’s very important and because of his asocial nature, he’s not much an interviewer. In that sense he definitely relies on Chris Robert’s social nature to work.

Kelly is the unseen force of the show. Which is almost metaphorically handled at times with him in his own corner. At first it could seem like Kelly doesn’t have anything really substantial to input like Roger, nor does he guide the interview like Chris but what Kelly offers is almost a safe space for the pro. Interviews are naturally conflicting. Chris Roberts will push it because the basis of the story is conflict but that can leave the interviewee feeling a bit self-conscious at the least or even a bit spooked. Roger doesn’t take sides. Kelly doesn’t push hard, he’s not negative, he’s always supportive and very positive. He likes and laughs at everything. He vocally will support the opinions of the interviewee nearly every time and genuinely so, in that sense he opens up the conversation more. Someone like Chris Roberts can naturally seem antagonistic because he is the primary interviewer. Kelly offsets that vibe completely. It allows for an open discussion and not necessary what can sometimes end up as a one on one interview. Also Kelly is almost a reflection of our perspective. He’s very relatable as a person even though he is a former pro. He’s throughly a skaterat but he’s not on a skate savant level like Roger or indifferent like Chris Roberts. I’d say the majority of listeners are people like Kelly who are just genuinely excited about skateboarding and that perspective is constantly reinforced through his presence. This trifecta is what the show does right. 

TCU TV (Defunct)

TCU TV was the first real podcast in BMX run by Adam22 before he jumped fully in No Jumper. It’s also the only one that used a cast system instead of single interviewer. I don’t think the cast system worked as well in TCU TV compared to the Nine Club. 

Information wise the TCU TV did alright. Adam22 is certainly knowledgeable about all the happenings in the BMX, in the spotlight and behind the curtains. A lot of times he was open about the “secrets” of the industry which definitely made it more interesting to watch. The issue I think with TCU TV was that Adam22 had a way of overshadowing a lot of the interviewees. A lot of times Adam would go on his own tangents and talk about his own life a bit too much. It becomes a point of relations and more of him just talking about himself. It was all interesting but at the end of the day it felt more like personality show than any type of informative podcast. There was always some good info sprinkled in which made it listenable and also Adam maintained a good level of conversational flow. Catfish was well versed in BMX history too which certainly helped but the problem with the show is sometimes it runs into too much self aggrandizing and attention mongering by the expense of the interviewee. But honestly some of it was a lot better than what you’d imagine it’d be. 

DigBMX/SnakeBite Podcast with Shad Johnson

I wish this was more frequent. C’mon! Podcasts are a show and shows should be put on a periodic level. It’s slightly disappointing when its not but oh well it’s BMX. Shad is very well informed about BMX, possibly more than anyone else and it certainly shows. He can match any interviewee and give context and perspective to the information given, the problem is that Shad lacks the interviewer edge. He’s not socially fluid like Chris Roberts so when the interview becomes difficult, you can definitely tell the awkwardness that ensues from two people trying to find their grounds. It lacks that social fluidity which isn’t anyone fault or anything but it’s the strength in the cast system. Just as it’s hard to imagine Roger to carry a show. You see the struggles of Shad doing it. At best the interview goes awkward with a few guys trying to talk over each other, at worst it’s all a bit dry but like I said. I wish this was more frequent. It just takes a bit more patience to listen to and I relish the awkwardness that happens but that’s cause I’m sick.  

The Rollback with Kyle Carlson

This one has been pretty new and going hard. It’s on a regular basis which is something anyone can enjoy and I’d argue the sound quality is the best in BMX right now. Kyle gets around so he speaks to a wide variety of BMX professionals which has made the show interesting so far. But the problem with this one goes back to the same issue with TCU, too much personality. Not to say it’s a bad personality or anything like that, it’s just there is a time and place for everything but that’s something this show misses the beat on. The conversation quality isn’t as good as it could be, it’s a bit choppy. Sometimes the interviewer misses good opportunity to talk. Sometimes Kyle brings up the most random question that you can sort of loosely see how it relates but is not directed well. Then he drops the whole tangent to bring something completely different then rinse repeat. Mix a bunch of jokes that sometimes works, other times falls flat, you can literally feel the facepalm sometimes. I love it. It’s regular and it’s entertaining. There’s good info sprinkled in and Kyle has a unique industry perspective that people rarely see in BMX and it shows through the show. It’s better this way then sounding like long and drawn out like NPR. 

Ride BMX - Feeble Talk

Bare in mind I quit listening to this one after like third one so it may have changed, it may have not. I’ll write about it cause Ride BMX has one of the best opportunities to make most out of the podcast format being the biggest BMX media conglomerate or whatever it is. At least to the third one... it wasn’t good. First of all it relied on videos that they were showing on a podcast. It works for Youtube but it’s going to be at least 15-20 minutes of conversation that’s going to fall flat to anyone listening through only audio and it started out that way. It’s unsure if it’s a podcast or a Youtube show but it doesn’t capitalize on the format of either. On the Nine Club, the Youtube is the podcast, the only thing you lose out on is Roger’s quirky sense of interior design related to the interviewee and whatever gift the interviewee may have brought. That’s it. At not point, do you truly lose out for not having a visual aid. When so much of the show is a dependent on that visual aid, then it lost me as someone who listens to only audio, which I’d argue are most podcast listeners. 

Another grip I’d argue is that it doesn’t capitalize on the cast system. It’s RideBMX and they’re located in Southern Cal so I’m sure they can make it happen. When you don’t have the cast, it becomes really formulaic and loses any type of naturalness in the conversation. The interviewer has his questions and checklist and the interviewee just answers. Maybe the interviewer will hint to expand and then they expand. It’s too cut and dry for something BMX. It works for policy talks about health care but not for invigorating stories shared through the BMX experience. There are no outside thoughts or perspectives to keep things fresh so all of it feels dry. It ain’t moist. The interviewer isn’t bad but there is only so much one person can do.

BMX In Our Blood with Joe Doherty

Always the Rider

It all started with these shoes. Dakota Roche’s Signature Colorway for Vans. I don’t really need new shoes but I’m ok with the idea of stocking up on them. Plus I like to have nice shoes for the day to day that are different from what I ride in. Weirdly enough these would be my day to day. I’m a big fan of earth tones and especially green so the olive trim looks nice plus I like the off white cream color. I’m not a flashy enough personality enough to wear all white shoes but I hate feeling like a goth these days wearing a lot of black. I don’t like 99% of colored shoes so it really cuts my choices down. To cut this Patrick Bateman-esque monologuing short. I like them and it’s endorsed by a rider. 

Ever since I start taking riding seriously, it’s all I’ve ever been. My outward appearance is usually somewhere around what mainstream BMX is at. I never wore girl jeans though but I do own a pair of Dickies, keep my socks hidden though cause I just can’t. I think clothes are cool. It goes back to everything is art. The world is a stage and we’re all actors and for all my adult life the actor I played a rider, that’s how I presented my self. Today I don’t ride as much as I did or involve myself in most ways. Riding is honestly my end of the day relaxation. I’ve described it to a non-rider as my football. I go about my days and riding brings a certain level of excitement into my life but most the day, I just go about. Like today’s object of my interest was feral children. Look it up. It’s mad interesting. But when the urge for new shoes came, automatically I thought of riding. The need for riding shoes like I said above isn’t really as prevalent and this is my day to day shoe. This isn’t limited to just shoes but all sorts of clothing and items. Need a new t-shirt? Find the best BMX t-shirt. Need a new hoodie? Find the best BMX hoodie. Need a new hat? Find the best BMX hat. Not to say I’ll choose riding garms over anything. If I’m feeling a dope design then I’m getting it but that’s rare and it has to be exceptional. Like I have no interest in Supreme or Palace. I like the stuff they put out but at the same time even if they were priced similarly to riding clothes I still wouldn’t cop. I like viewing them from a design standpoint but not as a direct consumer. 

I was wondering why I’m like this, I’m 28, disenfranchised with most of modern BMX, why is it still I present myself as a rider. It’s not like I’m still eagerly a part of all this, but when it comes down to how I spend my money, why do I choose BMX? Ultimately, I think it’s cause I’m a late mid schooler so I’m brainwashed by the ideals of that time. My heroes were Generation X’ers who didn’t believe in big money. They were guys who were on the fore front of rider owned. There was a pride in being underground. Almost a purity to it. Which is a sentiment I don’t think today’s generation really appreciates. Everyone wants to make it big now. Selling out is completely normal and acceptable and I’m not saying that’s wrong with this generation or the Generation X was right. In reality it’s somewhere in the middle thats probably preferable. But I remember it was I think Joe Rich or Taj but some pro said something along the lines of not wanting to be a billboard to a large faceless company and that stuck. I look at my closet now. Yea, I got major brands in there owned by some faceless company but they’re blanks. Everything else is either BMX or a band or something that I believe in. It makes buying clothes really hard but at the same time I try to live as minimal of a lifestyle (once again brainwashed by midschool BMX) and keep my t-shirt count under 10 so this dilemma doesn’t happen too often. Like I said there’s a strange pride point in all this. I guess in some ways I feel like I’m still pushing against the world I don’t agree with it, which is a very common BMX sentiment especially amongst older generations. It’s utterly stupid cause no one looks at me and my clothes and thinks this guy is “keeping it real” or “fighting the system” or anything like that. They probably just think I skate or pretend to at least which is a fashionable look now so I’m not complaining. 

But the pride in that underlying statement is so genuine. I bought this shoe cause maybe a few dollars of it will go to Dakota and I like the product and I like his riding. I bought this shirt so maybe this company that I like their direction in BMX can do just a bit more. And my single purchases mean nothing but collectively it helps support what I think is doing right in BMX. Even if I’m involved less with BMX with every older year, it will always be a part of me cause it’s my roots. Like I’m ok with who I am, how I lived my life, the person I turned out to be and BMX was a big part of that. If that transformative object was music I’d probably be the old guy wearing always wearing a Fender and Pink Floyd shirt. In that way I’m happily brainwashed by BMX, I guess this is how cults work. 

NKTLDK/FILM ENTRY #1 PT.2

In the previous entry I talked a lot about using color correction to save the final work. It’s actually a technique I used before and that’s on a BMX edit. It was Russell Blake edit I filmed when I was living in LA. 

To give context to this few year old now edit, I was living in LA cause I wanted to. The idea of pursuing narrative film wasn’t in my head so it wasn’t a trying to get closer to Hollywood, nor what is a get closer to the heart of the BMX industry either, some people seem to think that. Which isn’t to say BMX wasn’t a thought, it was definitely a major factor but my primary focus was escaping small town living. I like the idea of being left alone in a big city where everything is an option and LA is certainly one of those places. 

One day I’ll write about my experiences in LA and they were definitely quite interesting to think about it now but in the end I like LA but it’s too far away from home. The constant weather ended up feeling like Groundhogs Day instead of paradise but during this time, almost every other night me and Russell would meet up and ride/film. 

It was mostly him riding. I can’t combine riding with filming. I either go out and film or I ride but I can’t do both. If I ride then I usually end up missing something good that could’ve been filmed and I end up hating myself for it. I film, I don’t ride and I miss some opportunity to ride something different, I hate myself slightly less for this one too, which might predictive of me taking on more filming and less riding as I get older. This single mindedness it’s great sometimes, it’s awful quite often too. But to get back on track I always liked the fact, everything about this process was natural. Honestly the only conditions I like filming BMX. We rarely drove anywhere, we just rode the same segment of Los Angeles over and over and he brought something new each time. Russel, an LA kid, strangely had a really East Coast mentality amongst him when it came to riding. He definitely preferred the jib spots before it really blew into a thing. We rode a bunch of spots that aren’t blown up completely. Only two spots in this video are really recognizable but we can justify that by saying they were our local spots. Easily cruising distance so it’s cool. It’s also in LA, I realized how serious BMX can be and I did not like that. Some kid with a few hundred followers viewed BMX almost like a brand identity and that was pretty normal. You’ll hear people talk about it and it’s not something you really realize until you get here. I’d like to argue that BMX in the East Coast is definitely more casual, just for the sole fact that there is no money or West Coast mentality pushing it. It’s definitely more socially acceptable now but it’s not well understood lifestyle like it is in California. 

So we’re filming and I’m uploading clips. It’s all night, which wasn’t a conscious decision, more like that’s the only time Russell and I really had time to ride. We predicted it was going to be all night footage and we liked it so we followed through with it. The problem was that it’s night footage and I didn’t really know what an exposure triangle was. For those who don’t know it’s how you make a camera work at night so everything isn’t completely dark. I knew I had to fiddle with the ISO, white balance, and aperture was whatever I had on the fisheye but I didn’t really know the science behind it, to this day it doesn’t come intuitively to me. Majority of the shots were too dark. 

NKTLDK/FILM ENTRY #1 PT.1 

First and foremost let me preface by saying I’m not a professional in any sense so take everything I say at a grain of salt, just a guy writing thing out to figure it out, learn better, and if helps someone somewhere along the way some type of way, that’s cool too. What I can say I’ve involved myself in art my whole entire life. I don’t mean that as in I drew a few pictures when I was a kid and then re-found and rebranded myself as a life long artist during college. I was always about art and continuously created since I was four. I don’t know when it started cause it really is tied to my earliest memories but even as a kid I either wanted to be an artist or a doctor. An artist (specifically Vincent Van Gogh) cause I was drawn to it, a doctor cause I was a kid and I wanted to help people. I guess I’m heading more towards the artist route cause biological science is a lot of study that I simply can’t even begin to grasp. I think I found myself a certain tiny bit of success in it, nothing to really post up on a resume but enough to continue pushing this and feeling good about myself. I’ve always paralleled BMX to a lot of what art is cause I do think there are comparisons to be drawn. I gave BMX an art critical approach through this blog and I did my best not to talk about my ass. I’d like to think whatever readers I have think so too cause I can honestly say I enjoy reading and expanding my knowledge regarding this subject the most I can and there are benefits to that. But these FILM ENTRY, there not BMX but BMX of course sprinkled in there cause it is so much of what I did, just a guy trying to push upon his craft. With that being said “Nozomi Killed the Last Divine Kibou”.

It’s my fourth short but my second official one. The second sucked so bad that only a few people will ever see it (even though I dumped hundreds of dollars into it). The first one was another expensive endeavor that ultimately failed because lost control. A lot of art is either having control or relinquishing it. Something like painting realistically with oil paints is a lot of control, compared to water colors with something abstract. You see it in riding too. Someone like Garrett Reynolds has an influx of bike control, compared to someone like Tom White who doesn’t. Neither is better than the other but in the end the difference between them is bike control. Filming BMX is more the later. It’s spontaneous and thats what keeps it fresh. The crashes. The B-rolls of some crazy crackhead in Philly freaking out. The bystanders gazes. Even little flicks of sparks that come from grinding. BMX videos as a medium thrives on a lack of control, it’s a series of happy accidents that reflect the rich atmosphere of what being a bike rider is about. Even the shaky cam on filming on a bike. It connects us directly back to the world of BMX and the culture it created. There is a trend of trying to control BMX, I’ve heard people refer it to as filming for commerical. These filmers use sliders and heavy duty gimbals. Use techniques like filming on skateboards and a complete light and generator setup. The whole production shebang. Personally I’m not too into it but I see the merits of filming that way. It makes BMX more accessible. You film it in the same way you film a commercial than outside people will connect to it better. That’s the power art and presentation for you. You get some kid on VX filming on a death lens. It becomes it’s own niche thing, which is what BMX was for the longest part. Most viewers won’t understand the vignettes on the fisheye. I personally prefer the whole spontaneous aspect of BMX and the filming that arised to really capture that type of moment. It really touches core to what BMX is and I think it better represents that but like I said I don’t hate on the whole production side to it.

Strangely enough regardless of what I like about BMX production, I moved in the complete opposite direction which is structured narrative work. There is absolute no comparison to which is harder, which is narrative work. There are so much factors that come into play combined with a higher degree of expectation from the viewer. I’ve had shooting days cancelled cause we’re filming outside and it’s cloudy compared to the sunny setting we’ve been shooting before. The continuity and not breaking immersion is hard. To explain it in BMX terms. It’s if you were filming a line and the guy changes clothes when the you change angle on the line. It makes you doubt if he even did the line. I’ve even seen Rodeo Peanut clown on Jake Seeley cause they shot a sequence where his hat changed position or something like that. There has to be continuity to keep the suspension of belief. In Jake Seeley’s case, he broke it in the photo and of course people will notice and clown it. The suspension of belief is that we’re led to believe he landed it but if that immersion is broken then we doubt that. Filming a narrative movie is keeping people immersed and not breaking the suspension of belief. When filming happens over the course of days, going to months, it gets hard to keep track of everything. That’s why control is very important. But having to control all that makes it really hard. BMX filming is too Tom White, to narrative work is Garrett Reynolds. Garrett Reynolds tried really hard to learn all his tricks, while Tom White really just sent it to make  it happen. Filming BMX is more nerve wrecking in an immediate type way. 99% Narrative filmmaking that isn’t stunt based is just a bit of annoying and a bit anxiety inducing at most. One is not better than or worse than the other. It’s all about the final product. I’ve seen BMX videos more entertaining than multi million dollar budget movies but at the same time I’ve also seen BMX videos where on the filming and editing end, it’s just trash but no one cares cause the tricks and riders involved are good enough. 

To bring it back to the main point of control; on this particular project I lost it. We had two camera involved, both Blackmagic Pocket Cinemas. Technically they’re terrible cameras. Sort of unreliable, battery life is about 15 minutes, it needs a lot of extra gears and whistles and the autofocus is nearly non-existent. That alone will disqualify people from filming BMX on it cause no autofocus, no filming lines. But one thing it does have going for it is that for its price range, there is no other camera that produces its colors. It’s what I personally own and I borrowed another one from a friend, so it became what we’re working with. 

I’m used to the workflow of the camera at this point. No matter how much I wish I had a Canon GH5 or even that ugly color Sony A7SII, I’m ok with my Blackmagic, cause I’m about the colors mang. Weirdly enough the reason I lost control is cause I couldn’t control the color. We should’ve used ND filters. It flattens the image a bit but keeps the high contrast in check. In the first half of the short there are light spots that are white and dark spots that are black. It’s just how the setting is constantly. Even with us filming on ProRes 444 format which allows for a high level of info in each shots, which with that info we have more ability to play with the image, the whites are whites and the dark spots and near blacks. I can work with the dark spots a bit but the white spots I can’t. Unfortunately this is reoccurring problem in about a third of the shots. So that means a third of the shots have a different color and feel to them compared to the others. If I had a professional colorist onboard who can recolor everything, it maybe possible but I don’t have that and even then it’s only possible to salvage it somewhat. I read online about someone with the same problem and the colorist said it’s not something that can be fixed, the problem is ingrained in the clips. 

There were 11 people out there that day and there is no way I’ll be able to get all of them back there for reshots. Even if that was possible, there is no way I’ll be able to get anything more than a begrudging performance out of everyone. Which you can’t blame them for. Half of this directing thing is managing people and time. It’s the social aspect and there’s a lot of it that I’ll get into in another post but the fact is that I have to correct this someway. I don’t want different colors for every shot cause I notice that immediately in BMX edits. This one particular filmer does it often. He will put out something that looks high budget but often times he doesn’t even try to color correct the different color sciences in the camera he uses. One clip will be contrasty then the other will have a matte look and it just looks so glaringly amateur compared to the professional look he’s putting out. I knew an option out of this but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. If color is the problem, then take out color and the problem is gone. 

It’s not that simple but it’s a solution. First of all black and white is a stylistic statement in today’s color saturated world. It’s a heavy choice. You don’t release black and white unless you want it to be black and white.. or at the very least forced to. I want to say Clerks is black and white cause of budget reasons, black and white is a cheaper film and cheaper to develop. In the case of something like Schindler’s List, completely stylistic, probably a choice based on the somber nature of the story (you know.. the Holocaust). I guess I’m going more the Kevin Smith/Clerks route where it’s not ideally what I want but because of the unshakeable conditions placed upon me, it seems to be the only choice I can make. But it me thinking, due to the genre of the story.. I can pass it off as a stylistic choice. Sometimes part of art is just b.s., you just gotta make sure it’s not all fake. People would much feel that the choice I made was to be a homage to the Golden Era of the genre that I’m hoping to recreate with this short, rather than the truth of “we forgot to use ND filters so the exposure is all over the place LOL”. It’s just one of those happy mistakes that I’m ok with. The look definitely grew on me. Even the overblown exposure give it a certain abstract quality I like. The light versus the dark-type of thing the story revolves around. It’s that spontaneous aspect that arises when you lose control, that give it that certain quality. I’m glad I was able to retain that still even though my own mistake cause it really is a beautiful thing. Too much control is unnatural. Too little is just crap. 

A Net Positive

I remember reading on some infographic titled “Top 10 Most Dangerous Sports”. BMX was eighth. Flying squirrel suit was number one and I’ve seen a short documentary about that before which ended with a real person literally exploding on contact with a bridge he hit so I’m not too surprised but dang... BMX was eighth. There was a strange sense of pride that rushed through me, to be part of an activity that was designated as one of the most dangerous. Something intrinsically we all know but still do but there was a strange mix emotion of the other side of that. Which is that BMX is dangerous. 

But that’s the point isn’t it? As someone whose favorite physical joy on a bike is bombing down some hill brakeless. Playing with a certain level of danger is why we do what we do. Thrill seekers. Adrenaline junkies. Those titles don’t arise from nowhere. This sports has always openly condoned this type of behavior to designate us at eighth. But for that conclusion to be made by whatever researcher, they looked into the injuries that BMX as a community have netted and thats the part we all conveniently overlook from time to time. It’s like how America has grown used to the half mast flag from another shooting, BMX in some ways has grown accustom to the life changing injuries that emerge in our community. I mean what choice do we have but to? Sure I’d say that BMX as a whole has become more technical skill based than the aggro nature of the previous generations but to outright confront the self destructive aspect of our thing is to deny the very nature of it. 

I was watching a video of Mark Burnett the other day, I guess he’s one of my preferred younger pros these days to watch and I noticed myself not thinking anything. Just enjoying the riding for what it is. A segment where I didn’t notice the clips he had a helmet and the clips he didn’t. He’s a street rider and back in the day it used to jut out more. I never looked down upon it, I don’t ever wear a helmet but I’m weird about what I wear. I don’t even wear socks most days and can’t ride if there is a stain on my t-shirt I don’t like. The few times where I went to a park and helmets are required, after a while I grew accustomed to it but I like to feel a certain way when I ride and helmets disrupt that flow. I think it’s that way with a lot of people, even outside of peer judgement. But yea, the whole section I watched and it was only one particular trick I noticed it. 

For a while it was a thing though. If you wore a helmet on street, you were the helmet guy and it was kind of weird to be the helmet guy. It was still weird after countless pros who were always somebody’s heroes were left in devastating condition (in the case of Jimmy Levan; twice!). But somewhere along the lines, a combination of older family man “I got too much to lose” riders and the young  riders who wanted to progress upon the comfortable level BMX was, made it acceptable. Which is a crazy thing to have taken place cause I’d say a good amount of BMX, no matter how we like to think of ourselves as anti-social and what not, are prone to a certain level of peer evaluation of being looked perceived as a kook. And something as simple as a helmet, that makes all the pragmatic sense, was a kook thing. 

BMX has this certain dogmatic approach to things where its this and that. Which is most definitely a larger societal issue but for this to not be a thing anymore and be legit invisible. Well that’s a net positive I think. Sure if you’re gonna be one of those “IDGAF666″ rider and you put on a helmet, you’re still gonna be a weirdo but that’s cause only cause you’re fronting. And all fronters everywhere in the world are subject to disrespect. But as a young up and coming rider who wants to push this BMX thing along and not want to end up with CTE and be nearly brain dead by 40, helmets, do that. No one really notices anymore. We’re all immune to it and that’s a good thing. 

I’ve been away from this for a month or so. I kind of feel bad cause I pride myself in updating this place, once a week, as my mission. It’s a deadline I set myself and in a way it’s a promise. I try my best not to be full of crap so I try to keep my promises the best I can (I am often notoriously late on them though).

I’ve been filmmaking. Not in a BMX sense but a narrative fictional story aka a short film. I bring this up cause writing about nothing but BMX gets boring after a while and I’m truly excited about this endeavor and like BMX, I want to write about so I can understand it better. A professor of mine said a lot of people who enjoy writing, write to understand their thoughts better, to give it concrete form and be able to dissect it further. I agree completely. I feel like writing about BMX, allowed me to achieve certain insights that otherwise I never would’ve attained through just wondering. I want to give the same approach to filmmaking which is my happy place. BMX is my happy place too but it’s a different type of happy place. A place I want to close off to most the world cause I find the physical act of BMX cathartic and I could really care less anything other than that and the few people I ride with. Filmmaking for whatever reason not so much. I was an artist before a rider and this the direction my art took. 

Art is divided into many fields. Each medium with it’s own nuances that makes it special. Something like watercolor is a delicate painting form. It’s hard to control, often times the best way to watercolor is to relinquish that very control and just let it flow. The more you fight it often times the worst it comes out. Something like oil paints allow for a lot expressiveness. The oil often times takes on a personality similar to the painter. Some people treat it meticulously and paint things life like near photographs. Others are more abstract, expressive, and bold. They paint with heavy lines and don’t care to mix well or blend. Their lack of control and free will is shown by how they choose to paint. Photographs can stop a moment in time. Music has no visual form and relies solely on sound variances to communicate it’s message. Even in writing, how you structure a sentence, the words you choose, the ability to reach a wide audience almost subvertly at times. That’s what words can do. It’s all art and It’s all things that at some point I probably did try. I like learning and I like to realize the nuances in all of them. Even in BMX. What makes BMX special compared to skateboarding or something like that. BMX is a vehicle that can be whatever you want. Skateboarding is not a effective means of communicating and not saying BMX is the best for it but to truly travel and explore and do what we do, I think BMX is the best. That’s what I like to do so that’s why I still BMX. If I wanted to do a lot of tricks, I’d skateboard. I’m pretty sure in skateboarding if I flick my feet in a weird angle compared to another, it becomes a new trick. 

But all that seemed like a waste of time for the longest time. I’d pick things up. Learn the basics. Figure some things out. Master nothing and move on. It really was something I’d beat myself up over. I want to be someone where people go, “that guy really cares about the craft”. Like Jiro the Sushi Master in that one documentary. That level of crazy and obsession, I aspire for something like that. I always had the drive but never the focus. Filmmaking became my solution. I realized that I can do pretty much every I like to do under the banner of filmmaking. There’s a German word, Gesamtkunstwerk, it loosely translates to “total art”. Filmmaking is often thought of that. It has part writing, part music, part theatre, part photography, and party everything else in between. It lets me move from medium to medium and explore the all the aspects of the world I want. Study some random subject for months on end. Take pictures. Travel. Interview people and ask the strangest things which would normally be sort of socially unacceptable but ok cause I’m considered an artist and every culture in the world seems to come to the conclusion that artists are weird people. It’s quite the life to live and I get a lot out of it. This site is even an extension of it.  Even when I hate it, I love it. And I do hate it quite often. When something is “total art” it has an easy way of being total failure. You can work months on end for a single project. Pour hundreds of dollars, for it to only fail in the most catastrophic way. Sometimes its like the explosion of the Challenger, the smallest most insignificant thing brings it all down. That’s why you can be Hollywood and spend millions of dollars and have an elite crew and still bomb. It’s sick how much I love this part about it. I’ve personally dropped hundreds of dollars on two shorts films that no one will ever see the light of day. One failed cause the guy had to shave his beard for a job interview. The other failed cause it just sucked overall. Regardless it’s worth it.