Another year, another Crankworx event in Rotorua. I was brought on again by Red Bull New Zealand to be principal director/DOP/editor for all their content coming out of the event. It was a busy week, but it all ent off without a hitch. I shot on my RED, and Heath Patterson flew up from Queenstown with his Ronin & FS7 to shoot second camera. We had a load of Go-Pros floating around too, as per usual. Like last year, it was a REALLY tight turnaround on everything, so we would shoot during the day, then head back to the accommodation and I would settle in for a fun filled evening of editing. We were usually the first media outlet to get their clips out, so that is always good. Check the clips below, and again, if you’ve stumbled across my website, feel free to get in touch, or swing by my office/edit suite in Devonport CBD, and lets talk turkey!
Well, its the new year, and I’ve just returned from a hectic 10 day shoot in Queenstown for Red Bull. Our plan was to bring together 4 of the worlds best BMX riders together, and one freestyle mountain biker, for an epic 7 days of shooting/filming around the Queenstown area, prior to the bi-annual Farm Jam competition in Winton. We based ourself out of the Red Bull base camp house, located in inner Queenstown, and spent our days jamming as much as we could into everyday, and then as much as we could during the night too. Needless to say there were a few sore heads as well as sore bodies. Riding skateparks, bungy jumping, luging, wake skating behind a brand new speedboat in Wanaka, Riding trails, the list goes on and on. I was principal camera/director, and Miles Holden and Graeme Murray were brought on as photographers. Heath Patterson shot second camera on his RED Dragon and Ronin 2 for a jam at gorge road, as well as Farm Jam, and Toby Wilson manned the DJI Inspire 2, and FS7 for cutaways at Farm Jam as well. The Farm Jam action clips are being edited by Trinity Ludlow, for Red Bull, and I’m working on a seperate lifestyle piece which will be exclusively online. I returned with almost 3 terrabytes of footage, so it’s taking a bit of time to log and ingest it all. Everything shot on RED, being edited in premiere and onlined in Resolve. Will be sure to post the clips when they’re finished, but for now, check out all the action from Farm Jam over on the Red Bull NZ website here, and a couple of B-Roll pics courtesy of Graeme Murray, Jason Watts and Kris Fox checking the footy, and Jason Watts with a Euro gap into Queenstown bowl.
Wow, its the end of 2017. What a year. Not really the BEST year for me. In May this year I sustained a fairly massive injury to my leg, on my bike. I ride BMX bikes ‘Brofessionally’ and have done so for the past 20 years. I’ve competed a few times, but that never was my cup of tea. Anyways, I was riding home from work one day, and started to ride down a small hill, and put my leg out to steady myself quickly, and my shoe caught on the road, and down I went like a sack of potatoes. I think I may have been knocked out momentarily, luckily I was wearing a helmet. I thought I had dislocated my right knee at first, so attempted to muscle it back into place, but when I felt bone rubbing against bone, I suspected it might be something a bit more major. I had twisted and sheared the top off my fibula (The large bone that runs from under your knee, down to your ankle) and messed up a whole bunch of bones and ligaments in my knee. I sat on the side of the road and rung an ambulance, then proceeded to ring my partner and inform her of the news. I’ll save you all the boring details, but I was in hospital for a few weeks, and underwent two operations to attached the bones back together, and fix the knee joint. I was down and out for at least 4 months imobilized with my knee in a full leg brace. 8 months down and I would say I’m probably at 70 percent strength back in my leg. I’ve been riding a lot of road bikes, and physio work to get the joint and muscles back to where they were, but its a time consuming process, and its frustrating to say the least. I definitely went through some dark patches while in hospital, with some doctors telling me I will probably never be able to ride a bike again, let alone walk properly or have proper use of my leg. That just gives me more motivation to push myself further than I can handle, and to prove them wrong.
Luckily some friends came and visited me while I was in hospital, which was great, and my bud Mark Barber shot the black and white picture below on one of his fancy film cameras. It shows the exo-skeleton leg brace that was drilled into the bones in my leg to brace it.
One thing that always ran through my mind while I was in hospital was ‘Somewhere, someone has it way worse than I do.’ So at this time of the year (Festive season) its always good to look back and appreciate the things that you have, and appreciate the smaller things that sometimes get over looked in this rat race we call life.
Some big projects lined up for the start of 2018 already, so I’ll be sure to post some updates in the new year. If you’re reading this and you’ve randomly come across my website, then take care on the roads, don’t forget to feed the cat, and drop me a line if you need any video content produced in 2018!
But most important of all, Have more fun.
