Exclusive: Rich Hirsch and the Fremont Video

January 11, 2008 @ 4:27 PM by Mark Noble

One thing that bugs the bejeezus out of me is someone who complains that ‘lack of specific equipment’ is holding them back from doing something honestly creative. Well, to be honest, unless you’re entering the Paris-Dakar Rally and only have a Reliant 3-wheeler to drive (and that would be a valid hindrance), then really you don’t have much of an excuse… just get on with it and get creative - case in point, Fremont Clothing’s amazing new web video which is continually streaming over on the worldly-respected Defgrip website. This video piece isn’t filmed on the latest Sony 3-chip HD unit and edited on a blazing Mac running Leopard and Final Cut CS3.5.5 or whatever it is. Instead, Rich Hirsch, company owner and all-round very creative bod, bought a slew of ancient VHS video cameras for a few dollars, lashed them together with sticky tape, and came up with something that truly stands out. Inspired by this level of creativity, I decided to interview Rich to find out more…

--MN

RIDE: How’s it going Rich - what are you up to today?

RICH: Just getting back into the office, checking emails and whatnot, waiting for new spring Nightwolf samples to get here. I had my wisdom tooth pulled out the other day so it’s been a rough week.

The new Fremont film is raising some eyebrows - what sort of feedback have you had so far?

All the feedback I’ve gotten has been great, there’s been a few anonymous internet naysayers, but that’s to be expected with anything. I’d say it did real well with people from my generation and older because we grew up with this style and most of us have made edits just like this before, whether in school or on our own – with the younger generation it’s a tough call since they may not have ever really experienced it before. Let me search out a few varied quotes real quick...

Dave R–20… 01 Jan 2008 at 7:46 am on defgrip.net: "awesome. the way it was edited together was cool really made me get into it. VHS footage looks mint. i also laughed at the scabby bitch after eddies pedal grind flop. errr"

Anonymous… January 1st, 2008 - 10:14am on thecomeupbmx.net: "yeah i made a self reflexive video!!! wwhoooo i'm different buy my clothes i film just like the shitty kids who will buy my cloth"

Anonymous… January 1st, 2008 - 8:52am on the comeupbmx.net

"fref—k?!?"

Mark said... December 31st, 2007 - 6:52pm on thecomeupbmx.net: "That video was f—king amazing. I don’t really have anything else to say, so I’ll say it again a few times. That video was f—king amazing. That video was f—king amazing. That video was f—king amazing. That video was f—king amazing. That video was f—king amazing."

Haha, nice. How did you film it - I mean, it’s not on a 3-chip Panasonic HD camera now, is it?

I bought a bunch of various VHS cameras off of Craigslist and a couple wide-angle lenses from the camera store and some electrical tape to get the lenses mounted properly. The cameras were between $20 and $50 each and the lenses were $30, so all in all it was a decent investment. I think I bought seven cameras total though and only about two worked once everything was together.

Did you actually clean the camera heads before filming?

I pretty much just put the tape in and started filming, we didn’t really know how it was going to turn out - big thanks to the team guys for entertaining the idea as I’m sure it sounded ridiculous. But we were all real happy with the outcome and that’s all that really matters in the end. I’m not really sure where the tracking lines came from, there were a little bit of them at first, but I think the camera may have messed the tapes up on playback some.

How did you edit it together?

It started out VCR to VCR, then I recorded it all into the computer and chopped it up from there. I liked a lot of the natural edits that were on the tape from the way it was filmed, so it was more edited as blocks of a few clips at a time in chunks. I added a few effects and some slowmo with the computer as well.

What was the Fremont trip - and where did you go?

There was no one trip per se... Back in 2006 when the brand started the main idea was to sort of try an recreate what BMX felt like to us as kids, to me BMX was Ride Like A Man, I used to watch that video ten times a day and then just go jump of curbs for hours and that’s when riding was the funnest for me. We spent a good part of 2006 sitting at Goods watching Shad’s old 2-Hip videos talking about how awesome it would be if we could do shit more like they used to and how much more fun it was for us back then, and so the idea to try and make something along those lines was an obvious progression. I was originally going to mail each one of the guys a camera, but with the cameras not being so stable I just brought them out to Portland and we spent a couple varied weeks filming. There’s a few clips from SF as well from when I was down there on a trip recently. Dan Lacey ended up being the only one who actually got a camera of his own, so if all goes well and it actually works we may have a little video of him sooner or later as well.

Who’s on the clip?

Eddie Cleveland, Ian Schwartz, Chase Dehart and Dan Lacey.

Do you have any idea about how many people have watched this clip?

As of right now, just over 8,000.

What’s next from Fremont Clothing then?

There’s going to be some more clothing in the Spring - were messing around with the idea of Ian, and Chase Fremont shoes, also there’s going to be an actual trip with a longer video in the spring as well, maybe an article on it in Ride UK?

How about Lotek - what’s coming from Lotek?

New shoes this spring are the focus right now... At the moment they are all under $50, so hopefully people are stoked. There’s also going to be another new video this spring of some sort. Possibly all 16mm…

Sneak pic: new Lotek Nightwolf colourways look fressssssh...

WEBSITE LINKS

Want to see the video? Defgrip has it here.

Fremont's website is part of Lotek's main site- nice.

Fremont is dealt with in the UK by Seventies! Word.


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