While Jake was down in Melbourne recently for a video shoot, I took the time to do a photoshoot in the City and ask him a few questions. I was trying to get the lowdown on his up-and-coming release of the VDHS series.

Well Jake, let’s start off by telling everyone about you:
Name: Jake Lucas
Age: 18
Occupation: Full time student, film making on the side.

What inspired you to want to film the Victorian Downhill Mountain Bike Series (VDHS)?

Well, initially when my brother (Dean Lucas) started riding back in 2006 I had little interest in mountain biking, I grew up riding dirtbikes on our farm and thought that this ‘downhill’ stuff my brother was getting involved in was pretty much just wannabe motorbike riders without motors riding fire trails. Eventually they had me convinced that I should head up to a race at Buller and check it out (It was a Vic State Series race, Abom from the 2008 / 2009 Series). From the moment we got there and I got track side I was enthused, I couldn’t have imagined that this sport could have been as amazing as it was, watching these dudes absolutely carving it down this single trail was nothing like I imagined. It was like enduro motocross had met the best locations of Australia and the riders were incredible, the skills involved were evident immediately, at that moment I realised I had found something I desperately wanted to get involved with. As I rode a huge amount of motocross but never raced due to dad never letting me, this was because dad has a number of mates who have serious injuries from crashes that were not at all their own fault, one of which was landed on and now has permanent spinal injuries. Dad wasn’t against downhill however, due to the racing being totally time based the only reason for a crash would be the rider him or herself. Anyway, it seemed my thirst for racing would soon be quenched. The next day we were walking around the pits looking for a bike for me, I decided I was going to buy a bike, we spoke to Jim and Kev Backhouse.  Kev let me have a test ride on his 07 Kona stab, lets just say that’s all it took, brought the bike and raced later that day. After that weekend I had the bike bug serious, couldn’t get enough of it, watched endless videos, watched NWD7 an easy 100 times in the week following Buller. I didn’t really realise that I liked these bike videos more than everyone else for ages; I just thought I was more enthused on riding because it was newer to me. I didn’t even pick up in the fact that the filmmaking itself interested me, it wasn’t until I got onto rotorburn.com and started checking out the video section that I realised normal people were producing mountain bike videos.  There were a couple average ones getting around, and a couple that in my opinion were as good as the DVD’s I’d been watching that were made by professionals. From that point on I knew I wanted to start filming riding as well as continue riding.  I started filming just local stuff with my mum’s crappy old stills camera that recorded video, it was rubbish, but it didn’t stop me. I went to some state series races and did some filming when I wasn’t riding, chucked a song to it and put it online.  To my surprise people got pretty enthused on it, this continued for the rest of the series. I didn’t really do that well at races, I don’t know what it was about racing, as soon as I got in the start gate my knees turned to jelly.  Crashed 95% of my race runs, the rare times I didn’t I was going way to conservative to post a competitive time.  This didn’t stop me from wanting to improve, so heading into the new Season of 2009/2010 I bought my own camera.   Wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, just $300 worth of FujiFilm awesomeness, filmed the full series on that camera making about a 3 – 6 minute long video for each round.  People were getting to know me for it and they really seemed to enjoy the videos.  As the season went on my riding and filming both improved, however, my racing didn’t.  I continued to crash in my race runs; I actually stoped caring as much that I did, mainly because I felt it wasn’t a weekend wasted.  I made a video and it made people happy.  I didn’t race the last couple rounds that year and decided to have a go on totally focusing on filming and riding in my own time, I think I produced better videos doing it that way.  More shots than ever before and I wasn’t sore from the crash in my race run, so I was able to get into editing right way.  Once the Series was over I had decided that I wanted to get serious about filming, get some proper equipment and have a go a producing a full-length video.  I thought to myself, I can go riding anytime, not like my race results are any good anyway.  Why not commit to filming and ride in my own time, and that’s what I did, it’s more rewarding than racing to me.  I feel I can produce something people get excited about like I used to while still not giving up on riding, I feel as if I have the best of both worlds.

What do you think is unique about filming the VDHS?  Is it the riders, the locations or the fact that the racing is so close across so many categories?

I feel such a strong connection with the VDHS because that’s what started my love for both riding and filmmaking.  I honestly couldn’t imagine my life if I hadn’t got involved with it.  But I’d have to say it’s the combination of all the great people involved with the VDHS, the riders, the volunteers, the sponsors, everyone who makes the series what it is.  I think the locations are almost as important, Victoria is lucky to be home to a number of awesome tracks and I’m glad to see the clubs getting behind the series and getting the events going.  I hope they keep it up; they need as much support as they can get.

As a mountain biker yourself, how do you believe you can best represent the riders of the VDHS on film?

I think as a rider myself it’s easier to understand the riders perspective.  The pressure faced during a race run and the skill required having the pace to win.  The competition between the riders, but the friendships that still exist.  Downhill is unlike motocross, at the end of the day most of the riders are really good mates.  With this in mind I attempt to capture this and put it onto the, easier said than done.  I don’t just want to create ‘just another MTB video’ I want to create something really special to the Series.  Something that gives insight into the riders, the races and the relationships.  Something I hope will not only be really special to the people involved, but something they want to share with their friends and family, hopefully give them something to show them ‘this is what I do’ and allow them to see it the way we all do.

I know as a photographer, I am constantly learning and I could see improvement throughout the year in my images, would you say this is the case for yourself?  How has your filming and editing changed throughout the season?

Ha, tell me about it.  As a filmmaker or a photographer I think it’s a never-ending learning experience.  I doubt either of us will ever know everything there is to know about film or photography, and that in it’s self is something I love about it.  The evolution and development is great, that sense of achievement every time I learn something new that allows me to produce a higher quality video is something hard to describe, it’s like learning how to corner better in riding terms.  When I first started filming this season I had only just gotten the Canon 7D, with little experience using DSLR’s it was going to he a huge task to get the settings and techniques required to create a great image.  I can honestly say there is a clear improvement in not only image quality from the start of the Series, but technique also.  It’s a constant learning experience, being mainly self taught also makes it harder, it’s often a slower process to develop the skills.  However, in saying that I have to admit to a huge amount of help from Hux and Sean Anderson, although Hux is shooting photography the camera’s we use are identical, with some different attachments that make filming with mine easier.  His help not only at races but also via email has helped me learn my way around the DSLR quicker than I ever could have alone.  Sean Anderson is a filmmaker as well, I’m sure many of you are familiar with his work on the Kona Projects or his Movie covering the National Series SYNC.  I have great respect for this man and his videos.  I have been lucky enough to have had his help during the Australian National Series this year, his advice and help with settings have allowed me to produce higher quality imagery and get more out of my camera and equipment.  Defiantly check out his website http://seanhub.com and his Vimeo account for his videos.  As far as editing goes, it’s very time consuming, the web releases take about 5 hours of messing around with music and the selected shots to use.  The full length race sections take much longer than that, I’m talking over a weekend of full on work to get a race segment almost done, depending on how well it flows.  That’s not the only concern but, all music must be licenced for me to legally use, countless times I have sent requests with no reply, this holds up the hole process of editing the video.  A couple times I’ve began editing with a particular song just to find out the artist wants huge sums money for use of their music, resulting in me having to start over. This is one of the harder parts of making the video, the editing itself; to create something that flows is more time consuming than difficult these days.  When editing I do attempt to put in as many different riders as possible to give everyone a chance to see themselves, however it’s often hard, with generally 300 riders per race to fit everyone in and give the video flow following the winners of the categories not everyone is always going to make the cut.  But I’ve tried to get a big variety of riders while still following the top riders in their battle for the overall and Champs. The majority of editing has been done after the series has ended, doing it like that allows me to know the over all winners, gather more interviews, film rider segments, and edit the video so that it flows and my ideas and editing style remains similar so that the video doesn’t feel disjointed.

Now I see you have put student a your occupation, and I know you have been tackling your HSC this year, so how hard is it to put together a DVD and study for the most important year of High School?

When I first decided to do the full length DVD this season I know I had taken on a huge task.  School its self in year 12 isn’t a small task but the two coupled together proved almost overwhelming.  There were race weekends with major assessments due the Monday following that I would spend crazy hours on Sunday nights going onto Monday mornings finishing them off, then the same the next night editing the web release, the days following a race I often saw almost no sleep.  I didn’t imagine when I took on the task it was going to be as time consuming as it is.  However, I survived all the races, and the assessment tasks that followed, and now it’s just a matter of editing the last sections and getting the DVD produced.  I’ve completed all my assessment tasks for year 12 now and only have 12 exams left, unfortunately going into those exams next week will slow the DVD process a little, but in committing to the DVD I decided when I began I wasn’t going to allow it to hinder my school marks too dramatically.  It’s made it difficult, and as a result I have little time to do anything but, film, edit and study these days, but I’m getting it all done and am happy with both my school marks and the DVD.  Honestly can’t wait for both to be finished so I can sleep but!

Knowing how important school is, how close is the release of the DVD?  Are you still filming and editing or have you moved onto Post Production?

Well I’m currently going into my trial examinations, which will last two weeks, I’m sadly going to have to do little to no work on the DVD during this time.  I was aiming to have it finished before trials, but getting royalties for music, editing the DVD so it all flows together, filming rider segments and school assessments were more time consuming than initially expected.  This DVD project has been taking longer to do than previous web videos I’ve done, mainly because of the result I want and the expectations I have set are so high.  The length of each race is about 6 – 10 minutes long, rider segments about 3 – 5, there will be a number of bonuses too including HD GoPro helmet cam / chest cam footage from each track of the series and a crash reel consisting of every crash of the series.  I’ve completed almost all the rider segments, just waiting for the weather to improve and a little time after exams to finish the final one, then just finish a couple races to edit and the last rider segment and the DVD should be right for production.  Estimated time would have to be September, could be sooner, and depends on a number of things I’ve talked about as you know.  It will be for sale on various different websites, eBay and hopefully in a number of bike shops, details to be confirmed.  I will also have some for sale at the upcoming VDHS if you want to get one in person, although that’s a while down the track, still want everyone to get excited, looks like another good Series.

What was the most insane thing you saw through your lens this season?  And will we see it in the DVD?

Geez, the most insane thing, that’s a hard one.  There were half a dozen pretty mental crashes I was amazed to see people walk away from, some didn’t, they’ll all be in the crash section, or in the race segments.  The first thing that really springs to mind though is Connor Fearon hitting the Coffin drop in his qualifying run, that was just insane, I actually can’t comprehend that pace he hit it at, you will defiantly be seeing that in the DVD.  There are a couple other pretty insane things going in the DVD, but I’ll keep that a secret and let you all enjoy, you can tell me what you think the most insane thing was.

Jake, thanks for sparing some time to answer these questions.  Is there anyone you’d like to thank?

Defiantly!  First up I would really like to thank my mum and dad, without their help there would have been no way this DVD would have been possible.  They helped me with various loans for equipment, taking us to events and just general support, couldn’t have done it without them.  I’d like to thank all the Series sponsors for not only making the series possible, but for making the DVD possible.  In particular Hux and Marni from mtbpicsonline.com, you guys are practically my race family when my parents aren’t there.  Countless text messages, emails and phone calls of advice from Hux have been more help than anyone could ever understand.  Other film makers, Rob and Liam, good to see other people getting out there too, would have been lonely being the only person on the hill with a camera filming. Huge thanks to Tom Riella (Gooba), many of you probably know I only recently got my licence, until then Gooba was my go to guy to take me places to film.  He helped carry stuff at countless rider segments and contributed a lot more than even he realised to the DVD.  All the supporters who gave positive feed back at events, encouraged the DVD and my filmmaking, letting me know I was on the right track (not literally haha). There are countless people to thank, I could go on all day here, everyone, shuttle drivers, marshals, timing crew, time cable runners, bunting layers, to everyone that helped me, thank you, you made this the best Series I’ve ever been apart of, and trust me, I’ll be back next year!

 

Thanks again Jake, we can't wait to see the final release.

Hux