I’ve tried riding one of those. It takes a superior sense of balance, so my hat’s off to these guys, especially trying to cross-country down that slope.

Dude,
“some videographers”? WTF?
How about mentioning the FILMMAKER? or even obtaining his permission to post it on your blog? Seriously, this is NOT a grainy photo of Britney’s cootch. This is someone’s intellectual property.

Although slightly less important, Let’s also consider the fact that this film took not one, but SEVERAL days to shoot and who knows how many hours to edit?
Also, WHere, exactly, was this film NOT released? Was it NOT released at a film festival, perhaps? In Portland OR, perhaps?

Come on man wake up and smell the Linux Box Made Entirely Out of Your Own Pubic Hair (sorry Fatguy, I couldn’t resist) and check a few facts and even follow some simple rules of protocol. Is it all too much to ask?

-Doper

Hey Speilberg… Need a hug?

Doper,

Your comment adds no value to this article and only serves to make you look like an A-hole. Rather than deleting it however I’ll provide more info and leave it here for posterity.

• The video came to me via one of the actual guys on a unicycle. It is their desire that the video receive more attention. It is sitting on a Web site open to the whole world to download and watch.
• I’d have loved to contact or provide more information about the producer of the video, but they do not have a Web site to reference and there is no contact info in the film.
• Considering that the video has no copyright information and it is sitting on an open Web server for the whole world to download I believe it’s reasonable to assume that the intent is for it to be shared and watched. This is the only way that the people who made it, and the people in it, will get any exposure. And exposure is good.
• The guys in the video put themselves at serious risk for the sake of entertaining us all. I believe they deserve more than being just 1 out of a dozen videos shown, on one day, in one theatre, in one city. I also believe that they were under the impression that the video would be posted to a video sharing Web site.

I would encourage anyone associated with this film to contact me to have additional information added such as Web addresses or more background detail on the film. As I’ve demonstrated repeatedly in the past I’m always interested in providing all of the information available on any topic.

John

Much as I’d like to defend my friend Doper on this, I’ll just give the facts.

The video was produced for the Filmed by Bike festival in Portland, OR by a local filmmaker. We spent a few days banging ourselves around in the woods and in a city park in return for much beer during the interview scene.

If you are interested in contacting the filmmaker, I believe Doper has his contact info. You may also have a look at Unicyclebastards.com for more of Dopers’ unique insight.

C

C,

Thanks for the additional information. I appreciate the fact that you were able to share a little detail without crucifying me for my evil, evil ways. I now know it was wrong for me to provide additional exposure for this film to my hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, and I am extremely repentant.

I added a link to Doper’s site in the article, despite the fact that he was indeed an abusive Bastard to me - here, on MY blog. I also searched the site for more information on this film, but I see none.

Personally I’m done with this discussion, but if one of the producers in the credits would like to contact me with verifiable information I’ll happily exclude this and any other future projects they produce from this site.

Happy unicycling,

John

Howdy, I’m the guy that made this little short. It’s rather flattering that someone would take the time to post the vid on google and also blog about it. I think the Bastards are just a little concerned that someone they don’t know is blogging about their short film, they can be a little prickly, but then again they don’t call em’ bastards for nothing. I say blog away and I’m glad you like the short.

Here are the details of the production for those that are interested:

Shot in HD24p with a JVC GY HD100 over two days in and around Portland, Oregon by yours truly. The sweeping camera moves were done with a DV Jib that was just barely big enough to hold the camera. The moving “city” shots were done with a doorway dolly. Both Dolly and Jib courtesy of Picture This Production services. Editing was done over a couple of weeks whenever I had time to get to it. Budget was about $100 bucks worth of beer.

This little short was an official selection of the Filmed by Bike film festival. If you ever get to Portland and can attend this thing do - it is nuts! The whole thing was a lark, I had a buddy of mine that always rode a Uni (Bryce, his two cute girls are in the flick as well)and he told me about all the crazy stuff him and this nutty pack of Uni riders were doing. I figured somebody should do a short documentary on these guys - turned out that someone was me. All the guys in the film were a huge help and were willing to risk life, limb & their junk - not to mention doing things over and over again - to help get this project done.

Hope this helps clarify questions surrounding UBIP.

Sincerely,
Burk Webb

Burk,

Thanks for stopping by and clearing up this matter!

I think your cinematography was fantastic. I hope one day to be as good as you. I recently purchased a Canon XH A1 and have just started using it. I’m nowhere near the rank of even amateur yet.

I wonder, what kind of software do you use to do your editing, and also what kind of settings did you use to export it to the original .wmv file? I was very impressed with the compact size and quality, though Google video butchered the quality.

Thanks again,

John

Thanks John, much appreciate the comments -

Oh, google is a cruel compression (isn’t it flash?).

That Canon is a sweet camera, the new crop of sub $5000 dollar HD cameras are amazing. It’s a shame only a few have seen UBIP in all it’s HD glory, lots of it looks really smashing.

I edited this with Sony Vegas. I can’t remember the compression settings but Vegas is a great compression tool. Also the HD colorspace compresses very nicely. One of the things that kills me is that it’s so easy to shoot and work in HD these days but almost impossible to show it to anybody. At the Filmed by Bike festival submissions were on good old DVD - and they could only handle stereo. (UBIP has a 5.1 surround mix - it’s overkill but hey, what do you want) It’s brutal watching your work on a big screen with an underpowered projector and barely audible stereo downmix. It is in keeping with the “grunge” ethic of the festival (and the festival is a total blast) but you have to go in a little mentally prepared.

Nobody is rooting harder for $150 dollar HD-DVD/Blue Ray players than me!

Burk

Unicycle gangs, wow! I had one growing up in the 70s. I delivered newspapers on it, rode it one footed, backwards and joined the Pontiac Unicycle Club. Mr. Crandle used to build special unicycles so I got to try a 6, 8 and eventually a 12 foot unicycle. His son rode the 20ft one. Back then we didn’t wear helmets. Very cool video.