I met Brandon in 2012 at Pow Wow 7. Him and his younger brother, both hailing from Atlanta Georgia, took the 8 hours drive down the I-75 to come shred Kona Skatepark with the hundreds of others of us with the same plan. The weather had a different idea for us though, and we were all stuck in the clubhouse for the next 3 days waiting it out. Brandon and I struck up a conversation, and have kept in touch ever since. With camera in hand and a great eye for composition, his newest effort for blading is now available for purchase. We caught up with him days before his VOD and this site went live to get the full scoop on his video, find out who's got sections, and see what his opinion really is on vignette and VODs. His video is available now and can be picked up here: https://sellfy.com/p/D73u/. Download it in the background while we check in with Moments in Time.
Why don’t we start with what your name is and what the idea behind the project is.
Brandon Andersen, and I don’t know. The project just kinda came out of nowhere I guess. We were filming Jon’s Razors promo, Adam’s USD promo, people were coming out to session and we were getting extra stuff. It just kinda fell together.
How long have you been filming this project for?
I started January 1st of 15. So like two and half years.
Oh wow. A lot longer than I though. Are you still rocking two and half year old footage in the film?
Definitely. Haha. Yeah, Pretty sure.
Lee Jacobs | FS Backslide to FS Torque
So who is going to have sections? What's the lineup going to look like?
Jon Fromm, Josh Appleton from Atlanta, Ryan Timms from North Carolina, Ian Freunscht from Texas, Patrick Andersen from Atlanta, Evert Lubja from Estonia. Its so many good people. I’ve traveled to like 5 or 6 different states, and it has turned into something I could of never imagined.
Woah! Did you manage to get to Estonia?
No, that was all done in California leading up to Blading Cup. Patrick went out there and filmed. Patrick has kinda been the right hand guy in terms of my life schedule and him just being able to go.
So with that said, what does your day to day look like? What do you do outside of rollerblading?
I film a TV show. I follow Bounty Hunters. We’re on in a lot of states right now over the air.
Does the show have a name? Or you keeping that low key? Haha.
It’s called Joe Ray’s Bounty Hunters. You can find them on TUFF TV.
So are you using broadcast level equipment for the film? Or do you have a skating specific rig?
Completely different! I filmed the video with my HVX and Patrick also uses an HVX. I use a slew of different equipment for the TV show outside of that.
In regards to HVX, vignette or no vignette with the fisheye?
Vignette.
A lot or a little?
Enough. Haha. That how skate videos have always been. That brings the rawness in my eyes. It reminds me how old videos look.
Josh Appleton | 360 to 360 Mute by Brandon Andersen
I don’t know. It’s strange to see really crispy HD footage on a Glidecam, framed perfectly, and chopped in with crappy fisheye footage with a huge vignette.
Oh no! Don’t get me wrong, I love videos that are very professional and well done. I guess like SOTA or Chapter II. Dom West really did something different with that. The shots were really cinematic, but then he still had his HVX with his fisheye in there too.
Absolutely! Dom really crushed it with that whole film. So jumping back over to Moments, walk me through some of the hurdles you encountered? Obviously people are going to get broke off, and people are going to have life happen. What are some of the things that really affected the timeline?
Josh definitely got hurt a few times and that set him back. He was one of the last ones to finish because of his injuries. He just seemed to keep having ankle issues and never seemed to get fully back on that foot, but we were finally able to wrap it up. And Fromm moving to California. Like really last minute. He was like “Yeah! I want a section”, and then moved out, and it made it really difficult. I guess the hardest part of the video I didn’t realize was that everybody except Patrick and Josh are outside of Atlanta, and me working a full-time job just made it a lot more difficult than I thought I’d be.
So Patrick has a full profile in the film? He’s been on the come up for a long time.
Yeah! It’s his first major street profile.
Patrick Andersen | Negative Pornstar
Lets do some rapid fire questions. Top 5 tricks without giving to much away.
Josh's fishbrain.
Patrick's negative torque soul.
Adam Bazydlo, I’ll just leave it at that.
Jon’s opening trick.
Richard’s negative acid.
Can you give me 5 reasons why anyone should buy this video? No is an acceptable answer. Haha
Haha. It's rad.
Everyone worked hard on it.
You're supporting the dudes in it.
You'll see 2.5 years worth of good moments.
It's only $5.
Only $5 to watch the guys destroy everything? That’s awesome.
Thats one thing that always irritated me is that you pay 20$ for a video and it turns out to be not what you necessarily expected.
Without creating drama for yourself, do you have any videos you wish you didn’t spend any money on?
How can I not create drama with that question? Hahaha. But I guess I could say 18plus. I was super hyped when they dropped it after just dropping KCMO, and I was like “fuck yeah, another KCMO video”, but that…uh…just wasn't what I expected.
What’s your thoughts on VODs in general? Obviously you're dropping this as a VOD, so do you feel like they're good or bad for the industry?
I dig it. A lot. But there is something about that physical copy thats hard to get around. And I’m kinda weird about this VOD thing. If your hard drive crashes, you haven’t lost 1 DVD. You’ve lost all your DVD’s. And granted you typically get 5 download and whatever, but you still have to spend time to redownload all the DVD’s again. As opposed to a single disc going bad. That's just one video, and not a whole collection.
Jon Fromm | AO Topsoul by Sean Macgowen
But you’re releasing your video as a VOD…?
It’s hip. Hahaha. Nobody buys DVD’s anymore. I’m still about it, but my sales and exposure wouldn’t be there. I’m not saying it’s all about the money, but I do wanna give back to everyone who has a section.
Gotcha. So thats why you’re doing VOD versus free online video?
Yeah. Because everybody put in time, money, effort. I wanna see them get some back. It isn’t about me making back what I put out for it. I wanna see everyone who actually hurt themselves for the video, I want them to see some money back.
Nice. Alright, last question. Do you have any fun kick out stories from the film?
Not a fun one I guess, but one of the wildest things to happen while filming for Moments. We pulled up at this spot and everyone was still getting out of the car. Leon “Julian Garcia” was the first to get his stuff out and started walking towards the spot. I had my camera, my skates and was just starting to pulling it all out of the trunk when I noticed Leon walking back to the car. Next thing I know he’s saying there’s a dead body over near the spot. We all kind of chuckled, not quite sure whether he was serious or not. Next thing I know, this random guy comes from around the corner and says “that dude still laying here, it’s noon”. Out of pure curiosity I checked it out, and observed a body laying in the middle of a baseball field stomach up with obvious gunshots wounds to the abdomen. All I remember is a cold chill run through my body like, what in the world did we just come upon. At that point we all start to freak out and Jon pops the question “should we call 911”? Everyone responds, no dude we need to get out of here. So we all get in the car and as we are pulling out I notice body/brain matter within feet from where we were standing this guy obviously walked about 100 yards to that field where he ended up. So we get out of the park we were at and go just across street to a gas station with the front of the park still in playing sight. It’s just silence in the car as we all are trying to comprehend exactly what we just saw. No sooner did we park across the street to just breath a little, we heard sirens and see the crime scene truck arrive on scene. We were trying to decide did this just mess up a film day, or like how do you keep skating after coming across something like that? We did though and both Josh and Jon laced clips at the very next spot.
Wow. Did not expect something like that. Well Brandon, good luck with the video! We're downloading it now.