Strange things happen in the hills of far-north Queensland. In the mountains that surround Cairns, mountains that are themselves part of Australian mountain bike folklore, stealthy shadows have been spotted, stalking the world’s fastest riders down trails that wind through rainforest.
These shadows aren’t manifestations of the sacred spirits that dwell here though, they’re products of the twisted minds behind Mudcow Visions and they’ve been capturing footage that, when it drops, is set to raise the standard by which mountain bike cinematography will be judged in the future.
The legendary Mudcows series of videos was supposed to end with the release of Mudcows 3, but the spirits that live in Cairns had other ideas. Through the blood sweat and tears of relative new-comer Dylan Jeffries and the guidance of old head Glen Jacobs, the series has been given new life and now Mudcow 4: On Top Down Under is getting ready to hit store shelves over the Australian summer.
The Mudcows series were the first to capture bikes on a cable camera and footage like Michael Ronning’s section in Mudcows 2 remain cemented in my mind as the best footage I’ve ever seen of bikes of any kind.
Given the history of innovation the Mudcows franchise has shown we shouldn’t be surprised then, that in 2004 they are set to once again raise the bar in the way bikes are captured on film. They also have much bigger plans for their revolutionary capture systems than just making DVD’s, but we’ll get into that later...
The first time I see Dylan Jeffries during my trip to Cairns he’s stripped to the waist and in the middle of fitting out his brand new skate / clothing store Compound. Dylan is a human ball of enthusiasm and determination, explaining how he and his friend are set to open the store in a few days time.
Along with starting Compound, Dylan is also working on the editing of Mudcows 4 and the development of a television pilot for a show akin to an Australian version of Dropin, it’s a lot for such a young guy, but if you ever get the chance to meet Dylan, you’ll realise that if anyone has the energy to pull it all off, it’s him.
I catch up with Dylan a few days later, on the eve of the opening of Compound and do this interview on the floor of the almost complete shop. The floor is pretty awesome actually, polished concrete with the Compound logo spray painted in white in the centre. Compound looks like it’s going to be a cool place…
I asked Dylan to explain about how he came to be involved with Mudcows.
Dylan Jeffries: “I met Glen Jacobs in 1999, I was introduced to him by Ben Bramham. Glen invited me to work on Mudcows 3 with him, I only shot 3 hours of footage but I helped out with assistant editing the movie.”
“In 2001 Glen and I wanted to start a new project so we went 50/50 in a project called Mudcow Visions to do that. We’ve been working on the next movie ever since.”
RG: So tell me about the new movie...
DJ: “It’s going to be all-Australian. The best riders in Australia with Australian bands. So far we’ve got about 60 hours of footage and we’re in the middle of editing for a release in summer of 2004.”
“Dennis Beare, Brad Jones and Ben Bramham have come up with heaps of camera concepts and ways of filming mountain bikes and our aim is to make mountain biking watchable to the average armchair sports fan.”
“At the moment mountain bikes are limited in terms of getting television exposure because you need so many cameras to film a race. At the moment you just can’t sell the footage because frankly it looks crap. Our goal is to make it accessible to the mainstream.”
“The video is going to include heaps of footage from around Cairns as well as the roadtrip to the Eildon Nationals last year. Some riders are going to have bigger sections like Graves, Bryn, Mick Hannah, Rennie, Rando, Hill, Chris Kovarik and Dennis Beare.”
“So yeah, they’ll be the guys, the best riders in the world…”
RG: You said you were working on a TV show, what’s the deal with that?
DJ: “I’m also working on a project with James Wells, Glen Jacobs and Ben Bramham. In a nutshell it’s a Getaway meets Mudcows sort of idea; we’ll travel to a town with our bikes, meet up with the locals, ride and film.”
“Each destination we’d have 4 riders, but all from different disciplines, it hasn’t got a name as yet but we’re hoping to sell it for a deal which would let us do a 15 episode series.”
“The aim is to finish the pilot mid this year and shoot the series for release in mid-to-late next year, the aim is to make the series totally Australian and to liase with local musicians at each place we visit to use their music in return for them getting it played on TV.”
RG: Cool, so any other Mudcows news?
DJ: “Well, Mudcows have a super-limited trilogy out at the moment on DVD, all 3 Mudcows films, there are like three left out of the 100 and it’s going to be like a collectors thing, we’re not going to print any more copies of the trilogy again.”
“Other than that I can say that farkin’s going to have exclusive rights to the Mudcows 4 teaser when release it sometime between now and summer…and that’s about everything I think.”
At this point, Glen Jacobs arrives at Compound, Dylan needs to get back to fitting out his shop so Glen and I go around the corner to a coffee shop and do this interview. Jacobs is larger than life and pretty much a living legend in the industry, he’s got so much to talk about and so much enthusiasm for our sport that you can’t help but feel excited yourself.
Jacobs talks fast and I write furiously…
Glen Jacobs: “I’ve just gotten back from Perth, where I went and had a look at the site they want to use for a World Cup round in 2006. If they get it or not is ultimately up to the UCI, but their government is all for it, both the state and federal governments and the site is awesome.”
“There’s no track there yet but I’m going to design them one and they’ll make their bid to the UCI and it will go from there. I think they have a good chance of getting it though.”
RG: So how did you come to be making another Mudcows film?
GJ: “Mudcows to me was dead, it was finished with Mudcows 3 but when Dylan came along and said “let’s revive it” I agreed because I could see that this guy was one of those passionate, creative people who would get it done and do something good with it. The movie stuff is now all Dylan, his passion will take Mudcows 4 where it needs to go, I’m involved in Mudcow Visions for the more world wide view.”
“Mudcows were there in the pioneering days of our sport, a lot of things have happened and a lot of things have changed since then. The passionate, innovative and creative people have always come from DH, come from a different background whereas the people who run our sport have always come from that strict, cycling background and wouldn’t know jack-shit about passion and feeling basically.”
“Our sport would be in a different place today, here and world-wide if some of the creative people were given a chance rather than being cut down by the UCI.”
“Downhill is by far the best sport in the world. You know that, I know that, everyone who actually rides knows that but at the moment you can’t sit down in your lounge room and watch it.” “People can sit down and watch a World Rally Championship special stage with all the cameras and ghosts and live time updates and be on the edge of their seats and as cool as rally is, it’s just cars driving fast on dirt roads. “
“We’ve got guys on super high tech bikes going insanely fast down purpose built tracks that are designed to be hard and dangerous to ride and our goal is to show the rest of the world just how good this sport is.”
“With the camera systems we’re working on, the best way to use them will be to purpose build tracks with camera systems in mind and design areas that will make for good coverage for sponsors.”
“A rock garden with a tracking camera so suspension companies can buy the footage and use it for advertising, big, loose, off-camber corners for tyre companies, that sort of stuff, we need to think about making the sport marketable.”
Glen and I chat for a while about marketing and farkin.net before Glen has to take off, but it’s OK as I still have one Mudcow left to talk to and 5 minutes later, Ben Bramham arrives and the barrage of information starts up again
RG: So Ben, what’s your involvement with Mudcows?
Ben Bramham: “Along the way I’ve sort of taken a back seat, I didn’t take on the new video as a business venture of my own but I always like to be a part of it because I have been ever I since I was in high school 13 years ago.”
“You know, while I was in the U.S. last year I went to Big Bear, I’ve been there three times now, in ‘94, ‘98 and 2003 and each time it had gotten smaller. They said it was because there was no more TV coverage they could no longer attract sponsors and things were struggling.”
“The problem was that although they’d had pro cameramen filming the races over there they didn’t actually know anything about downhill and hence no-one ever really captured the essence of the sport on television.”
“The other problem was that you can’t just set up cameras to film a track; the track has to be designed with the cameras in mind. This sport is at the stage where it’s as “wow!” as any motor sport out there. To bridge the gap between mountain bikes and motor sport though we need coverage and to do that we need to change the way people can watch it.”
“You can’t have cameras on every corner and it’s not feasible to mount a camera to every rider. Cable cameras are trial and error and can’t turn corners. The system I’m designing is capable of controlled speeds up to 80 kilometres an hour, it can turn corners and keep the rider right-way-up at all times, do lengths of track up to 120 metres and be spliced into even longer lengths if needs be.”
At this point Ben goes into a detailed description of how the “Strip Search” camera system works but I’m sworn to secrecy on the actual mechanics of the system.
RG: So how should courses be designed to accommodate these cameras, why aren’t tracks we have now suited?
BB: “Well, riders want intense tracks and generally what feels good for riders is what looks good for spectators. Speed should be generated and controlled by the hill, not by pedals and brakes, you don’t want riders holding back through hard sections because they know there’s 100 metres of flat sprint ahead. Builder’s shouldn’t be satisfied with having only 6 sections of the 30 or so on the hill being good.”
“If we could take the best riders to the best locations with the best tracks that have been designed for cameras people would love it. Sports need personalities, people would love to see someone like Cedric Gracia carrying on, though it does need an American superstar too to be viable in the ‘States so that’s something we have to work on.”
“People have to see personalities though, they have to care and want someone to win, that’s how you build a fan-base outside of people who ride. People who care about a sport will want to see it live, the vast majority of football fans don’t actually play football and we need those sort of fans to see that our sport is never restricted by not having enough money.”
RG: So what’s the future for this system and for TV coverage?
BB: “You can’t map out a definite path for this sort of thing; all you can do is have an end goal in mind. It won’t just be us making it happen, it’s not a solo mission and it’s going to have to involve a lot of people doing things for the right reasons.”
“If we can get everyone on a similar path and if it reaches it’s full potential there will be more than enough to go around for the people who made sacrifices when things were still small. People will have to do a lot off their own backs though; we have to be able to show sponsors a finished product before we ask them for money.”
With that, the interview comes to a close. In summary, look out for M4: On Top Down Under in summer of 2004 and look for the teaser here on farkin sometime soon. Big things are being planned in the far north and what we see on this video will be a good indication of what to expect from Dylan, Ben, Jacobs and co. over the next few years. The deadline to “make it happen” is 2007, these are exciting times indeed.
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Sorry for the big block of text. Photos were supposed to turn up to pretty-up this interview, but they never eventuated...they're still using acoustic couplers and rotary-dial telephones to get on "teh intarnet" up in Cairns now so I guess that's excusable.
Stay tuned to farkin.net over the summer for the release of the Mudcow 4 teaser / trailer and more news about the film as it gets closer to release. Also drop by the Mudcow Visions website for regular news and fresh images of what the crew is up to.
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