I was first aware of Gavin through my friend Lewis Hay, who showed me his blog about a year and a half ago. His work has always impressed me, whether it’s photos, design or vinyl toys, Gavin always puts 150% into everything he does, and always comes across as extremely positive and forward thinking. Like many skaters these days Gavin has made the move into riding fixed a lot more, and as usual, he can’t just ride fixed, he went out and made a film about Bristol’s large fixie community. The result is ‘BOIKZMOIND’, which he co-made with ‘Makinov’ (Jonny Clooney). The result is what is shaping up to be an epic video. I caught up with Gavin to find out more about the video. Plus, check out the awesome trailer after the jump.

So Gav, with everything else you do, how do you find time to ride?
I’m not too sure really, I like finding a way to squeeze it all in somehow! I ride to and from work everyday, so I’m always peddling about, I just manage to get in a few extra hours here and there a week to film people too! Luckily our local meet-up spot is just over the water from Aardman so it’s not far to go.

It seems to me that you throw yourself full force into everything you do, like you can’t just be happy skateboarding, you want to design decks too, and you can’t just ride fixed you gotta make a film, and you like vinyl toys so you brought your own out, when will it end? ha ha.
Haha, that’s exactly it. I can’t just do something half-arsed, I find myself getting really enthusiastic and energetic about it all, which I don’t see as a bad thing really. I think I just get  passionate about the things I fall into, so over time that’s spread to these discoveries like skating and bikes, i love being involved as much as I can!

Hopefully it won’t end, I’ve met lots of wonderful people because of throwing myself into something new, whatever the field, so I hope to carry on!

How did BOIKZMOIND come about?
Well I’ve been riding fixed for a year or so, and at the start of the year I bought myself a HD camera as I’ve always been interesting in shooting films and making little edits, I’d been doing that for years with my editing partner in crime Jonny Clooney aka Makinov.

I just thought it’d be fun to document what was happening in Bristol, there seemed to be more and more people getting involved and meeting up, going for rides and just generally having fun.

I’ve been gathering footage since February and in the Summer months been out two nearly three times a week getting footage of riding and tricks and just general tomfoolery that happens. As the amount of footage has increased it’s got me more and more excited, so coming up with the title of ‘BÖIKZMÖIND’ (Say it out loud…) it cemented it for me – it has a title, so it’s going to be proper!

Jonny joined me on filming duties and we’ve been tag-teaming it out on the mean streets of Bristol – me armed with a fisheye death lens and Jonny with a JAG adapter to fit SLR lenses to the front of the camera. Add a heap of photographers to the mix then you’ve got a melting pot of creativity!

Last week me & Jonny spent alot of late nights going through all 300GB’s of footage and came out with that trailer that’s now online! It was premiered at the 2nd NO GEARS night at The Cube cinema last night, and simultaneously I launched a microsite (www.boikzmoind.com) where the trailer could be viewed & downloaded in HD aswell as grabbing some desktop wallpapers.

Who is making it/filming it? And who’s in it?
The whole Bristol scene is in it, we’ve got a good strong crew of folk who come out for regular rides already but i’m hoping to expand on that and really get all of Bristol’s community involved. After all, this is about the scene here, so I really want to represent it well by including everyone.

In terms of who’s making it; It’s myself and Jonny on filming & editing duties, Alex Digard, Dan Burbridge and many others on photographic duties and I guess I’m producing & directing the project too (although I don’t have a megaphone so I can’t really call myself a director).

I’m hoping to get many more involved too, I’ve got ideas for a grand opening titles so will need to enlist the help of many talented folk for that, I’m talking to my good friend Cieran O’Conner about motion graphics too, so I really want this to be a polished end product!

When will it be released?
I’m hoping for Spring 2010 at the moment. It isn’t going to be just a tricks video, I want to tie the whole thing together with a narrative, so I’ll be conducting interviews with riders to get their take on what riding in Bristol means to them, so I’ll try and get those done during the cold, dark winter months and start the edit with Jonny early 2010!

I’ll be hooking up with my man Rik at Ripe Digital for the actual output too – It’s going to be a properly packaged DVD complete with a photo booklet too, hence the mass of photographers documenting too, as it’ll all come together as one big creative project I think!

BOIKZMOIND Trailer from Xynthetic on Vimeo.

Related Links:

Boikzmoind Mini Site
Gavin’s Site
Gavin’s Twitter
Gavin’s Flickr