ADAM DYSON
life direction
When did you start filming BMX? I started filming BMX about two and a half years ago in mid 2008. What made you pick up a camera and start filming? I’ve always been into films in general, whether it be a Hollywood feature or a Props issue. I wanted to combine that love of films with my love of BMX and from there I started to make edits. You shoot HD now, so how do you find filming with that rather than with traditional SD cameras? Shooting in HD is great. It’s getting to the point where most quality BMX edits are being filmed in HD and it’s great to see. DSLR’s have the great advantage now that they are able to shoot in full HD, mostly due to the ability to easily change lenses. What was your first camera? My very first camera was one that my grandpa bought me for Christmas one year. It was a tiny, mobile phone quality camera and was really awkward to hold, let alone film with. But the first camera I used for filming BMX was an entry level JVC Everio. They are a pretty decent camera, but the problem is you can’t control anything in the camera at all. What camera are you shooting with now?
At the moment I film with a Canon 550d and it’s great. You have complete control over everything from the shutter speed to your lenses. It’s also great that you can get a full professional look for very little money. Would you recommend riders who are getting into filming to go straight into HD and something like the 550D or start with a camera that also has a manual zoom, so they learn that aspect of filming as well? I think the most important thing in any type of filming, not just BMX, is camera placement and composition of the shoot, and sometimes in BMX filming that is neglected. So starting to film BMX on something like the 550d could be a little confusing because you have so much to control, like whether it be the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focus and of course the hundreds of lenses that all give a very different feel to the shoot. So starting on a fixed lens camera with a zoom could be a great way of understanding composition, then from there moving into the manual settings of the camera. Also coming from photography would be a great advantage in shooting video with DSLR’s in that you already have a good understanding of how the camera works. Recently you mentioned that you are studying film production. Was it because of BMX that you chose that path? Yeah, BMX really paved the way. I’ve been wanting to do some kind of Arts Degree