Mike Corts originally hails from Elyria, Ohio. However, if you have had your paths cross in the past 5 years it is likely that he was on the move. Mike’s quest for adventure has taken him everywhere from Binghamton to Australia. Mike was kind enough to take time out of his motorcycle restoration to share some photos and talk about his latest completed project, Shitluck’s “Love It or Leave It”.
This is the second full length Shitluck video. What should we expect when we pop this in our DVD player?
To put it as simply and basic as I can, people doing what they like to do and having a good time!
To elaborate, it started just as how most bike videos do. At the time, I was staying at Leland’s and we were going over all the footage we had. It was a mixture of a few trips we had gone on, times while people were passing through Louisville, stuff that Barlow and myself captured while we did a little exploring along the country side, and other things that I filmed while I was cruising around. As we gathered everything, we saw that we basically had enough to make a short video. Amongst that time, I was moving to California, so we decided that we would just keep filming some more and make a full video with sections.
Then the team Joe Mettille, Vince Smith, Brandon Burke, Chester Blacksmith, Richard Aryes, Tim Bunao, Chris Wilson, Cameron Wood, Ryan Metro, Marcus Grubbs, and myself all started to film for sections. With the exception of Chester, he tends to do crazy shit and sometimes gets injured. While at the same time gathering footage of our friends and family. Once all was said and done, I got everything captured and tried to make a fun having, great time feeling, ear wrenching, cowboy boot melting, gut explosioning, monkey turning into a snake having video. I guess thats what you can expect, or SHITLUCK and what we encounter.
I know that while you were filming this, you were traveling the country in your veggie powered Mercedes wagon. How many miles do you think you clocked in?
Well I’ve never really been able to tell cause the tachometer is broke. But after doing a quick rough estimate it would have been around the 12,000 miles area.
Your brother, John Corts, the brainchild of Team Major Air, has a strong presence in this video. Do you have any stories of life on the road with your older brother?
Man there could be endless stories. I guess I’ll share one that has come up a few times recently. This was while we were on the last Gypsy 3 trip. Our team one night in Vermont went on a hike on the Appalachian Trail to camp up in a cabin. It was about an 1.5-2 hour hike up. We get up there all fine and dandy, get to the cabin, start to settle in.
Some of us gather some wood to start a fire, get that going, and some people start to cook some food. Johnny had a can of soup on the fire, while its roasting he finds a stick to make tongs to take the can off of the fire. Finds that efficient stick then grabs my machete, as he’s nearing the end of his split. The stick breaks and my machete bounces off his hand and bumps the bone. Blood then began to squirt out all over his chest and ground. He then pinches it and says “FUCK!” I saw what he was in the process of doing and when I heard that fuck I new it was gonna be good. In perfect timing, the sun was about 20 mins. away from setting.
At this point, since every time Johnny would unpinch the slit on his hand blood would squirt out, we decided to head back down the mtn. I then got all my stuff back together and what Johnny’s I could add on. Then him and I put on some head lamps and began our trek back down the mtns with nothing more than a circle of light in front of us and a trail of blood behind us. Once we got back to the car, we drove to find a hospital. We found one near nowhere that looked like a bigger office building. Get inside to the empty lobby and fill out some papers. The Nurse is wearing black jeans, hiking boots, yellow glasses, and a rolled up shirt. Then she takes us into a room to start to get Johnny cleaned up. She grabs all the supplies takes us to the sink and asked Johnny if he wants to clean it himself. He said yea sure, so then he scrubbed down. Once it was clean this other lady doctor came in looked at it and was like we can glue it or stitch. If you’re on a bike riding trip your probably gonna want to stitch it so you can ride. As it was being stitched, we were informed that the most patients they’ve had in 24 hours is 24.
We then went back to the base of the trail and slept outside the car. Then in the morning we waited for the rest of the guys to come down. Johnny then wore dried blood on himself for a day. Later that night, we tattooed tents on each other and Johnny’s had a machete in it. Good times.
In the ever evolving world of bmx cinematography, this video maintains the familiar feel of a Sony VX. Do you care to weigh in on the dslr/VX debate?
Yea thats cause I have a VX, and Leland has a Canon. I think HD looks awesome, they’re just real expensive!
Is there anyone that you would like to thank?
Mike Tag, the ultimate hero, will be forever missed. Leland and waiting for me taking so long, the team and everyone else on that note. John Corts he played a big part in making the video as well.
