Interview/words by Aaron Gates
Montreal has long been a Canadian epicenter for music and art. Go there and you’ll immediately be struck by the centuries old architecture and distinctly French-Canadian food and culture. In the last few years, Montreal has also emerged as one of the best bmx cities in Canada. With three good indoor parks close by and a plethora of street to ride in the summertime, more and more riders are making the trip. Of course, the scene was always good, but now everyone knows about it. Jeremy Deme’s Presence series is one of the big reasons that happened. Presence is a series of videos that go back at least four or five years. The first one I saw was “Yesterday”, which is now three videos ago. Presence provided the video coverage that first got names like Dillon Lloyd, Greg Flag, and Corey Dewey out there, while also letting us know that Max Vincent still exists. Jeremy also did the video work for last year’s re-session tour, and has put together several web videos for Montreal locals who have picked up sponsors in the recent past. Jeremy recently moved to Vancouver to work for Ten Pack Distribution and just recently released the newest Presence video “You Know Time it is?”. He’s expanded his range a bit, featuring a few riders from Western Canada in this release, but it’s still grounded in Montreal. The last Presence video was one of my favorite local videos ever, and I don’t expect the new one to disappoint at all.
Jeremy Deme
Where did the name for your video come from?
We basically tried to think of a name that would instantly make us think back at one or more good memories from this past summer. The title was suggested by Dewey and what it represents is a lot of good times in Montreal. I don’t want to give it away, it’s kind of something you have to see/experience for yourself to fully appreciate it. All I’m going to say is get a few drinks in Greg Flag and then ask him if he knows time it is?
Are you planning anything different from other Presence videos in terms of format or aesthetic?
The feel of this vid is a more good times with friends style. I wanted anyone watching it to be stoked on good times on their bikes; whether it be a good day of riding outside with friends or anything funny that happened between sessions, something not too serious but that also makes you want to ride your bike.
It seems that dvd casing is less and less important these days so I’m going to try something different than a traditional plastic DVD case. Nothing too fancy, but something different for sure.
Who has the standout part so far?
We changed up the format of the vid this year so it’s not just part after part after part. As much as I’ve been stoked on previous vids we made, we really wanted this one to have a different feel to it. That being said, everyone really shredded this summer. I’m stoked on everyones footy especially Mike Cardin, Corey Dewey, Luke Santucci,Dillon lloyd, Taylor Elvy, Isaac Barnes, Max Vincent, and Greg flag.
Some of those guys are from out west, did they come to Montreal, or were you in Alberta? Have you shot much in Vancouver?
Luke came out to Montreal for a few weeks this summer so I filmed with him while he was here. He got hurt while he was down so we didn’t get to do as much filming as we would have liked to. He filmed most of the Alberta stuff of Taylor, Isaac and Jaumell. I’ve been filming as much as possible In Vancouver, in between the rain. A few guys have a few projects going out here so I’ve been helping them film for those. When the weather gets dryer I’ll definitely be filming a bunch.
Have you found it difficult to scrap the traditional format and still keep some semblence of order? It seems like Joe Simon and Joe Rich have been successful with that, but then there’s things like the Standard video, which was just a mess of random clips…
I didn’t want it to have a messy/random feel to the video. The video starts off with a Montreal mix, with a bit in between, like some trip footy and the Presence Jam. Greg and Dewey ride together all the time and they killed it this summer so I knew I wanted to do a split part with those dudes. Isaac and Taylor also wanted to do a split part so we went with that. Luke had too much good footy to not use so he ended up getting a part with some guest appearances in his part. I think it has a mix feel but not to the point where it’s totally unorganized. It’s hard to explain but you’ll hopefully understand what I mean when you watch it haha.
Jeremy feeble hard 180
How would you compare filming something like the re-session tour to filming a local project like You Know Time It Is?
It’s really different. For this vid and last years vid we basically started filming as soon as we could ride outside and filmed up until it was too cold out to ride outside. For a dvd your usually hoping to be between 20-35 minutes long and when you have 6-7 months to film it can get to that length pretty easily. Not everyone has the same work schedules and stuff so that isn’t always easy to figure out but usually the closer you get to winter the more clips people are banging out. For tour stuff, usually there’s alot of riding going down everyday so basically you just film as much as you can so you have alot to work with once it’s one. I’m always a bit more stressed filming comps or tours because you gotta make sure you don’t miss anything. Both are fun in their own way. There’s nothing better than just cruising around with friends and filming whatever, wherever though.
I’ve heard rumblings of a new Ten Pack video in the works, is there any truth to that?
We’re in the early stages of working towards that. The ten pack team is killer, all the dudes on the team shred so much. Were hoping to put something together in the near future.
Check the You Know Time it is? trailers from Presence Bmx:
