How’s it been going Mike? What have you been up to? How’s life?

Things are good! Still living out here in Utah. Mostly been working while trying to balance riding, editing, looking for spots, significant other, etc….you know the timeless adulting/BMX struggle haha. Winter has been super warm this year though…so I can’t complain.

This part has taken 3 years to film. Has it been a case of just filming clips when you feel like it and when the right spot appears, or have you been going on filming missions and selecting spots carefully?

I’ve always been very particular with what I film, so really most things for me are missions. Rarely do I ever just stumble upon something and handle it right then & there… although I’m trying to be more like that haha. I love that shit tho…for me the process is just as fun (if not more sometimes) as trying the trick. For this video in particular, it was very much a “be patient and the right spots will eventually come” type thing. I think it could have easily been done with a video in a year or two, however the fact that I kinda sat on the footage for a while allowed it to be more of a well-rounded project. In the end I found enough things to where I organically could feel “done” without some sort of hard deadline or anyone asking for it ya know.

Where did you travel to while filming for Industrial Eyes? Where was your favourite place?

Honestly didn’t really stray too far from home on this one. This entire video was filmed in Utah, mostly Salt Lake City & surrounding areas with some more remote places in the mix too. There’s kind of an abundance of gritty old buildings, industrial areas, train yards, etc around here that nobody really rides… so it was fun to play in that realm and see what I could come up with. There was one old equipment yard in particular that gave me like 4 clips… so that was probably my favorite watering hole when I got thirsty haha.

What’s your favourite clip?

I’d say the hop into the tank train car to pocket wallride. It’s kind of a mellow one but it also totally feels like of the epitome of this project lol. As far as spot hunting goes, I seriously still can't believe that was real. A train car with a giant hole cut in the side, that’s also a full pipe, that’s also somehow conveniently placed on tracks right next to a high parking lot for hop-in access...I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever find anything that cool again.

What was the most difficult clip to film?

I’d say the quadruple tire ride over the arched curved rails towards the end, mostly because of what we had to go thru to film it. That spot is the last stop at a trolly station where the train runs to 2-3 other stops, then back again. When it’s there it sits for 10 minutes, then goes again. The Utah Transit Authority police aren’t gonna be having any shenanigans on their tracks, so basically in order to get the clip we had to go like 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off type thing. The runway is super uphill, so I kept losing speed at the top, then I’d get super close, then the train would come back and I’d have to disappear for 10 minutes. This cycle went on for like 2 hours until one finally worked out. To explain the cameras we told the people running the train that we were students at the University Of Utah shooting a time lapse of the spot for a school project. They totally bought it, so as long as they never saw me riding they were totally oblivious to what was really going on…it was pretty funny.

You back catalogue of parts are full of wild creativity. How important is it to you that your clips stand out from the norm? Is this intentional or is that just the type of riding you prefer?

Thanks! I actually went into this part consciously trying to incorporate more of my foundation of traditional riding… but blend that with new and mostly non-traditional type spots….like getting a can-jam in the streets for example, stuff like that. The bones of the part felt like that for me, plus a few more conceptual type ideas in the mix too. But yeah, anything new/different wether it be spots, trick ideas, or a video concept, whatever…all that stuff just keeps me so excited about BMX.

How do you go about finding spots? Do you use google earth or just go spot hunting in person?

In person all the way. I really enjoy just grabbing a coffee and going out exploring, getting a feel for the area, looking around the back of every building, getting a sense of what you can get away with & where, etc. That’s all stuff you can’t get from Google Earth. I did actually find the ancient curved wallride in the beginning from someone’s drone video of a Utah ghost town…so I guess there’s always the occasional exception.

Any crazy, weird or funny stories from the filming of Industrial Eyes?

I wish there was some cool story of a crazy mission or junkyard dog chasing us or something but surprisingly things went pretty smooth. I’d say the most hassle we got was while filming the Natas spin. That one was in a very populated area at a gas station. About 20 minutes into trying it the attendant (who was our age or younger... which always trips me out) came out. We tried to plead our case but he was instantly on the phone with the cops. At that moment the pressure was on and I think I got it a few tries after that… it’s crazy what kind of focus that pressure can give to you haha. If you look closely in the fisheye angle you can see him standing in there on the phone…what a dick, but also... thanks guy!!

A lot of the spots were in industrial areas, hence the name. Did you have to sneak in and hop lots of fences for this video?

Everything was definitely pretty 'tresspassy', but surprisingly not a single fence hop! Lots of open space and not as much crime is probably the reason why there’s less fenced off areas here… although Salt Lake it is getting more and more like that lately.

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