Exclusive On the Pipe 6 interview with Director Jay Schweitzer

A film by Jay Schweitzer and Mike McEntire, On the Pipe 6 goes above and beyond what we thought were the limits of freestyle motocross. With the sport of FMX having reached a global takeover, they decided to travel the world in search of the best compounds, freeriding and freeriders known to man. We called up Director, Jay Schweitzer, to find it exactly what it’s all about.

Transmoto: You spent about two years filming On the Pipe 6.

Jay Schweitzer: Yeah, it was pretty intense. My partner, Mike McEntire, and I have been shooting it for about 18 to 20 months, off and on.

And you were working with some of the top blokes in FMX. Who did you shoot?

The main riders in the film are Mike Metzger, obviously. He’s probably one of the most talented freeriders in the world. Basically, Metzger and [Jeremy] ‘Twitch’ [Stenberg] are the most insane natural terrain riders in the world. Not just because how technical they are off all kinds of different jumps, but how they will hit any sort of natural terrain jump and no one else is really doing that. You’ll get a lot of guys who have the potential to do it, but these are the guys who will do it first. Brody Wilson is another really great up-and-coming freerider that Mike Metzger actually discovered and he is on Metzger’s team, MOB Syndicate. It’s all him on the east coast which is a lot of sand, natural terrain-type of spots. Then we were in Montana as well and we had some huge tractor-built freestyle jumps. I went to Australia for Robbie Madison’s Red Bull X-Ray event, which was the second time I had been to that. That was obviously really cool and I mean they are the biggest jumps I had seen in an event.

Some of the pictures that came out of that event were really cool. We had one that was actually in Transmoto where Mark Watson had strapped his camera to Maddo’s bike and taken it in mid air.

Yeah I saw that. That shot was really cool!

Did you do any crazy stuff like that in your latest film?

Yeah. We used the GoPros and they seemed to work pretty good. I mean the quality is HD and it’s okay. There are quite a few shots that are really cool at Andre Villa’s compound. We got some really cool crazy shots where Andre is doing a Shaolin Flip and as he is doing that I am following him in a helicopter and then it will cut to the GoPro footage.

You were famous back in the day for the Moto XXX films you did back in the ’90s. Now, ten years on, what’s it like filming freestyle with the technology advances?

On the Pipe is a completely different animal to the Moto XXX stuff. Moto XXX was good riding and the film looks pretty good. But it was more about stupid skits and chicks. There were a lot of chicks [laughs] … I’m not going out shooting chicks like I use to. That was definitely good when I was younger but … unfortunately not quite the same thing. So that aspect has definitely changed a little bit. As far as technology, back then I was shooting on 16-millimetre film and now I’ve got a Red Digital Camera. McEntire and I both shoot with the [Red] Digital now. About 70 percent of On the Pipe 5_ and 98 percent of _On the Pipe 6 was shot using the Red Camera. That camera is on its own level in terms of resolution. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it but it’s crazy. It shoots four times the resolution of HD at 120 frames per second.

So what was your favourite location? Your favourite out of the entire series?

The most fun that I actually had on the whole trip was my trip to Europe when I went to Andre Villa’s place in Spain with Charles and Thomas Pages and Jeremy Rouanet — an OG [original gangster] FMX legend. The Pages brothers are some of the most progressive freestyle guys in the world – they are super-gnarly. That was a really cool and fun shoot. Then we went to France to Jeremy Rouanet’s freeride park and it’s natural terrain, built into the hills, kind of like we do it in California and it’s like how Maddo does it. It’s the only place like it in Europe so that was pretty cool. That whole trip, where we went from Spain to France, the whole road trip and everything, hanging out with Andre Villa … it was really fun and chill. I went to Greece with Maddison when he did that jump over the canal and Greece was beautiful. Maddo and I had a really good road trip. After X-Ray we went to his place in Wollongong and then we went over to Jackson Strong’s compound in Wagga Wagga. That was pretty cool. I mean I’ve never been to that part of Australia, so that was quite an experience. It was just Maddo and me driving up there. There is so much to this movie it is hard for me to explain it. I’ve been to so many places. Let’s see… we covered Europe, we covered Australia, we were all over the East Coast [USA] for Brodie Wilson. We did a helicopter shoot. I did seven helicopter shoots for this movie.

Nice! Do you really have to think about the costs associated with these shots in today’s economy?

It’s not like I planned out to shoot seven helicopter shoots. I mean, sometimes the riders insist. I went to Josh Grant’s place in North Carolina and I wasn’t planning on doing a heli shoot but Grant was like, ‘You gotta get a heli!’. He insisted. And Andre Villa got Monster to pay for the helicopter because he wanted it so bad. Then in France, the Pages brothers got DC shoes to pay for the helicopter because they wanted it so bad, too.

So do you feel it’s harder to sell DVDs compared to 10 years ago? I mean the latest On the Pipe 6 is being sold on iTunes for $7 and then your selling the DVDs as well on top of that…

You know what, iTunes in Australia has only been up two months for movies. Two months! It’s really funny, my iTunes guy told me ‘Dude, you’re number one in the charts in Australia’ and I was like how many is that? It was about 100. I mean how can you get number one with only 100 sales? We’re still selling more DVDs than we do downloads, I think. It would probably be about 50 percent DVD and 50 percent download, but unfortunately everyone is pirating my movies and all these other movies. They are stealing my movie and putting them up on torrent sites! All the people out there who are busting their ass out in the field and filming all these people … we are the ones who are getting f@#ked over in this whole deal. I mean the distributors, yes, they are loosing out, too. But they’re not the ones who are putting the money up to make the films. The guys who are getting really ripped here is us. We’re out there all year to put a DVD out and within a week, it’s put up on a torrent site.

When you put so much time and effort into your work, is it demoralising to watch people rip you off?

That would be like saying, ‘does that bum you out when someone takes a baseball bat to your head’. It’s shit. Of course, dude. It’s like someone kicking you straight in the nuts. I’d rather be kicked in the nuts by a street thug than have what is going down with the whole piracy, torrents and all that kind of bullshit. Australia is the only one where their Internet is metered and it costs them more to download stuff. So it has been somewhat protected in Australia. But other places like Canada, the US and Europe, it is highly susceptible to theft.

It is definitely disturbing, but I mean the riders still need an outlet. There are a lot of guys out there that still need to be shown to the public. You have the X-Fighters but outside of that, what is there that is showcasing what these guys are capable of off crazy gnarly jumps? There is really nothing else. For the most part there is not a huge outlet for freeriding.

I can see that you are very passionate about what you do and you love it to death. Is there another project or FMX video on the cards for the next few years?

Right now, I’m doing the Black Friday Metal Mulisha movie.

How’s that going?

Well, we just started and we got some really cool stuff lined up. It’s cool and we are going be rounding up all the boys. There’s Cam Sinclair, Jacko [Jackson Strong], Robbie Adelberg. We have quite a few Australian boys in the Metal Mulisha and we’re going to pump those dudes up. We’re going to do some big shoots and we have Todd Potter and it will just be a totally cool video about what all the Mulisha boys are doing. They have a strong following and I think it will be a cool project. We’re going to shoot it On the Pipe-style; we’re going to have helicopters, huge jumps and huge flips. Everything you would expect out of those guys.

Do you have an estimated time of completion? When can people get their hands on it?

Yep it’s all in the title, Black Friday, that’s when it’s going to be out. I don’t know if you guys have Black Friday over there, but over here [USA] it’s the day after Thanksgiving [November 25, 2011]. So that’s when we plan on having it in stores. McEntire and I have been working on another project for five years — it is the history of long distance jumping. With Maddison, Capes and all the guys from Evel Knievel. It will show before Evel all the way up to the current record holder — 391 feet — which is Ryan Capes. That is another project we’re working on. It will be more of a documentary but it should be pretty sweet.

[Transmoto Editor] Andy Wigan was speaking to Stuart Gundry from Platypus, who is the Aussie distributor for On the Pipe 6, and he says you two met up quite a few years ago…

Well, Stuart was probably the most OG [original gangster] distributor in moto in the world, to be honest with you. He has been distributing moto longer than anybody else that I know of. I came into the sport in ’97, working for Kurt Haller, and he was a master cinematographer of the Moto XXX series. I was working with him and a bunch of other guys and Stuart was distributing _Moto XXX 1_. That was like ’93, I would say. That guy was so OG. Stuart is a great guy. I met him when I was working in motorsports and running the race team and making the movies and we just stayed friends. When I left Moto XXX and he knew I was working on some new films he just started doing my stuff. He is a good friend and I can trust that guy. He is like one of the last straight-up real distributors that will have your back. No matter how shitty things get, you know Stuart will have your back. I think a lot can be said for that guy, for sure. He is badass!

Is there anything else you want to say?

Mike McEntire and myself started the On the Pipe series in 2004 and it has series been the most fun time in my life. Working side-by-side with the guy who is my legend. I grew up watching Mack Dawg’s skateboard and snowboard films. The guy is a straight-up legend. Working side-by-side with him in the On the Pipe videos is a dream come true. So that is something I just wanted to point out. It is an honour working with him and progressing my camera skills with him. All the riders that we filmed for this movie … it was over the top. There is a lot of gnarly guys in this film and they are all going for it for me and Mike. For some reason they are all stoked when you come up to film them and they were throwing down some of the biggest stuff I’ve ever seen for this movie. It was crazy! I couldn’t believe it. It has been a good ride and thank you guys for doing this interview. Also, I would like to thanks all the landowners, sponsors including: Etnies, Metal Mulisha, Wyvern Motosports, Swatch, Danimals Domain and all the riders for making this film possible. And last but not least thank you to all the fans who support Powerband Films by buying our On the Pipe 6 film.

No problem. One last question … Is there an On the Pipe 7?

Good question. No, it is not in the making. It isn’t in the making right now and I really don’t have an answer for that at the moment. Unless something changes with piracy and that kind of stuff. There has to be some kind of new work model. The iTunes thing has potential but the numbers aren’t there yet. I don’t know. I’d like to say yes but I can’t continue to make these movies for break-even point. Maybe. Maybe we will revisit it in two or three years but at this stage I’ll have to say no.

Thanks Jay.

No problem. Enjoy the DVD.

Want to watch it?

There’s nothing better than sitting down on your comfortable couch to watch a movie on your TV. And even better is when you chuck On the Pipe 6 into the DVD player. Do yourself a favour and pick up the DVD from Australia’s Official distributor, Platypus Australia, and watch the film the way it was meant to be watched.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY OF ON THE PIPE 6