The Underdog Project - Episode 3

Thomas Gaffney has been working hard on his video project this winter and just held a premiere for his film - Eventide. Thomas tells us all that went into the premiere.Episode three of the Underdog project is linked with Thomas Gaffney Photography's 'Eventide' film.

After our trip to Afan, we all had a nice break from racing and hardcore training to just enjoy riding our bikes and chill out before the first rounds of hard racing! That being the first round of the BDS at Nant Gwethern for downhill rider Lee Gratton and the first round of the 4x series at Leamington Spa for the 4x guys. Within this time Manager John Lee managed to clock up a 3rd at a local race at Bulwell BMX track, Jess Greaves podiums in a downhill race at Taff Buggy and little shredder Kieran gets a 3rd at a moto-x race in Ashover! Good work!

In this episode we all came together for one big riding weekend to catch up and enjoy time together riding and having fun This weekend was planned so the Saturday we were all together sessioning at Rushcliffe 4x track and then moving onto Bullwell BMX track, two great places to practice 4x and BMX all around the Midlands area. And on Sunday the two downhill boys where off to see the guys from J-Tech for some suspension fine tuning at Llangollen. But sadly during the BMX session on the Saturday Elliot Gill washed out off one of the first jumps and badly damaged his thumb, meaning Lee had to go it alone. Bad times!




Also through this time John Lee has been supporting me with my film 'Eventide.' He has done a great job of helping me out with a location and organizing the get together on the Saturday for me to use in my film, as well as trekking out to Ribbesford woods near Bewdley to be filmed for his section!

For John's section I wanted something that showed his best abilities, which to me is his smoothness and jumping ability. I wanted to find a nice 4x track and knowing him riding downhill in the past, a nice flowy downhill trail with lots of jumps and berms that he can smash. Ribbesford is perfect for this! When I woke up the first thing I did was look outside to check the weather....crap...it was overcast and horrible, but the worst part of it was how much wind was blowing. This combined with jumps does not mix! But we soldiered through the hour drive there to find the wind was blowing straight into the backside of the hill, leaving the trails perfect! John took a few nice warm up runs down the old school track as I sussed a few angles etc and we soon got cracking. This place in naturally good to film, there's always a lot of work going on there so the trails are smooth and perfect. Just right for John's hardtail. After a lot of trouble with my dolly system (Plank of wood with my camera on a skateboard) I gave up on it and stuck to just plain tripod shots, but this worked great! We also experimented for the first time with my cable cam...but the same results came of it. It was a great day's filming and very tired, but happy we made our way home, good times!




You might remember a post from around two weeks ago about a new series of riding sections coming off the back of the Eventide premiere. The premiere was on the 26th of March and went down without a hitch! Spotless, the series is now here and this is the first to be released fortnightly from now!

It was not until Wednesday before the premiere that I got to see the venue, and from the moment I stepped through the door I was amazed, John did an amazing job of sorting out the location for both visits. The venue was truly amazing, but then it was time for the sound and screen check.

Here is some pics before the madness began:



After we made sure everything worked we left it in peace, until Saturday. We descended on the venue at 10:30 armed with two cars packed with stuff, easy ups, meter upon meter of bunting, bikes and enough Gatorade to flow throughout the night.

We set about putting up loads of banners and flags to promote companies who supported and give the place a great atmosphere, this coupled with bikes, tires and body armour on show at the front, we were set for a winner!




On arrival again the nerves started to set in and I was literally shaking when I saw the cue that had gathered outside! As we opened the doors we shunned people through to where my lovely assistant Steph was taking the money and passing out Gatorade. I hadn't been nervous...but now it really kicked in. People where getting a bit twitchy after waiting for it to start and when I gave the five minute warning I could barely speak in front of the now 70+ crowd. But when it came to show time I announced that it was starting on the mic and scurried upstairs to our seating with the screen operator, with my head in my hands the film started. And soon people where cheering and clapping, such a relief.

During the credits at the end I quickly slipped downstairs down a back staircase to a back entrance for a meet and greet after, even signed a copy! And met some great people such as the guys from Team Pickle and Dan from Stanton Bikes. And what was most amazing is that it went so well and there was no hiccups! Great work!







After this I really do need to thank everyone that had any involvement in this, I couldn't have done this alone! So a massive thanks to:

Steph Phillips
John Lee of FiveTwo Race Team
New Life Christian Centre
All the riders
The Eastwood and Crossman-Emms families for putting me up
Gatorade
Action Cameras
Knox
DMR
and everyone who turned up and supported me over the last four months! It has been amazing,

Thank you for tuning in and look out for the next section of Eventide and Five Two Race Teams episode 4 of The Underdog Project.

Tom.