What an Honor to Be Mediocre
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INTERVIEW: Damon Kirchmeier
Damon Kirchmeier dropped one of the sickest edits we have seen recently, and set the bar for what should be featured on Downspike.
@Sbermea22 caught up with him in the forums, and here's the abridged version:
-First off thank you for doing this. I'm pretty excited to be starting this up on Downspike.
-Damon: Yea of course. I love how well put together Downspike is as opposed to FKC, and I feel like it needs a series of some well done projects like this.
-What does the title of the edit, What an Honor to be Mediocre, mean to you?
-Damon: So over the past little while I've gone through my ups and downs with kendama. I mean I've recently left Roots, and it was different for me because I had to rewire my brain into thinking "I'm not sponsored" and it made me remember that you don't have to be sponsored to play kendama, which unfortunately is not a bunch of kids’ mentality nowadays. They think you have to get sponsored and they have on their bios "looking to be sponsored" "sponsor me if you can" and you know getting sponsored isn't what's important about playing kendama. Loving kendama and playing is what's important. You don't have to be sponsored to continute to play. I needed to prove that even though you're not sponsored, you're not with a company, you're not repping, anyone can play and do their best even if you're not the best in the game.
-So what lead to the decision to leave Roots.
-Damon: It was just a bunch of stuff. Some miscommunication, just some differences I had with the owners and whatnot, recent team changes, and I had been with them for over 2 years and I just think it was time for change.
-Yea I getcha 100% on that. Well this edit is anything but mediocre, how much time did it take with filming and editing?
-Damon: I got the idea when I recently switched jobs and I got the idea because I had a lot of time to think and plan stuff out. I just had the idea in mind that I wanted to film an edit and I hit up my friend Sam Allgood, he's one of my buddies up here that helps me with the Tuesday jams. I've always known him for his photography skills and he's always down to film whenever so I just hit him up and asked "hey do you wanna make an edit" and he was like "sure". So I think that Tuesday, we got to work and we started filming some of the first tricks and whatnot witha ton of ideas in mind. I knew the song I wanted to use, the vibe, etc., but I had absolutely no idea how to edit. Cause I mean I've never worked on anything like this before so I went home and downloaded Premier Pro and After Effects and while I was at work I taught myself those programs in the same time frame, like while filming. So by the time I got all the shots done I'd know my way around those programs pretty well. I think it was almost even on both parts, filming was about a month and a half to two months and the editing took about a month. So all and all about three months combined of constant work.
-Damn dude that's crazy that you actually took the time to learn editing because I'm in the same boat as you I'm decent at filming but I have no idea how to edit. Luckily I have a couple of homies who are very good at it but I haven't even tried to dabble into learning how to do it.
-Damon: I mean I'm and artist as well and whenever I see something that inspires me it immediately goes into my mind what I need to do to convey what I felt at that exact moment. No matter what I have to go through, how much time it takes, I have to sit down and think about it and put on paper exactly what inspired me so that I can just convey that to other people. That was the same thing that I felt with this edit. I just sorta had to think about it, like I had an idea of what it would be from beginning to finish in my mind, and to start I needed to find a way that I could get that across to the best of my abilities
-What a perfect transition to my next question. What other edits do you look to for inspiration. For me I absolutely loved Colin's edit 7 and Yourds 5 trick fix I loved the old edits like that.
-Damon: Yea for sure, that's always been my favorite thing about kendama, those edits and watching other people play. I remember my first edit that I watched, I played kendama for about a year or less prior to seeing my first edit online and it was Hunter Bailey edit 3. I just remember being mesmerized, not only by the cleanliness of his style and everything about the play, but also the scenery, the music, everything about it was so perfect. Like without that song, without those shots, everything wouldn't have been as good as it is but because all those elements came together-it was just so perfect. It's just my absolute favorite edit to watch. I still watch it every few months. I also loved everything about Kendama USA Japan Tour 2012. I loved just everything about it, but all of the cinematography that was done by KenUSA, all of the tricks, and all the Japan vibes, it displayed it so well. It just makes me so nostalgic every time I watch it. It just brings me back. Those have to be my main two. And of course Colin Sander edit 7 and all the edits leading up to it, just everything Colin Sander. Yea Papa Sanz was the inspiration to make an edit for the most part because just watching his edits. I sat down with Sam, my buddy who helps me film, and he said that he has the Colin's edit movie, like the DVD and I said "Yea let's watch that to get some inspiration" to see how he progressed, I think it only goes up to edit 6 which is like the exclusive on that DVD.
-Yea because that one isn't out on YouTube
-Damon: Yea, yea like the amount of progression not only kendama wise, but film wise, it's so fun to watch. I just love everything about it. It reminded me of what kendama was all about. Even though the new editing and tricks are really good, it's the old stuff that just brings you back. Learning and landing new tricks and stuff like that, it's really my favorite part about kendama.
-Oh definately, for sure I getcha on that. So when I started kendama about 4 years ago. IG didn't have vids and Snapchat didn't even exist, the only way to watch someone was through a YouTube edit. Did you hope by doing this edit that other people would start doing edits again or do you actually enjoy the small one minute videos on IG or the quick little Snapchats.
-Damon: So using platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are are good because they're really quick ya know. You're able to put out content as fast as possible cause that's what I feel like people online are looking for. They are trying to consume as much media as they possibly can. I always go and see these Instagram tricks that are insane, I mean completely nuts and I would always think to myself "Why are you posting this here? This is edit material". Because I always thought tricks that are posted in IG are you messing around or something like that and more recently I've thought "Why don't people make edits anymore." Like people could have taken all these clips that they put on Instagram and made a super good edit but they just chose to throw it up and it kinda made me take a step back and look at myself because I remember back in the day I use to post two pictures or a video and picture a day. Nowadays I only post every so often because I've had a lot more fun making edits and now that's all I wanna do. It's kinda like, let's say like an album, every trick is a song and once you compile all the tricks together that's the album, and that's the outcome of a bunch of work and everything was put into it. I feel like Instagram is not as personal because not as much work goes into it. That was one of my main things because I hadn't put out an edit, then I realized that a bunch of people hadn't put out edits ina while so I said well I'll go out and do the best that I can, but I need do something just completely off the wall to get people's attention and to drive people to think "Yea I wanna do something like that." Because I remember that feeling back in the day of watching all those old edits and thinking the same thing, and it was a crazy feeling remembering that.
-Yea I completely agree with the whole album/song analogy that you just used. I loved watching old edits because it felt like a complete piece of work, as opposed to IGs single trick.
-Damon: Yea, yea that's how I think I'm gonna go about it now. Like when I used to post twice a day ya know I felt like I was starting to annoy some people and I was annoying myself now that I think about it. When I put all that work into an edit and I finally released it, it was so much more satisfying to get it out there and know all the work I put it was worth something because I came out with this huge idea that I had in mind and it's so much more satisfying than getting a couple hundred likse on Instagram where you know? Someone sees it, they watch it, they scroll past it, then it's gone. No one goes "Oh did you see Chris June's trick back in 2013? Did you see that?" No, you say "Did you see CJ and CJ?" the edit that they put together. No one brings up Instagram tricks unless it happened like that day. They bring up edits and they bring up big things like that because it a lot of work and it's a lot more entertaining.
Editors Note: for the rest of the interview, check out the forum:
http://www.downspike.com/threads/interview-with-damon-kirchmeier-part-1.351/
Posted by: damon