Head First - Mat Hoffman

1991

Eddie Roman

From original vhs 720x480 128 kbps

Produced by Eddie Roman in 1991

Circa 5000 original VHS copies were made.

46 minutes long.

Eddie Roman : Of all the BMX videos I've made, this is my favorite. Mat's riding in this video blew away anything that had ever been done on a bike. By this time, I had a pretty good handle on camerawork & editing, so the production quality was up. I really tried to do a pro job on that one, and I think it came out good. I paid lots of attention to the lighting and camerawork and did a lot with slow motion in the editing. The music was all given to me by bands that had professional recordings (as opposed to the soundtrack of Aggroman which was recorded in a basement with my SVHS video camera). This was also the first time I had a color cover made. Everything about this video was PRO; it was such a giant leap forward from my previous projects.

This video shows Mat doing the first big handrail on a bike. I could talk forever about Mat, he's the man. I was just the lucky one who got to document the early days of Freestyle's Supreme Master Condor Overlord Warrior Chief.

Mat Hoffman, The Ride of my Life, 2002 : After France (Bercy 6, march 1990), Eddie Roman came out to visit and we filmed Head First, another home-brewed Roman production. The action opened with Eddie posing as a kitchen appliance and basically eating garbage, regurgitating it, and then feeding the mixture to his friend. This was the first video to feature excessive coverage of street and mini-ramp riding, which were becoming all the rage in the sport. I also rode a lot of dirt jumps. I was riding for Haro but was going through a bike a day while we compiled footage. My bikes change color every other scene, and after some tricks, parts can be seen literally breaking off my bike. While making Head First, I adapted the art of big handrails from skateboarding to bikes. I pulled a burly twenty-two stepper while filming with Eddie in downtown Oklahoma City.

GO september 1991 : We don't usually do this but this video is exceptionally good - a 46 minute Eddie Roman-produced milestone vid on the condor, Matt Hoffman, flying the coup de grâce on ramps, street, dirt, and lake jumping. Shuddering slo-mo and well edited pieces of legally insane Hoffman maneuvers ( examples; 540's at 8 feet, 900, flair, a handrail grind down at least 20 stairs, a no handed backflip into water, etc.) contribute to Head First's mind boggling action, wich also focuses on flatlander Chase Gouin. Music includes Fugazi (...)

Head First is truly an inspiration, and highly, highly, HIGHly recommended by the staff of GO; The Rider's Manual. If you ride bikes, you MUST see this video.

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