Vincent Allard

Interesting stuff about Vincent Allard's riding and camera work background. Click the read more button to check out the whole thing, its pretty interesting.


Describe yourself a little. Who are you, where you from and what are you into?
Hello, my name is Vincent Allard, I’m from Montreal, it’s in Quebec. I ride bikes and produce bike movies and I also work on other types as a camera operator and editor like fictions and docs. I’m into arts, bikes, and good times.
In one word, how would you describe montreal?
Great
You are mostly known for you camera skillz, but you also ride bikes pretty good. Tell us what really got you into riding bikes?
I first got into riding when I was 3 or 4. At that time I was racing in the alley behind my house. It’s also where I crashed for the first time as i hit an electric pole and broke my face. As I got older and better, I rode in trails at my cottage. I did my first cross-country race at 9 or 10 I think. I started to train a lot for cross country but after 3 years, I realized it wasn’t my thing as I had more fun jumping stair set around home than training. My dad wasn’t happy about it at the time (around 12-13 years old) but I kept doing it. Staircases got bigger and bigger, started to jump bigger jumps, longer wheelies and by the time I was 15, I had a new Kona that was meant to « ride hard ». I wanted to start to race downhill but my dad and mom weren’t much into it so I began to ride street as we didn’t have dirt jumps in the area. From this point to now, I’ve met countless of riders that I rode with. Chinewa, Gab Gauthier, Alex Greg, Yeti were the one i spent the most time with at first. After that I’ve met Joe Karam, Xavier Cloutier, and Michel Plonka just to name them. They are still my riding buddies and with them my riding and cinematography just exploded at the time with movies like PSB and other web edits that I now watch with a little smile on my face. We travelled more and more and got to meet people.
(Altough I’ve stated my parents as an obstruction to biek riding I must say that they always supported me, bringing me to skateparks, getting me parts and just being there for me)For how long have you been riding bikes?
I started at around 3 or 4 and I’m 19 now so around 15 or 16.
What are your 5 favorite spots to ride? And who do you like riding with the most?
1-Downtown Montreal
2-Around my house (the church with the 3 sets, the other church, the school)
3-Wallride school
4-Laval
5-UAB
Favourite riding buddies…I’d say Xavier and Joe are the one I usually ride the most with as they live near my house. I also enjoy riding with Michel, Stephane, Marshall, etc (you know who you are…everyone that has fun riding, whatever riding skills they have)
If there would be one place youd like to ride right now, where would it be?
I can’t really tell. I’m in the editing process so I don’t mind that much but for riding, somewhere warm so I can still ride without paying to ride indoor (I’m not much a skatepark guy)
Tell us a little about your bike setup . I heard you spend hundreds of dollars on new lightweight trendy parts every week, whats up with that?
Ahah ! I don’t really care about my bike. I’ve rode for like 4 months and still rides on a off spline crank and didn’t notice it until Kent Woods told me. So yeah, I don’t really care about the bike i’m riding. The only things I like is super tight chain so it doesn’t sound silly and a good geo.
What have been your worst injuries? And how many concussions did you get since you ride bikes?
Worst injuries…I’ve snapped a vertebra and i had around 10 concussions…I’ve stopped counting them.
Now lets see whats up with you video works. For how long have you been doing this and what got you into it?
I’ve always liked to film stuff. The first real bike movie I made was PSB with a bunch of buddies. It was filmed with a shitty camcorder that I now use as a capture deck. After that one, I did a couple short webvids to get better. Then Main Street happened. I think it was a huge step up compared to PSB as I had a new cam (dvx100b) and a lot more knowledge. From there, I started to get a bit of exposure, more views on my web edits. Now, I help Dobermann by doing videos for them and this summer I’ve also worked on Canada cup and World cup with a Lamacycles and Morewood bikes. Next release is Everywhere-the movie. I’ve edited more than half of the parts. My main influence mostly come from snowboard movies. The one that inspire me the most is Picture This by Mack Dawg.
In one word, how would you describe your style?
Tight
What gear do you use right now? Are you happy with it or would you like to move to something else?
Right now, I use a panasonic DVX100B with a B+W polarizer for sunny days. I cut on Final cut pro 5 and After effect CS 3 for things FCP can’t handle. I wish I could afford a Mac Pro to edit at home and a Mac Book Pro to edit on trip with Final cut studio 2. I’d also like a HVX200A or a HPX170 to shoot in HD and a Satchler DV-6 tripod with a zoom handle. I’d also like a Letus (it’s a adaptor that allow the use of photography lense, it gives you a much more smoother image and better depth of field) but i’ll stop dreaming. I’m really happy with my gear so far.
Wich video are you the most proud of so far? And why?
The one I’m the most proud of right now is Main Street but I can tell that Everywhere will be way better.
What is the hardest part of making a good video for you and why?
I think that picking a good song is the hardest part for me. If not colour editing can be a mess too.
What would be your worst experience while filming or editing?
Getting the DVX stolen while shooting snowboard last winter was a nightmare !
And what would be the best one?
Every filming trip is super nice. Also I really like to see people stoked on a vid.
Atfer seeing these teasers of the Everywhere movie you are working on, i just cant wait to see the final result. Can you tell us a little more about it?
I can tell you that it will be really good, there is one part of a russian guy (Pasha Alyokhin) will simply be amazing. Other than that i’m still waiting for some footage of France and Uk. All in all, it will show you a bunch of people having super good time on their bikes.
Do you have any future projects yet?
If poeple likes Everywhere, I’ll do another one but this time, I’ll try to travel the world so I can film myself all of these people. But i can’t really say more than that.
How do you see yourself in 5 years?
Rockin the joggin filming porn…ahah. I can’t really tell. Hopefully I’ll still do what I like. My dream job is to work for BBC so i’ll try that in a couple years.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Give me money so I can travel more and film HD.
Is there anyone you would like to thanks?
My parents, my riding buddies, people in Everywhere that thrust me, my friends, Allaboutbikes for this interview, Alain and Gabo@dobermann bikes, Jeremy@presence BMX, Theo@alloutprodux, Yan@xcmultidesign, everyone that helped me in a way or the other.