Filmmaker Focus #7 The Bitchy Tutorial

Hi again faithful and curious bikesexuals! Today we have a special treat for you. We continue the Filmmaker Focus series with our highly produced film series from Milan, Italy: The Bitchy Tutorial Series!

These movies have been among the most loved and hated films we have ever shown. They offer a glimpse into another culture as well as what is possible when a group of people work together to produce something very polished. Regardless of what you thought about the films you should read what the creators of Italy's first ever submission to Bike Smut have to say about sex, cycling and making movies.

Do you have a back story? An introduction to who you are? 

Officine Sfera is a group of 4 friends who came together because of their passion for classic Italian racing bikes. We started to have a few too many bikes in Daniele's parents garage so we decided to find ourselves a space that could act both as workshop where we could restore our bikes and a studio where we could continue to carry out our other personal professions. Being graphic designers, illustrators, industrial designers, video producers, event organizers and avid internet fans we like to create projects together that are related to bicycles and showcase our various skills and passions. 

Do you like flimmaking?  Why? Have you made movies before? What were they like? why you make the movies you do? 

Gash Rouge both as a collective and as individuals have worked and continue to work in video. They produce everything from fashion promo videos to music videos to TV shows. Jessica from Officine Sfera did some video production for Vice Italy and Pietro (also OS) is just a wiz kid that can pretty much do everything and has done everything relating to technology and design. 

how you came to shoot for Bike Smut and what you hope people will gain from watching your movie? 

We got together as friends to make these tutorials. As a bike workshop we wanted to make something that we could use to gain some visibility and our friends/girlfriends are part of an all girl video collective called Gash Rouge, so we decided to team up. We attended The Bike Smut festival when you came to Milan and Jessica even attempted to be your translator, but was a little to embarrassed (her italian has greatly improved, when you come back we'll do it proper). We all loved the festival and after seeing the bike tutorials out there on the web we decided to merge the two ideas. One of the things that annoyed us about some of these videos is that the girls were simply sexualized and never actually doing anything constructive or real with the bikes they seemed to be so aroused by.  We also took into consideration the tutorials that you see on youtube, which are usually a dude in his low-light garage with the camera on the floor. Talking it over we came up with the idea of making these short tutorials that were dynamic, detailed and a little easier on the eye. 

Tell us about your movie. How did you decide to set up these sets? How did you decide which maintenance to demonstrate?

The girls from Gash Rouge came up with the concept for the set, they really liked the idea of filming everything 360 degrees, in order to create a tutorial that shows you each step from the best angle (that and some great ass shots). 

As for which type of maintenance we decided to demonstrate, we had to pick something that was universally useful, not too many steps because we wanted to create very short videos, and easy enough for us to teach the models the day of the shoot. 

What was it like filming in the studio? 

It was great fun, we only had access to the studio for a day so we had to be really organized and do everything in the shortest time possible. Except Studio was nice enough to lend us the space and some equipment as well so we were very fortunate, but boy did it get steamy in there (the lights were really hot). 

How did you find people to help you make this movie? 

  

Everyone involved in this movie was somebody's friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, sister or colleague. We were very lucky to have so many amazing and talented friends who shared our vision and were willing to pool their skills to make these tutorials. 

What are the origins of the clothes? 

Some of the clothing and accessories were lent to us by some of the sponsors you see featured on the video, some where the models clothes, others were the stylist's and the vintage speedo bathing suit in the first video was Jessica's from Officine Sfera. 

What were the biggest challenges? What would you have done differently?

The biggest challenges were organizing the post-production between the editors, continuity editors, typographers (our friends from &type), and motion graphics designer. We are all perfectionists and we all have demanding day jobs so it was a lot of back and forth and late nights. 

As for what we would have done differently, there are obviously a few mistakes we made here and there that we would like to change but overall we are pleased with the result considering the time we had to film, our budget, and the fact that it was the first time all of us worked together on such a large scale. 

What would you say to people who do not think this qualifies as porn? 

We don't really consider this porn either, at least not the kind of porn we would watch, um, recreationally. We live in Italy, this is what advertising for a bottle of water looks like on television. Wouldn't you classify this more as an erotic tutorial than porn? 

What would you tell people who feel insecure about seeing these models work on bikes?

We are sorry they feel insecure, there is nothing in our videos that you can't see on television or in music videos. When we came up for the concept of these video tutorials we wanted to create a video that empowered women and put them in a position of control when it came to bike maintenance. We specifically didn't want to create a video where the models were simply rubbing their cooches all over the bike, that they were actually doing something that someone might learn from. The models definitely didn't feel insecure, there were more than 12 women who worked on this video and only 5 men, we all had fun making them and it gave everyone the opportunity to add a video to their portfolio. What can we say, we all like to look at the ladies, and we like to look at smart, creative, intelligent ladies who know how to do bike maintenance and are proud of their bodies. We don't see any shame in that.

Would you like to shoot for Bike Smut again? What would you tell other potential filmmakers?

Yes, of course. We already have some ideas on the back burner and we keep coming up with more.