MELISSA MERMIN
Moving Pictures
Pedalportopia won the local award for a short in the 2020 Filmed By Bike Festival.
I was taking classes in documentary filmmaking and editing for years but I had never entered my work into a juried festival. It was such an honor to have been accepted--- and then winning first place! (sadly, it was set to be part of the traveling film fest in May of 2020 debuting at the historic Hollywood Theater, so my little love story was only seen online.) Urban cycling is my religion so when I came to visit Portland Oregon a few years ago I fell in love and moved here to be with my tribe of weirdos on two wheels. Pedalportopia is a celebration of Portland's summer bike festival Pedalpalooza and the World Naked Bike Ride (which I've now been a part of in three states!)
While I was taking film classes over the last decade, I made a few little student films that I'm proud of.
Tour De Fat (2013) ("Beer, Bikes, Bemusement") was a benefit the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (I did a lot of volunteer work for them) and the Bay Area Ridge Trail. They put on a traveling road show (think homegrown circus meets community and bicycle advocacy.) Every year they they do a "Cash for Cars" program where one lucky contestant turns in their keys for a new shiny custom bike. The woman dressed as a clown at the end of video gave up her car for a bike. She told me she hates her old car and was excited to give up her nasty gas habit and gain some buns of steel.
Bike and Puppet Love (2012) is about a guy who's trying to get home to his puppet roommates Sarah the chicken and Emily the hamster, but the plot was just an excuse to shoot the sweeping vistas and steep inclines of the Potrero Hill neighborhood in San Francisco. This was the first student film I made on my own-- we had 48 hours to write a script, cast, shoot and edit to create a finished film that was under three minutes long. I'm proud of how well it turned out considering I still find editing clunky, and clearly I'm not cut out for writing scripts or casting but I am a good cinematographer ; )
When I wasn't making bicycle love story movies, I was shooting mostly weddings and events. I didn't have the confidence or time to shoot a lot of video when I was on a job (I was hired as a photographer and the client often hired a separate video crew), but later I started to incorporate sound and some video clips blended with stills and custom music into their Love Story show. I had fun getting creative with editing the images to make moving stories.
This wasn't one of my fanciest over-the-top events but it sticks in my heart. I met the couple volunteering with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition in 2010. During the wedding ceremony, I was familiar with so many of the bystanders faces that watched from the street. It was like our community was part of the couples' family, and they were also making a commitment to their neighborhood and each other.