In this interview we chat with Seattle’s Pepe Betancourt about his new video ‘Bootleg Five’.

So you just premiered your new video called 'Bootleg Five' on October 21, 2023. How did the premiere go?

Thanks to Grayson Richter (@graysonrichter), the art curator for that space in pioneer square, for letting me show the video there. Coolest dude ever. Keep an eye out for future events and art shows in that space on his instagram. The premiere was amazing though, forever grateful for everyone that packed that space out to watch the video, unmatched energy. Everyone who showed up seemed to know one another, and all of everyone's hard work paid off that evening. Completely sold out of the zines I printed for the video that night as well, if you bought one and you’re reading this…THANKYOUSOMUCH.

Love to hear it! In case folks missed the premiere, it is now available for everyone to watch online. How long were you working on the video?

Yeah it’s up! You can watch here, along with a digital version of the zine. I started filming this in July of 2021 all the way up until October of 2023.

People who don't film skating, don't understand how much time a project like this takes to make. I know it's hard to guesstimate, but give us a ballpark of how many hours in the streets you think you put into this one?

Oh man. Let’s do some math: July 2021-October 2023 is roughly 116 weeks. We would spend about 8 hours a week in the streets. I was gone for 3 months due to school. So that mean 103 weeks now, let’s take out like 8 due to rain and off weeks. Now we’re at 95 weeks, ~8 hours a week, this means ROUGHLY about 760 hours spent street skating/filming. Worth every single moment. None of this really started to come together up until like 6 months ago. The routine of going out filming with my friends and I felt really natural, street skating was something that everyone was always wanting to do. 

That’s heavy work, putting in hours! And when did you start editing? How long was that process?

Right when I started filming I started editing, but I think I trashed what I had made and started making real and consistent progress on the video in June. This project really was extended longer than intended as the video and people’s parts just weren’t ready yet. This happened because the time that I started filming was when a lot of my friends were just growing into their developed styles of skating, and newer clips were constantly taking place of older clips in people’s part. Everyone was getting better at skating. It was around June when it felt uncomfortable to not be editing the video in my downtime, and filming in my free time. Just like filming, editing had become a part of my routine.

So it was kinda an ever evolving project, I like that. For the camera dorks like myself, what camera were you filming with for the video? And what are you editing with?

This was filmed with a Panasonic AG-DVX100B with a 52mm .3x Opteka and Sony Premium Mini DV tapes. For this project I used Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, InDesign, Lightroom, and Audition. I just sold my DVX setup to a homie out in Bellevue, Taylor Hadley. Really good filmer who you don’t want to play in a game of S.K.A.T.E… he rips. I used a MacBook Pro to edit, and an ancient 2011 Mac to export footage off of the tapes.

Thanks for the tech breakdown, I alway love to know what people are using. Give us a few stories of days you really enjoyed while making the video?

• Getting temporarily banned from the Westlake Center Mall by the police shortly after getting slapped by an angry security guard while skating the sets across the street from the ledges. 

• Getting Dave’s Hot Chicken in Portland before the brutal drive back to Seattle on day trips. 

• My ol’ 2011 Chrysler Pacifica with the pull down movie screen. The homies would always watch “Roll Bounce,” the only dvd I had in that car, as we went from spot to spot. Still one of my favorite movies to this day. One time on a day trip to Wenatchee, Caden bought “Get Hard,” that was the only other movie we watched in that car.

“Screens in the Pacifica” is a bar. Haha. What was the most challenging part of making the video?

Everything was going smoothly until I decided to make a zine 3 weeks before the premiere. The zine came into play because my good friend Laine Pickell started taking really good photos and was always on the sesh, strictly 35mm film. I wanted to include these in the video, but there were just too many sick pictures. I decided I would put together a zine so my friends could have physical memorabilia of these good times, and so people could see the great moments that Laine captured. I only printed 40 copies of them and sold them for $7 each. The zine showcases different spots skated in the video throughout West Seattle, and some insight on my friends; a couple hand written how-to’s and a mixtape list. I got really into including physical mixed media into the project mainly because I was tired of staring at a computer screen all the time. I was doing stuff with ink transfers of Laine’s photos onto different textured papers and going to his place to use his scanner a few times a week. I had no idea what I was getting into by making that zine, I was spending all of my free time in Photoshop and InDesign instead of Premiere Pro, for 2 weeks straight. It was sent in for printing 1 week before the premiere, leaving me 1 week to wrap up a project I had spent 2 years on. That was the most stressful week. I was going out filming to try and get people’s enders every single day up until the day before the premiere. I edited from 9pm until 3pm the next day, exported the video and rushed to the venue sleep deprived. Though the energy at the video premiere kept me wide awake.

Damn that’s some real crunch time shit, crazy! Never would have known... The music is really good and varied, what was your process for choosing the soundtrack?

Songs that have artists with roots in Seattle always interested me, artists like Tribal Productions and Overton Berry. Most of the HIp-Hop songs in the video came from an album by Tribal Productions. A lot of the homies sent me music, Rashid Haroun and Alex Harr really helped me out with picking stuff out. I favored instrumentals or songs with subtle vocals, I figured out about this open source application called Ultimate Vocal Remover. This allowed me to find any song that I liked regardless of the vocals, and turn it into an instrumental. Most of the songs in the video I mixed into half instrumentals and/or mixed to shorten the song. 

Woah never heard of that vocal remover thing, that’s wild. What are you most proud of about the video?

The intro, I made it the day before the premiere with the Xerox label printer and scanner from By And By. Went around taking pictures in the West Seattle Junction of Bootleg stickers on different surfaces, then printing and scanning the images. Also tried to pay homage to both of the shops, 35th and By and By, by including the signs at the cross streets that the shops are located on. Many of my friends in this video ride/work at both shops including myself, so including this tribute felt almost mandatory. Shoutout to Tony Croghan for keeping many of the youngsters pushing in the Seattle skate scene. 

Love that homage! Alright, to respect your time, I'll try to keep it short and wrap it up with this one: What's something that you really like about the video, that folks might miss if you didn't point out?

Going back to that music question mentioned earlier, I spent a lot of time mixing instrumental versions of songs with non-instrumentals, also cutting songs short. I used 32 songs, all but 3 were either cut to a shorter version and/or mixed with an instrumental version. Obsessing over the music in this video has helped me find a new passion for audio engineering, a field that I’ve only just scratched the surface of by working on this project.

Hell yeah, sound like you discovered a new hobby in the process! I know a few things about making beats if you want to learn more... Well, the video was really good, you killed it and thanks again for being available for the interview Pepe!

Thanks for having me!

You can follow Pepe on Instagram and make sure to subscribe to his YouTube channel as well.