Five Minutes with ... Destroyer Films
MARCH 22, 2007

 

By Allison Kennedy

We first heard of Destroyer Films when Blackfoot’s Joe Skidd mentioned they were stopping by the new race shop. He sent us a link to the website and as soon as I read their plan on the opening page, I was dying to know more. Who the heck were these guys with the ambitious plan to pack up their motor home and spend the summer documenting the entire Canadian National series? I decided to find out. Here’s what Destroyer Films Chris Griffiths had to say about the crew's plans for the 2007 season.

RXC: How would you explain who Destroyer Films is?
Chris Griffiths: Well, basically it’s me and Cody [Bradley]. It’s something we’ve been working on for a couple of years. Originally, we were just going to do an Atlantic region thing. We are from the Maritimes, so we wanted to promote the series out there a little better. Then I ended up moving to Alberta and that put a jam in that plan. We pretty much just decided to go back at it and thought the nationals would be cool for our first project. We’ve been working on that ever since. We got started in November and put the final business plan together, got the website going and got in touch with Mark Stallybrass. It seems like he is really into this, so that’s been good.

So are you both racers?
Yes, we are both into it. I’ve been racing for ten years now and Cody has been racing for the last four or five years. I’ve been in the industry for probably ten years, in the parts business, so I’ve been around it for quite a while. We both race, that’s our passion--to ride motorcycles--so it only makes sense for us to be doing this type of thing.

You’ve got big plans to hit the entire CMRC National Series this summer. How was this idea born?
After I left New Brunswick, I was kind of bummed that we weren’t going to do the Atlantic project. Everything got put on hold. On my way back from Lethbridge one weekend, I just started daydreaming about the whole project again and I thought the nationals would be a cool plan. I called Cody up and he was really amped. I thought he was going to think I was crazy. It was a crazy plan, originally, but I just thought we could pull it off and, so far, it looks like it’s working.  

The first thing that struck us when we checked out the site was the quality of the video. What’s your background and have you shot much motocross before?
It’s something we’ve been playing around with for a long time. We both come from the snowboarding side of things, that’s where it started. Cody has been doing his own thing with the snowboarding videos and he just happens to be really good at it. We just crossed over from there and we’ve been learning it all in dirt bike mode now. We are bringing a different side to it. What we are going to be doing is a lot different from what you normally see for dirt bike videos. It comes from 15 years of watching snowboard videos.

Chris Griffiths: One half of the Destroyer Films crew.

 

Cody Bradley: The other half of Destroyer Films.

 

As for the full-length DVD, I know the first thing that comes to my mind is The Great Outdoors. How will this compare to that?
A lot of people think that’s what we are doing—not that there is anything wrong with that—but we’d like to think that we’ve got our own take on this. It’s going to be something that I don’t think the motocross industry has ever really seen. I don’t really want to let a whole lot out of the bag but let’s just say it’s definitely going to be different. Our focus is on the nationals; that’s what we want to bring to the forefront, but we are putting our own take on it.

Well there certainly are some great stories to tell.
For sure, we hope to be covering the entire tour, not just the racing side of things. Basically, Cody and I are going on a four-month road trip. It’s going to be cool. We are going to be bringing a lot of things into the DVD that people don’t normally see. Everybody seems to be really behind us on it, which is really helping us out.

The more exposure, the better. It sounds like it will be good for the sport.
That’s kind of what we’re thinking, too. We race, we ride, we ride woods and race motocross, we enjoy every part of being on two wheels. I think this is going to be good for Canadian motocross. There really hasn’t been a full length, major DVD like this. There’s been lots of race coverage, the TV show is awesome and I love watching the series; it’s really good. But the DVD that we are doing is a completely different idea. I think it will be awesome.  It’s going to be a lot of fun. I am hoping everyone is going to want to join us. We want to be talking to as many people as we can, the fans, the riders, the teams, we just want to be out there, having fun with everyone and hopefully people can forget about the fact that we have video cameras in our hands.  

I see there’s a link for folks wanting to join the Destroyer Films crew. What kind of help are you looking for?
We are doing this all ourselves, which is kind of the way we want it, but at the same time, we are encouraging anybody who feels they can help us out, to get in touch with us. Anything that will help us get across the country is welcome. We put that link up there to attract sponsors and we’ve been doing pretty well so far.

Do you have a countdown on your desk until the first national?
We have so much on the go; it’s hard to even think about the actual day we’re leaving. We are so busy we don’t even know if it’s Monday or Friday, and definitely thanks to you guys, especially since you posted that link from Blackfoot.

So should we be watching for the Destroyer Films rig at Ste-Julie?
I have a motor home back east and we’ll be flying back to get that and heading to Ste-Julie. Hopefully we’ll have lots of fans by then, that will make things easier. It will be all stickered up, hopefully with lots of sponsors.

Well, we can’t wait to see what you guys come up with in the coming months. See you at Ste-Julie.
Thanks.


To learn more about Destroyer Films, check out www.destroyerfilms.com