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Independent Films
& Homestead Bicycles USA

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Independent Films
& Homestead Bicycles USA

  • Home
  • Sign Up
  • Store
  • 30 Bikes
  • A Wild Independence
  • Illustrations
  • Photography
  • Links
  • Bio
  • Headshot
  • Blog
  • …  
    • Home
    • Sign Up
    • Store
    • 30 Bikes
    • A Wild Independence
    • Illustrations
    • Photography
    • Links
    • Bio
    • Headshot
    • Blog
  • 0
Buy BMX
  • Alden Olmsted | Filmmaker & Illustrator

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    Blogs | Films | Merch

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    T-Shirts | Notecards | Tote Bags | A Book! | Coffee

  • 30 Bikes:
    The Story of Homestead Bicycles

    Twenty-three years after his BMX bicycle company folded, Alden Olmsted sets out to reconnect with the people his innovative bikes impacted and possibly re-launch the brand that was born out of a teenage dream.

     

    Watch now on Prime Video

  • A Wild Independence (2022)

    A Wild Independence, directed by Alden Olmsted and produced by Bear Yuba Land Trust, tells the story of the first identified wheelchair-accessible hiking path in the United States. It was built by Olmsted’s father, John Olmsted, in the 1970s and 80s along Excelsior Ditch, a product of the Gold Rush that diverted water from the South Yuba River for hydraulic mining.

     

    The trail consists of several wooden flumes, but the focal point is Flume 28, which is over 500 feet in length and crosses Rush Creek above a waterfall. A decaying, switchbacking boardwalk leads to the creek for visitors to picnic, cool off, and take photos of the historic flume. At least, all of this was the case up until August of 2020, when the Jones Fire ripped through the Rush Creek area and destroyed every flume on the Independence Trail.


    These are the flames in which the film begins.

    -- courtesy Sierra Nevada Ally

     

    Premiering on KVIE 6 PBS Sacramento - Stream it here

     

     

     

  • Illustrations

    Postcards | Notecards | Prints | Stickers

    California Bleed Sticker
    Mendocino Sticker small
    California Notecards
    Monterey Notecard
    San Francisco
    Yosemite Icons Notecard
    Mendocino Sticker
    Mendocino Sticker 6"
    Marin County
    Santa Cruz
    S.F. Icons products
    Sonoma County products group
    Nashville Tote Bag
    Mendocino Sticker in two sizes
    California Notecard
    L.A. Icons Postcard/ Notecard
    S.F. Icons
    San Francisco Postcards
    Nashville Tote Bag
    Postcards in display crate
  • Photography

    Canon Cameras | Kodak Film

  • Links to My Films | Book | Social

    Twitter

    Instagram

    Channel

    Book

    Homestead Bicycles

  • Bio

    "I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
    The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
    I shall use my time.” – Jack London

    Born & Raised

    I was born in a small town called Glen Ellen with John Olmsted as a bulldozer-blocking-nature- crusader father, a history major mother, and one older brother.

     

    Sonoma became our home, where despite a divorce I had a semi-normal childhood filled with paper routes, street football, computer game playing, and BMX.

     

    I attended college in Santa Rosa and Los Angeles and have explored parts of Europe as well as 47 of these United States.

     

    I have owned 16 vehicles the most famous being a 1966 Chrysler convertible featured in Catch Me if You Can (00:58) and Bottle Shock.

     

    In 2017 I received a 'Real Hero' award from the Red Cross, North Coast Chapter for my efforts to preserve my father's legacy in Mendocino and across California. Link

     

    I currently reside in Nashville and, when I hear the call, on the road.

     

     

    Experience

    Beginning with skateboard videos, summer camp mash-ups, and Super 8mm shorts, I have landed in the documentary world without intention, focusing on interesting people and their stories, and oral history that may be lost.

     

    Filmography as:

    Director / Producer / Writer
    2012 - My Father Who Art in Nature

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1870481/

    2014 - The Story of Jug Handle

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3620786/

    2020 - 30 Bikes The Story of Homestead Bicycles
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11045998/

    2022 - A Wild Independence
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15343766/

     

    Director of Photography:
    2018 - Unprotected (DP)
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8539512/

    2022 - Dysconnected (DP)
    https://dysconnectedmovie.com/

     

     

    Philosophy

    From a young age I was drawn to stories. The Black Stallion, The Hobbit, and of course Star Wars were early favorites. As soon as I could ride a bike my friends and I began our adventures and living out our own stories.

     

    As I began experimenting with film I was drawn to Super 8mm, the colors and the emotion it evoked. No speaking, instead focusing on the power of music to match the visual, causing a full range of emotions and reactions.

     

    My philosophy with documentaries starts, not surprisingly with research. Fiction films are made in the edit room, documentaries are made in the research. When the arc of the story appears, when the peak of conflict and resolution POPS out of an old picture, a letter, a revelation that slips out in an interview, those are the moments I live for.

    The story then can be massaged and built, much like a house, to enhance the peak, the moment of revealed truth which of course every great story should contain.

     

    Alden – January 2022

     

     

  •  

    Alden Olmsted

    Writer | Director | Actor

     


    6' 4"

    165 lbs.

    Blonde hair

    Blue eyes

    Can play age 30 - 50

    alden.olmsted@gmail.com

  • Life is a Highway

    A blog of sorts

    Mom is Laughing Again
    April 14, 2023 · 1
    Being now 82 And with a limp from a blood clot in her foot, mom walks as tentatively inside the...
    I Thought Texting Would Ruin Storytelling
    March 28, 2023 · 2
    I Still Got It Yesterday I took advantage of a break in our record-setting California rain-fest...
    Another Blank Slate
    March 7, 2023
    We Made it through February. For being the shortest month that damn grouping of days and...
    More Posts

© 2020 Alden Olmsted

 

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