Filmmaker Profile: Billy Savage

Feb 07 2007 / Los Angeles, CA
Filmmaker: Billy Savage (Director/Producer/Writer)
Film: Klunkerz
 
Billy Savage was born in Anaheim, California in 1964. He started riding bicycles while still in diapers. As BMX bikes took over suburban Orange County, Billy built trails and jumps with his friends. Dividing his time between BMX and skateboarding, Billy spent many hours in the hospital waiting rooms of Southern California.
 
Billy moved to Novato, in Northern California’s Marin County, in 1976. He continued to ride BMX bikes and skateboards in his new environment. In 1977, after crushing an elbow in an empty swimming pool while skateboarding, Billy decided to make bikes his main focus. The trails of Big Rock and Mount Burdell beckoned and Billy often spent entire days pushing his 20-inch BMX bike up the fire roads behind his house. Billy bought his first mountain bike, a Specialized StumpJumper, in his senior year of high school, in 1983.
 Billy Savage 300x200
Billy’s first job out of high school was for Skywalker Development, George Lucas’ construction company, at the Skywalker Ranch. Billy often rode his bicycle to the Ranch. While there, Billy got his first taste of working on films and television projects such as Ewoks: The Battle For Endor and Howard the Duck. Admittedly not Mr. Lucas’s finest works, Billy was undeterred. He left Skywalker in 1986 to work for Top Models and Talents in San Francisco as talent and as an agent’s assistant. It was during this period that he also found work as a production assistant for Varitel Video in San Francisco and Magnetic Image in Mill Valley.
 
Working various productions in and around San Francisco eventually led him to work for rock and roll impresario Bill Graham. In an interesting coincidence, Billy was living at the time in Bill Graham’s old Art Rock poster factory, a converted warehouse in San Francisco’s South of Market district. Though not working on the video/film side of BGP, Billy enjoyed the short hours and big money of working rock shows. In the late 1980s through early 1991, Billy got to work shows with The Rolling Stones, The Who, Paul McCartney, The Greatful Dead and hundreds of others.
 
On the cold and rainy night of October 25, 1991, Billy got the night off work to have dinner and spend the evening with his parents in Novato. Marin County natives Huey Lewis and the News were playing the Concord Pavilion, a small amphitheater on the east side of San Francisco bay. After his parents had gone to bed, Billy watched television alone. Sometime after 11:00 p.m. that night the power went out. A helicopter had flown into an unmarked power line off of the side of Hwy 37, less than three miles from the house.  It wasn’t until the following day that the names of the crash victims were revealed. In the Bell Ranger helicopter were Bill Graham, Steve Kahn (Bill’s pilot), and Melissa Gold (Bill’s girlfriend).
 
Billy moved to Los Angeles shortly thereafter.
 
After arriving in Los Angeles 1992, Billy landed a job working for Shapiro Entertainment Inc. in Beverly Hills. During his tenure at Shapiro Entertainment, Billy has helped develop television projects for CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX. In addition, Billy has developed feature film projects for Fox Searchlight, Artisan Entertainment, Blockbuster Entertainment and Palm Pictures.
 
Billy lives in Los Angles with his wife and daughter. Klunkerz is Billy’s first documentary feature.
 
 
Klunkerz Synopsis:
 
In the late 1960s and early 1970s San Francisco was the vortex of America’s counter-culture movement. Just over the Golden Gate Bridge, in Marin County, another movement was under way. The kids here would shake up a 100 year old American industry, and within a decade, create a worldwide phenomenon.
 
Long before the mountain bike entered our global consciousness, the cycling enthusiasts of Marin rode modified pre-WWII bicycles down the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. They developed their bikes through rigorous field-testing, often risking life and limb to do so. Only the strongest, heaviest parts could withstand the abuse that Mount Tam dished out.
 
Some were Category-1 road racers looking for a new way to cross-train during the off-season. Others were simply fun-loving hippies, checking out a new way to commune with nature. They had little in common, except for the bikes they rode and the Bay Area music scene that, like the trails on Mt. Tam, surrounded them.
 
The pioneer’s bikes were scavenged from dumpsters and junkyards, sometimes adapting motorcycle parts to suit their needs. It was from these humble beginnings that a billion dollar industry, a new form of recreation for the masses, and an Olympic event, were born. These hefty steeds were affectionately known as Klunkerz.
 
Using archival footage, still photographs, and interviews, KLUNKERZ tells the story of the earliest days of the sport from those who were there. Some of the biggest names in the industry, as well as some more obscure characters, recount the people and events that gave birth to the modern mountain bike.