Posty comments on his mad dash across the country, which netted him the win in our Long Form category of the 2021 Film Festival. His free flowing entry captivated our panel of judges, and reminded us in the best way that we're all just kids with cameras.
Chris just moved into a double wide trailer with his folks near Miami, a temporary stay while they finish building a new house nearby. He describes the situation as “nice” and “comfy,” but admits it is, “still just a trailer in a trailer park.” When he’s not in the double wide playing Xbox, riding, or working on videos, he’s at the family business with his pops.
Before settling into his current situation, Chris had been attending class at Full Sail University, a sprawling campus film academy which was eventually compromised by the first wave of the 2020 pandemic. So, instead of sitting in digital Zoom lectures for 8 hours a day, Chris dropped out of school and stole his dad’s work van to see the country, resulting in a win in the first ever World of Echo Film Festival.
I was happy to get Chris on the phone to talk about how he met his friends, why he’ll never drive through Arizona again, and just who exactly is the king of Top Golf.
World of Echo: Chris, congrats again on your win in the Long Form category of the festival. Your video was sick. Did you expect to take the top spot?
Chris Post: I didn’t have a clue, man. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to get my submission in on time, having not touched my footage until the week before the deadline. After seeing what everyone else had in store, I must say that I was genuinely surprised. I didn’t know that many people would submit, and there were some really great videos capable of winning in my eyes. To answer your question though, no, I didn’t submit a video expecting to win, I just submitted because I like what you’re doing. It’s great for the community.
Thanks, man. I appreciate that. I’m curious though as to what the genesis for this trip was? Where did this idea to embark on this massive cross-country journey stem from?
It was something that had been bouncing around my head for a long time, and with how everything lined up this year, it was just the perfect opportunity for me to finally make that leap.
While I was initially set up with an old friend to hit the road in tandem, something had come up and I ended up making the two-month trip on my own, which took some convincing on my parent’s. It was a hard sell to persuade my dad into giving up our work van for that amount of time, and an even harder sell to get my mom on board with the length of the trip, but once everything was in place they couldn’t have been more supportive. In fact, my mom basically turned into my travel agent for the duration of the trip, helping me book cheap hotels and AirBNB’s across the country. I’m very grateful to have parents who are that supportive.
How early did they get the warning you were leaving?
Well, it was a few weeks after I had dropped out of school, so probably a month in advance. [laughs] I still had some money in my college account that I’d be using on the trip. I was ready to go.
I’m assuming this was the longest trip you’ve ever done?
Definitely. This was the most time I’ve ever spent away from home, away from Florida.
What did you learn on the road?
Oh, man… That I never want to drive through Arizona or New Mexico ever again. I don’t know what road I got on, but I swear there was a stretch in Arizona where I didn’t even see anything for hours. No towns, houses, people. Nothing.
The wasteland! An interesting place. I’m also interested in your take on California. It was your second time out there, right?
Yeah, 2019 was the first time I visited, and it was only a short stay. I visited a few tracks, went snowboarding at Big Bear. I spent a lot more time out there on this trip, but the magic kind of wore off this time around. I can remember tripping out on the amount of riders I saw the first time, but by this go around that wasn’t as exciting. That little zone in Lake Elsinore, Temecula, and Murrieta, there is so much happening there it’s ridiculous. The magic does wear off, though. California is a strange place.
Yes, I know J Coop is shown at Pala, not GH.
Undoubtedly. The video is not entirely based around California though, you also spent some time in Michigan with Nick Tomasunas. Was that his place in the video where you guys linked up at?
No, that was actually a spot that’s an hour or two north of where he lives. Regardless, that was one of the coolest tracks I’ve ever ridden, hands down. I had my bike with me for the whole trip, so I spun laps whenever I could, and that place was immaculate.
It looked like it!
Let me put it this way: when you’re a kid daydreaming about having a house and building a track in your backyard, that was the track that you dream about having. Rolling hills, sick berms, huge jumps. It was perfect.
How did you and Nick become friends in the first place?
Man… this sounds terrible, but I honestly don’t remember. I’m in a group chat with Wilson Fleming, Blake Ashley, and Nick, and I couldn’t even tell you how I got in there in the first place. I think Nick just threw me in there one day and I never got kicked! We’ve all been good homies ever since. We’ve ridden together in Florida and play MX Simulator every now and again.
Now that I think about it, most of the friends I have stem from group texts, Xbox, and social media. I’ve met so many people just bullshitting over video games. Vin Murphy and Nick are perfect examples of that. Dudes that I met online who welcomed me into their homes and treated me like family. It was a great experience that showed me how nice people could really be. I’m glad to have those friends in my life, no matter which way we’ve met.
Trashley and Posty, posted.
Why did you undercut Nick’s part with a bona fide meme song? I was a bit taken aback by that at first, but ultimately came to the decision that it was a power move, a very Posty-esque move if I might say. I don’t know if you have any comments on that.
One of my friends I met at school, Carson, was studying music at Full Sail and he makes beats. He actually made that beat and let me use it in the video! He showed it to me one day as a joke which, looking back, was actually the first text he ever sent me, a link to that song. We laughed about it and eventually moved on, but somewhere along the way that popped into my head while working on this video, and I messaged Carson to ask him if he still had that beat, and he did. It’s pretty ridiculous, but it was too funny to pass up. I used to do a lot of meme shit when I made videos back in the day, so in a way maybe that was a callback to that, but I do try to be a little more serious when I make videos now. I want to try my best, not fart around and make some half-assed edit.
To add to that, one of my favorite things to do is listen to music and picture what shots I’d like to get at the next race. That way, when the video is finally finished, it’s unique to me because I can look at that and pick apart which things actually came to life from those visions. It’s a fulfilling feeling.
Totally.
Even the Modest Mouse song I used in the Mammoth part, “Dramamine,” was something that my old roommate Coop showed me and I always thought about using it in a video, but I never had the right footage to justify using such a great song. The way Mammoth is cut into the mountain, with those massive downhills and everyone flowing through the trees, I knew I finally had the right footage.
If it were up to me, you would’ve won the BumpBoxx just for that.
Coop was super stoked I used that song, too.
Those MM fans, man. How did you come to meet the Star kids?
I met [Nick] Romano first, probably on Xbox back before he was on Star even. He was riding Kawasaki’s at the time. Then I met [Matt] LeBlanc through Xbox as well. He got a PC soon after and we started playing Sim together, so even today we still stay in touch often.
After that I eventually met Levi [Kitchen] through those guys and it just kind of went from there.
I couldn’t tell you that one. [laughs] That was the first time I met Frankie, too.
That looked like a great night.
It was way too much.
When was that?
Probably Monday, right after I got to Loretta’s. But that was the only time we really went crazy. After that it was super mellow.
You made Loretta’s look fun. I didn’t think that was possible.
Ha! Thanks man.
Where do you go to escape the madness at LL?
You don’t. The only way to do that is to visit the hotel down the street.
I was going to mention the creek, until I remembered a group of kids started throwing rocks at Charlie and I, unprompted.
Yeah, I got hit with a water gun by some asshole kids on a side-by-side not even an hour into being there. The chaos just engulfs you.
Legend
You’ve been established in the IG scene for quite some time with your shorter works, but I’m curious if you had any interest in pursuing more full-length work in the future?
[pause] Yes… and no. Sadly, I’m leaning more towards no. I just don’t think I could take another trip like that for a long time, and make a video that length on top of it. If you think about it, that video may only take 20 minutes to watch, but I had to go across the country and back just to make it! That was a few months of my life condensed into those twenty minutes. Unless we all somehow end up in the same place again for a long period of time, I don’t see another video like that happening anytime soon. I don’t think I’d have the opportunity to make something of that quality for a long time.
Sheesh! Don’t sell yourself so short!
I know, I know. It was just a lot. A lot of footage and a lot of different types of clips put together. I was surprised people found it funny to be honest, because a lot of what we shot contained inside jokes and gags that nobody else really could understand, but I suppose it translated well enough. For people to say it was good or funny is cool. I wasn’t sure people would get it.
It was genuine. I think that’s universal.
I would like to do it again, but I think this was a once in a lifetime type thing. I’ll continue to make videos, but to replicate what happened on this trip would be impossible. Everything lined up exactly how it did, and we didn’t plan anything in advance. Whatever you saw in the video was just what we did that day. Nothing was calculated or drawn up, believe me. [laughs]
The real question is, who actually won at Top Golf?
Look, Flem can drive the ball pretty nice, but he stands no chance against my chip game. I’ll say we tied for the amount of games we played. I’ll give him that. He’ll get real salty if I say otherwise. If I golfed weekly and got beat by a guy who has played 4 or 5 times in his life, I’d be mad too.
Thanks to Chris for the time, and to everyone who made his film possible.
Chris just moved into a double wide trailer with his folks near Miami, a temporary stay while they finish building a new house nearby. He describes the situation as “nice” and “comfy,” but admits it is, “still just a trailer in a trailer park.” When he’s not in the double wide playing Xbox, riding, or working on videos, he’s at the family business with his pops.
Before settling into his current situation, Chris had been attending class at Full Sail University, a sprawling campus film academy which was eventually compromised by the first wave of the 2020 pandemic. So, instead of sitting in digital Zoom lectures for 8 hours a day, Chris dropped out of school and stole his dad’s work van to see the country, resulting in a win in the first ever World of Echo Film Festival.
I was happy to get Chris on the phone to talk about how he met his friends, why he’ll never drive through Arizona again, and just who exactly is the king of Top Golf.
World of Echo: Chris, congrats again on your win in the Long Form category of the festival. Your video was sick. Did you expect to take the top spot?
Chris Post: I didn’t have a clue, man. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to get my submission in on time, having not touched my footage until the week before the deadline. After seeing what everyone else had in store, I must say that I was genuinely surprised. I didn’t know that many people would submit, and there were some really great videos capable of winning in my eyes. To answer your question though, no, I didn’t submit a video expecting to win, I just submitted because I like what you’re doing. It’s great for the community.
Thanks, man. I appreciate that. I’m curious though as to what the genesis for this trip was? Where did this idea to embark on this massive cross-country journey stem from?
It was something that had been bouncing around my head for a long time, and with how everything lined up this year, it was just the perfect opportunity for me to finally make that leap.
While I was initially set up with an old friend to hit the road in tandem, something had come up and I ended up making the two-month trip on my own, which took some convincing on my parent’s. It was a hard sell to persuade my dad into giving up our work van for that amount of time, and an even harder sell to get my mom on board with the length of the trip, but once everything was in place they couldn’t have been more supportive. In fact, my mom basically turned into my travel agent for the duration of the trip, helping me book cheap hotels and AirBNB’s across the country. I’m very grateful to have parents who are that supportive.
How early did they get the warning you were leaving?
Well, it was a few weeks after I had dropped out of school, so probably a month in advance. [laughs] I still had some money in my college account that I’d be using on the trip. I was ready to go.
I’m assuming this was the longest trip you’ve ever done?
Definitely. This was the most time I’ve ever spent away from home, away from Florida.
What did you learn on the road?
Oh, man… That I never want to drive through Arizona or New Mexico ever again. I don’t know what road I got on, but I swear there was a stretch in Arizona where I didn’t even see anything for hours. No towns, houses, people. Nothing.
The wasteland! An interesting place. I’m also interested in your take on California. It was your second time out there, right?
Yeah, 2019 was the first time I visited, and it was only a short stay. I visited a few tracks, went snowboarding at Big Bear. I spent a lot more time out there on this trip, but the magic kind of wore off this time around. I can remember tripping out on the amount of riders I saw the first time, but by this go around that wasn’t as exciting. That little zone in Lake Elsinore, Temecula, and Murrieta, there is so much happening there it’s ridiculous. The magic does wear off, though. California is a strange place.
Undoubtedly. The video is not entirely based around California though, you also spent some time in Michigan with Nick Tomasunas. Was that his place in the video where you guys linked up at?
No, that was actually a spot that’s an hour or two north of where he lives. Regardless, that was one of the coolest tracks I’ve ever ridden, hands down. I had my bike with me for the whole trip, so I spun laps whenever I could, and that place was immaculate.
It looked like it!
Let me put it this way: when you’re a kid daydreaming about having a house and building a track in your backyard, that was the track that you dream about having. Rolling hills, sick berms, huge jumps. It was perfect.
How did you and Nick become friends in the first place?
Man… this sounds terrible, but I honestly don’t remember. I’m in a group chat with Wilson Fleming, Blake Ashley, and Nick, and I couldn’t even tell you how I got in there in the first place. I think Nick just threw me in there one day and I never got kicked! We’ve all been good homies ever since. We’ve ridden together in Florida and play MX Simulator every now and again.
Now that I think about it, most of the friends I have stem from group texts, Xbox, and social media. I’ve met so many people just bullshitting over video games. Vin Murphy and Nick are perfect examples of that. Dudes that I met online who welcomed me into their homes and treated me like family. It was a great experience that showed me how nice people could really be. I’m glad to have those friends in my life, no matter which way we’ve met.
Why did you undercut Nick’s part with a bona fide meme song? I was a bit taken aback by that at first, but ultimately came to the decision that it was a power move, a very Posty-esque move if I might say. I don’t know if you have any comments on that.
One of my friends I met at school, Carson, was studying music at Full Sail and he makes beats. He actually made that beat and let me use it in the video! He showed it to me one day as a joke which, looking back, was actually the first text he ever sent me, a link to that song. We laughed about it and eventually moved on, but somewhere along the way that popped into my head while working on this video, and I messaged Carson to ask him if he still had that beat, and he did. It’s pretty ridiculous, but it was too funny to pass up. I used to do a lot of meme shit when I made videos back in the day, so in a way maybe that was a callback to that, but I do try to be a little more serious when I make videos now. I want to try my best, not fart around and make some half-assed edit.
To add to that, one of my favorite things to do is listen to music and picture what shots I’d like to get at the next race. That way, when the video is finally finished, it’s unique to me because I can look at that and pick apart which things actually came to life from those visions. It’s a fulfilling feeling.
Totally.
Even the Modest Mouse song I used in the Mammoth part, “Dramamine,” was something that my old roommate Coop showed me and I always thought about using it in a video, but I never had the right footage to justify using such a great song. The way Mammoth is cut into the mountain, with those massive downhills and everyone flowing through the trees, I knew I finally had the right footage.
If it were up to me, you would’ve won the BumpBoxx just for that.
Coop was super stoked I used that song, too.
Those MM fans, man. How did you come to meet the Star kids?
I met [Nick] Romano first, probably on Xbox back before he was on Star even. He was riding Kawasaki’s at the time. Then I met [Matt] LeBlanc through Xbox as well. He got a PC soon after and we started playing Sim together, so even today we still stay in touch often.
After that I eventually met Levi [Kitchen] through those guys and it just kind of went from there.
Who is Big F, and why is he a legend?
I couldn’t tell you that one. [laughs] That was the first time I met Frankie, too.
That looked like a great night.
It was way too much.
When was that?
Probably Monday, right after I got to Loretta’s. But that was the only time we really went crazy. After that it was super mellow.
You made Loretta’s look fun. I didn’t think that was possible.
Ha! Thanks man.
Where do you go to escape the madness at LL?
You don’t. The only way to do that is to visit the hotel down the street.
I was going to mention the creek, until I remembered a group of kids started throwing rocks at Charlie and I, unprompted.
Yeah, I got hit with a water gun by some asshole kids on a side-by-side not even an hour into being there. The chaos just engulfs you.
You’ve been established in the IG scene for quite some time with your shorter works, but I’m curious if you had any interest in pursuing more full-length work in the future?
[pause] Yes… and no. Sadly, I’m leaning more towards no. I just don’t think I could take another trip like that for a long time, and make a video that length on top of it. If you think about it, that video may only take 20 minutes to watch, but I had to go across the country and back just to make it! That was a few months of my life condensed into those twenty minutes. Unless we all somehow end up in the same place again for a long period of time, I don’t see another video like that happening anytime soon. I don’t think I’d have the opportunity to make something of that quality for a long time.
Sheesh! Don’t sell yourself so short!
I know, I know. It was just a lot. A lot of footage and a lot of different types of clips put together. I was surprised people found it funny to be honest, because a lot of what we shot contained inside jokes and gags that nobody else really could understand, but I suppose it translated well enough. For people to say it was good or funny is cool. I wasn’t sure people would get it.
It was genuine. I think that’s universal.
I would like to do it again, but I think this was a once in a lifetime type thing. I’ll continue to make videos, but to replicate what happened on this trip would be impossible. Everything lined up exactly how it did, and we didn’t plan anything in advance. Whatever you saw in the video was just what we did that day. Nothing was calculated or drawn up, believe me. [laughs]
The real question is, who actually won at Top Golf?
Look, Flem can drive the ball pretty nice, but he stands no chance against my chip game. I’ll say we tied for the amount of games we played. I’ll give him that. He’ll get real salty if I say otherwise. If I golfed weekly and got beat by a guy who has played 4 or 5 times in his life, I’d be mad too.
Thanks to Chris for the time, and to everyone who made his film possible.
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