WeissCrax met with the three friends — Ben York (BY), Forbes Bainou (FB) & Grant Schroeder (GS) — who agreed to an in-depth,’ no-holds barred’, 60 Minutes-like exclusive interview to get all the facts – or, at least, some of them, anyway – about their amazing work.
And in the interest of full journalistic disclosure — their parents said it was OK.
So, do that stop-watch-ticking-noise-thing-in-your-head-thing here like on that real 60 Minutes television show and let’s get started…
WC: Hiya, boys. Hey – is that loud clock ticking noise bothering you?
ALL: Hey, Mr. WeissCrax. No, we’re good …
WC: WOW – um, whose idea was this in the first place?
GS: Me, while just messing around with a bottle cap trying to make it in a glass.
WC: What happened from there?
BY: Grant first invited me to help out with some shots and then we asked Forbes to come too because of his soccer skills. We all hang out at school together.
WC: How did you guys meet?
FB: Ben and I were actually pen pals in 2nd Grade – before we ever met. Last year we became friends
at DP. And I met Grant at La Colina (Junior High School).
WC: Who thinks of the shots?
BY: Grant is our idea man but sometimes Forbes and I have some pretty good suggestions, as well.
WC: Of all the ideas, how do you decide which one(s) to do?
GS: We make most of them up once we are at the location so we never feel like we weren’t able to complete a shot at the end of the day.
WC: Were there any that you tried that didn’t work?
FB: The boomerang shot. However, maybe we will try it again in the future?
WC: Maybe another example & briefly describe why not?
GS: We tried bouncing a basketball down the steps at Harder Stadium and then realized it seemed more lucky than anything because it could hit the corners of the steps randomly, and that ‘lucky aspect’ didn’t fit in with our style of shots so we stopped and worked on others.
WC: Anyone ever get hurt doing these stunt shots?
BY: No, but there was a couple times when we were all pretty sore. The shot from the Kellogg School swing absolutely destroyed our hips. I was sore for three days.
WC: How many ‘takes’ normally on your shots?
GS: Most take about twenty to thirty minutes, although it can get progressively longer as we try more difficult shots.
WC: What was the quickest? And how many takes?
FB: The soccer shot from the park – made it in less than two minutes. Third attempt.
WC: What took the longest to get right? How many takes?
BY: The longest one, by far, was drop-kicking the soccer ball across the court and into the hoop. It took a solid day-and-a-half for us to get that one.
WC: You guys seem to have a lot of fortitude? What’s up with that?
BY: We don’t give up too easily. We can all be pretty stubborn.
WC: Where do you find the time? How do you schedule?
FB: Weekends when our school work is finished and no sports practice or extra-curricular activities are taking place. We discuss the schedule at school.
WC: Whose basketball set-up is that?
FB: That’s my old basketball hoop we lug around everywhere.
WC: Understand you three are all great students and exceptional athletes with certain areas of sports specialization – how does this work with your trick shots?
GS: It helps immensely because a lot of trick shot videos only do ping pong tricks or only basketball ones, but because we all play different sports it allows us a wide variety of shots. Being great students plays into thinking about how we will set it up to get as many repetitions as possible.
WC: These shots are so amazing – often beyond belief. What would you like everyone to know about the integrity of your work?
BY: Not any of the shots are staged or edited or anything of the sort. They are 100% real. I don’t think any of us could live with making a video that wasn’t real, to be honest. We just wouldn’t feel good about ourselves to create something that wasn’t completely genuine.
WC: Who composes the final scenes?
GS: It’s on my computer in Apple’s iMovie Program. We do it together. Forbes knows most about how to put it together and up on YouTube.
WC: How do you decide the music soundtrack?
BY: For the first video, Grant found the song and we all agreed it was good. But for the second video — it was a suggestion from one of our friends. Give a shout-out to Rachel Smith (DP soccer star) for picking that one for us!
WC: Ok – just for the record, again – are all shots legit?
ALL: YES!!
WC: OK! OK! Um, what do your parent’s think about this project?
BY: My parents didn’t really have any opinions about it when we first started doing the shots but then when they saw the final videos, they were pretty amazed! I think they like it that we were outside doing these shots instead of sitting on our butts inside playing video games.
WC: What’s next?
FB: The bluff shots are our current project. It’s something other trick shot groups haven’t yet done.
WC: What’s your vision for Project Perfection? Boys just having fun – or what?
GS: We hope to inspire people to get out and have fun in sports. I wish we would have thought of this when we were ten because it would have been straight up our alley and we would’ve had more time to work on them (the shots), but maybe this could cause some younger kids to get out and try some trick shots.
WC: What else?
GS: Forbes keeps it fun all the time. Ben seems to always step up and knock down tough shots when we really need it. I am always thinking about shots we could do and what places would be great, so I work to get things situated. It seems like a pretty good combination.
WC: Are you guys having fun?
FB: Yeah and we joke around about maybe getting sponsors. So, you never know what will happen next. Hey, you don’t think that ….
Tick..tick..tick.. tick… tick…
