Building the Red Bull BMX Silverdome shoot

Red Bull's video of Tyler Fernengel BMXing through Detroit's abandoned Silverdome stadium got a lot of attention last week, racking up more social media shares than any other BMX video this year. A Portland, Oregon-based sports marketing company with a solid cadre of current and former BMX riders on staff, Become Co, was contracted to build the ramps, rails, and wedges for the shoot. VICE Sports caught up with Become Co's KC Badger to find out how they made Tyler's vision feasible.

VICE Sports: How long were you guys working in the Silverdome?

Badger: Five days. Every morning we'd meet in the lobby at 7 a.m. and put in a solid 12 to 14 hours. Basically, we were building a day ahead of the filming schedule. So we'd build what Tyler was going to ride the next day. Since it was the Silverdome and it's going to be demolished, we could use whatever we wanted and we didn't have any cleanup.

VS: Did it help that you guys were all BMX riders?

Absolutely, having a first hand perspective in action sports allows us to keep our projects credible. We can look at a project from the inside the industry and make sure its genuine, but we are also able to put our work under a non-endemic microscope so that it broadens the reach. For Tyler, as the athlete, he could trust the ramps and how they were built, and he had a team of other like-minded people coming up with ideas on what would be fun to ride and look rad from an outside perspective as well. Having somebody that actually rides BMX building the set-ups and helping work out ideas with Tyler, is vastly different than having somebody who has no riding experience and builds cabinetry. So since Tyler's got some of the best ramp builders in the world on this build, it was no questions asked. We were thinking about things the same way he would, which took a bit of the pressure off Tyler. The last thing you want to worry about as a rider in that situation is if the set-ups are going to work.

VS: Who came up with the lines and where Tyler would ride?

The whole team did a few walk-throughs of the Silverdome to see the natural features that were already there. Every rider looks at spots differently so we talked to Tyler about the tricks that he wanted to do and we worked to make those blend aesthetically into the location. I think this edit was so well received because first and foremost Tyler sent it! His riding was next level. And to add to that, Ryan Taylor and Alex Horner shot it and laid it out so amazingly. The whole production side took a cinematographic approach to the final product. So it was a good blend of art and sport.

VS: Well, it looks like an interesting place to spend a few days in.

The place is insane. You walk in, and it's straight up apocalyptic. It's super quiet, and you hear wind channeling through the place. Everything was in four inches of water because the dome collapsed and it had been been raining. There were shadows and shade in the stairwells and corners, and the water can't evaporate. There's all this crazy mold everywhere, and you really didn't' want to touch anything. I probably have some weird fungus from it.

It was also nostalgic for Tyler. He grew up in Detroit and used to race motocross in the Silverdome. So he saw it from all angles. He went there as a spectator and as a competitor and then got to ride it when it was totally dilapidated. He came through the same tunnel that Barry Sanders rode through. It was also Tyler's first major Red Bull production so he put a lot of pressure on himself to do a good job. Of course, he killed it.

VS: Where does he take off from for his big jump?

That's an old restaurant. It looks like they just locked the doors one day, packed up, and left. There were unopened bottles of beer and liquor. But it added to it. It was cool, like being a kid again in an abandoned house. We could just do whatever we wanted. We were throwing plates from the restaurant down on to the field, and Tyler broke one of those giant windows.

VS: I watched the crash reel of his attempt at the big jump. Looks like a nasty fall.

We literally thought he was dead. He over-rotated a little, and it bounced him to sliding and he wrapped himself around a chair. There was nothing stopping that chair from impaling him in the stomach. Everybody was dead quiet. A couple of us looked away. Then he started yelling at the top of his lungs. You could hear it echoing through the stadium. Then he stands up, and I'm thinking that the best-case scenario is that he broke all of his ribs. He put his hands over his head, and we're all like, holy shit, he's walking around.

We went down there to talk to him and he said, yeah, give me 20 minutes and I'll try it again. We were like, what the fuck, guess it pays to be 19. He pulled up his shirt and his whole side was a giant raspberry. We thought the shoot was over. All of us collectively would have accepted that the shoot was over. But it wasn't. Then he landed it and that ended the shoot. After that, it was straight to celebration time.