Graffiti has established itself in each corner of the globe and there’s nowhere that better represents this fact than the fertile soils of New Zealand. Although its 15,000 km from New York, the islands in Oceania boast a potent scene characterized by fierce wildstyle and impressive scale. Rams is very much a man of this school, and he’s grabbed our attention with a new video documenting his work in impressive fashion. We called long-distance to find out what was behind his latest audiovisual project.
Yo Rams! Thanks for joining us again, it’s been a few years since we last talked to you for the Fire at Will interview. Thanks for having me! Same old bro, graffiti is still the main focus. Great to hear! What’s changed for you since we last spoke? Still painting a lot, but I’ve also been focused on videography, it’s fun learning and experimenting with what works and what doesn’t. Although sitting at my computer for days on end can be draining, it’s worth it in the end though!
You’ve shared time-lapse videos of your pieces on Instagram, what got you interested in doing this? The time-lapse videos Selina Miles and Sofles made were incredible, those videos had a long-lasting impact on me. Unless it’s Sofles or it’s on a train, watching someone paint is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Time-lapse is a way to compress time and show the process of painting a piece in an interesting way. We’ve noticed you’ve focused a lot of energy on larger productions, with fewer colors but painted with a more intricate and aggressive aesthetic. Is there a concept behind the work? Where do your influences come from? My style is mostly influenced by people like Askew, Deus and Berst, also writers overseas like Sofles and Revok. There are others that have influenced my work, but more so with feedback over the years, or things said in passing that I’ve taken on board. As for the monochromatic pieces; that’s mostly because I’m using roller paint, which is a lot more efficient to paint with. Instead of ashing 15 cans on one tech piece, I can do five tech pieces with the same number of cans, or I can go really big and instead of ashing 30-40 cans, I’m only using eight. Roller paint just allows me to paint more and progress faster, which is the eternal goal. There are some restrictions to painting this way but I’m content going without the nice colours. I’m still learning a lot with this minimalist method; I can still render different letter materials, subjects/objects or elements and play with how light hits and reflects off them. It’s kind of like drawing with a pencil but faster. It’s super luggage having to carry all this extra shit along the tracks though, haha. 
'A year or so ago I started planning missions when the opportunity arose to get footage for a video which ended up being this TIME video, a compilation of long exposure time-lapses, shot at night.'
Can you tell us about ‘TIME’ the video you’ve just released? I started making short time-lapse videos in 2018, after doing that for a while I wanted to make something more substantial. A year or so ago I started planning missions when the opportunity arose to get footage for a video which ended up being this TIME video, a compilation of long exposure time-lapses, shot at night. TIME also features some really good writers like Berst, Fuego, Siar, Paris, Swerv, Frost and Ratio. The editing is outstanding! How did you fund and produce TIME? So, Gore-Tex are my sponsors and they funded... nah haha. I funded it myself so I got what I needed as I needed it and kept costs to a minimum. It helps having Montana New Zealand around too! As for producing it, watching YouTube tutorials and reading a bunch of internet forums helped A LOT. You can Google pretty much anything and at a minimum it’ll give you basic information you need to build from.
So, you’ve shot and edited this on your own? Yeah, In the future I’d love to work with more people on the video side of things, I just need to build those connections. I’m happy to do it solo although. There’re a lot of restrictions doing it this way though. For example, putting my camera on a tripod and setting a timer while I paint leaves me with still images that are pretty boring on their own. I needed to find a way to keep the footage interesting, so creating camera movement in post-production solved that issue. There’s always a workaround and you have to do that a lot when doing it solo or low budget, which isn’t a bad thing a lot of the time. Word. The actual editing of TIME took about two weeks, from when I would wake up to when I’d go to sleep. When I was close to finishing it, I was thinking, “Damn... what am I going to do when I finish this?” Because by that point I had spent over a year trying to finish it. 
'Unless it’s Sofles or it’s on a train, watching someone paint is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Time-lapse is a way to compress time and show the process of painting a piece in an interesting way.'
In TIME we see some impressive train missions. Does train-writing still occupy an important place in your graffiti? Yeah of course, it always will. If I’m not willing to do that, it’s probably time to hang it up. I plan to travel in the near or far future but it’s all dependent on what covid’s up to. Trains are always the priority when traveling. The final production is epic too! How long did it take? Thanks man, it took six nights. It would have been a lot quicker but I had to leave multiple times because of track workers. In the last scene of the video, you can see the workers come into frame. I saw them coming down the track but I was so close to finishing, I decided to keep painting. They weren’t into it haha, but they weren’t going to do anything so I was able to finish up quickly and leave. I was super over painting those pieces by that point and was glad I didn’t have to go back another night.
Why did you choose the theme/subject of “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” from Disney's Fantasia? I had watched Fantasia again around that time and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is my favourite part of that movie. So I did a reinterpretation of some characters and elements from the movie. I didn’t really plan it out, I did some quick sketches at home before I left to get a rough idea of what to do and thought I’d just wing it at the wall. Are there any behind-the-scenes stories from the shoots that you can share with us? I wish I had some good stories from those missions but nothing crazy happened, it was all relatively chill or planned out. I wanted TIME to feature the best stuff I could produce in the given situation, trying to find a balance between quality and spot. 
And lastly, what’s up next for you? I’m working on a follow up video at the moment. I’ve got some really good footage so far, but still have a long way to go. I’m also releasing a limited set of prints I’m super stoked about. It’s the first time I’ve run prints and it’ll help fund the next video so, if you’re interested there’s more information on my Instagram: @rams_one. Nice one! Thanks guys, hope you enjoy the video! by admin via Montana World
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