So after our 3-state filming tour at the beginning of March, we got asked to work on the next stage of BFG teaching Shaun White how to drive. It would involve a 2 day back-to-back shoot at Laguna Seca followed by a driving school in the Pacific Northwest (more to come on that later). This shoot was the culmination of 3 scouting trips to Seattle, San Francisco, Monterey in a week and a half. It was a doozy to say the least.
For the Laguna Seca / Skip Barber section of shooting we were one of a few units on the production. Our responsibilities were POV-heavy as well as getting special action shots with a RED One. Will largely handled the RED work and left me to run with the POV work. We had the opportunity to mount 5D’s all over the camera with specialized rigging as well as ContourHD and Contour GPS cameras everywhere. Here are a few examples of some of the shots:
A unique perspective, A.K.A. “Tire Love” captured with a 5D Mk II:
5D Mount- BF Goodrich, Laguna Seca
Up close and personal with Mr. White heading through the corkscrew:
ContourHD Screencap- BF Goodrich, Laguna Seca
Title card shot- 5D riggged up and off the body of the car:
Title Card Rigging- BF Goodrich, Laguna Seca
Shaun tearing around the track in his Skip Barber open wheel car:
Shaun in Action- BF Goodrich, Laguna Seca
All the content has been edited and is live on the BFG site. Click HERE to view Chapter 2:
In the wake of Dubai we headed into pre-production for a 10 day, 3 state shoot for BF Goodrich Tires. When I say we, once again Will Roegge and I grabbed a team of guys and hopped a plane to the East Coast. We started at Virginia International Raceway for two days of shooting, POV work, rigs shots, interviews and lots of stills with our boy Linhbergh. All the content we generated is slated for the relaunch of the BFG site that is dropping soon. Here are some screencaps from Virginia:
We took advantage of some of the beautiful country roads between Richmond and VIR:
Virginia Road Trip- The drive to VIR
Virginia Road Trip- The drive to VIR
Then we got to VIR- lets just say we went through a few sets of tires during production…
Virginia International Raceway- Burning Tires
One major success from the weekend was developing a new system for time lapses on a track:
Virginia International Raceway- Time Lapse
Even Will got to get behind the wheel for a bit for part of the filming:
Virginia International Raceway- On Track Action
From VA, we hopped a plane to Burlington, VT – home of great cheese, food and LOTS OF SNOW. We happened to land in VT as the storm of the decade came through- see below:
Snowpocalypse 2011, Burlington, VT
The client was worried that we were not going to have snow for the shoot, needless to say, we had lots. We had the chance to film at the BFG Winter Driving School, Vermont Sports Car, Team O’Neill Rally School and some beautiful VT / NH countryside.
Team O'Neill Rally School
Team O'Neill Rally School
After coming back to Vermont, we got to shoot at Vermont Sports car, the birthplace of US Rally Prepped Subarus:
Vermont Sports Car
After we wrapped shooting the storm hit… HARD. We got stuck in VT for another 48 hours… Not all bad though, as we took advantage of the 26″ of fresh snow and went snowboarding!
Another recent project was a tag-team with my buddy Will Roegge. When I was in Florida shooting the Kia job, I got a call asking if I wanted to go to Dubai and shoot with him for Electronic Arts. They were generating content for marketing their newest title, SHIFT 2 Unleashed. After getting back from Florida, I repacked and 16 1/2 hours of flying later we were in Dubai, staying across from the largest building in the world.
We needed to shoot the race as well as get interviews from key people that contributed to the development of the game. Some of the interviews and race footage were used in this Authenticity and Realism trailer to tease the game. In addition to that clip, Will compiled all of our footage and made an edit of the 24 Hour experience.
Looking back at my blog I realize it has been months since I posted anything. Life has taken off in the past 6 months… Since October I have been running full steam ahead. It all started with a trip to NYC for PhotoPlus Expo, back home to LA for 3 days, back to New Jersey for a rallycross race for 5 days before heading to Brazil. The video I shot from there, Climb Attack Brazil, has racked up over 615,000 views, was featured on Wired.com, The Top Gear blog and pretty much any other enthusiast website out there.
After all the post was wrapped on that project, I got a call from Kia’s agency to put together a video for their trade show booth at the Chicago Auto Show. The star of this piece was the all-new Optima SX Turbo and their factory racing driver Nick Johnson. We headed down to Palm Beach International Raceway with a small crew to film the car at speed around the racetrack. Although PBIR is not the fastest track around, we were able to put something together that showed the performance side of this new vehicle.
Its spring cleaning time around my house and I have decided to sell my super clean XH-A1 video camera. Haven’t touched it for video production since I purchased my 5D Mk II’s. Let me know if you know anyone that is interested. This is now live on E-Bay. Full description of package below images.
Profile
Profile
FR /RR
RR 3/4
FR 3/4
Screen
Scratch-Free
Scratch-Free
Heliopan UV
Camera Bottom
WD-H72
WD-H72
w / WD-H72
w / WD-H72
w / WD-H72
w / WD-H72
w / WD-H72
Camera / Lenses
Functional Screen
Functional Viewfinder
BP-950G
Screen Hood
Screen Hood
Component Cable
Battery / Charger
Case Inside
Case Inside
Pelican Case
Here is the text from the auction:
The pictures in the listing that you are see are my photos of the actual camera and accessories that are up for sale. This is a low-use, super clean, scratch-free, 100% fully functional, Canon XH-A1 for sale. To date, I have only recorded a total of twenty-three (23) 63 minute tapes with this camera (roughly 24 hours recording time). I purchased this camera new from Samy’s camera in LA in August of 2008. Since then I have used it for various projects up until the time I got my Canon 5D Mk II cameras. Since then the XH-A1 has been sitting in its Pelican case for over a year and a half without use.
The only reason I am selling this is that 100% of my video workflow now involves the 5D Mk II and I don’t really have a need for the camera any more. Anyone that knows me can attest to how well I take care of my gear, and this camera for sale is no exception. The only tapes I have ever used in this camera are the Sony PVM-63DM tapes, so there is no change of the heads getting clogged from switching back and forth between wet and dry tapes. The lens on the camera, filter and wide angle converter are all 100% scratch-free and clean. Like I said before, I take care of all my gear VERY well.
Here is what is included in the package:
Click links below for full information about each of the products
After a very quick trip, a few long flights, wonderful hospitality and a mad dash to get it edited in time, I am proud to present: Climb Attack Brazil.
This video is a follow-up to the highly acclaimed Climb Attack from the 2009 record setting run of Rhys Millen at Pikes Peak that was directed by my buddy Will Roegge. The video was AMAZING. Will was actually nominated for a Motor Press Guild Association award for the piece- up against Audi “Truth in 24″ and also a segment of Top Gear. It was a Herculean effort with Will and Josh running all over the mountain to capture footage and a demonstration of finesse and attention to detail in delivery. Lets just say to use the name Climb Attack in this video, I had big shoes to fill… Continue reading
A few weeks ago I was up at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb filming for Jeff Zwart and his Luminox Porsche GT3 Cup car with my bro Will Roegge. Jeff ended up setting a new world record in the Time Attack Class with a time of 11:31.095 – 30 seconds faster than the previous record holder, Rhys Millen. It was a big deal for me to shoot for such an accomplished Director, Author, Photographer and driver, so I had to step up my game. This proved to be a difficult task with 2:30AM call times, 7-11 breakfasts, between 11,000 and 14,000 feet elevation, crazy temperature swings etc. etc. etc. The “glamorous life” of a photographer!
While I was there, I met a really nice guy Brandon Parker that was a part of the 15+ person Red Bull Moving Images video crew. Upon checking out his site I saw he did something really cool- upload screencaps from recent projects before the final edits were cut. Post production usually takes a while, so these screenshots show some of the work in a timely manner. Will should have the video cut soon, and I will post the final video when its all said and done.
So, here are some of what I was capturing on the mountain with my camera at the 2010 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
Recently I was hired to do shoot behind the scenes video footage for a NOS Energy Drink commercial. The commercial was based around the driving skill of 2009 Formula Drift Champion Chris Forsberg. For those not familiar with drifting, it is a judged motorsport that calls for drivers to control a high horsepower car while it slides sideways at high speed through a marked course. It is similar to rally racing, but is done on a closed course and judged on execution and style rather than who finishes the course fastest.
So the other day I ran into an old friend that does some work with Contour Cameras. He mentioned he had seen some of my videos and wanted to equip me with some of the latest and greatest POV cams on the market. I gladly accepted and looked forward to seeing what these cameras could do and how they compared to my Sony XHR-MC1 POV camera. The street price of $329.95 made these a lot more user friendly than the Sony- which cost about 10 times more than one of these cameras.
A few days later I had a knock at the door from the UPS man with 3 pretty large boxes for me. I was FLOORED when I opened the boxes and saw TONS of goodies from Contour Cam. Here is what the spread looked like:
A few months ago I was approached by a division of Hyundai called the ThinkTank. Its an online community of avid Hyundai enthusiasts providing feedback directly to Hyundai Motor America. With the success of the RM460 at the 2009 SEMA Show, they wanted to produce a video about the car. We wanted to do something unlike the traditional car clip- as this car was anything but traditional.
The RM460 was dreamed up by Rhys Millen – inspired by the Ferrari 599 FXX. He wanted to build his own mid-engine supercar for SEMA, so he took the 4.6 Liter Tau engine from the Genesis Sedan and essentially put it in the back seat. So much incredible fabrication and attention to detail went in to producing this car. We had a tight timeframe to work with- filmed this in 1.5 days at 3 different locations. It was a blast to film and to do something a bit outside of what our industry typically produces.
