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:

Shaun White- BF Goodrich Website

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!

Snowboarding at Stowe, VT

Final video clips should be up sometime mid-June.

Here is Will’s account of the trip.

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.

Dubai 24h 2011 from The SpeedHunters on Vimeo.

Here are some other posts describing a full BTS look of the race:

Speedhunters Blog #1
Into the Night

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.

Kia Optima SX Turbo- FINAL from DC CHAVEZ on Vimeo.

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.

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.

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…

This was a section of the road, Serra do Rio do Rastro, that Rhys had the opportunity to drift his RMR / Red Bull / Hyundai Genesis Coupe up. Lets just say the view was INSANE. The road started in Lauro Muller, Santa Catarina, Brazil and ran for over 9km up the canyon and onto a plateau. We stayed at an incredible resort at the top of the road called Rio Do Rastro Eco Resort. Ivan and his staff were absolutely incredible and made the entire RMR / Red Bull team feel at home. We rode horses, ate great food, drank incredible wine and experienced hospitality of the highest degree.

We filmed for a total of 3 days, with some delays due to weather, filming Rhys drifting up each section and a Time Attack Run on Saturday. At any given time I was operating 12 cameras at once- 2 x 5D Mk II, an HVX200 and at least 5 ContourHD 1080P cameras oncar and 4 spread throughout the road. This was also a testing ground for the new ContourGPS video camera- linking GPS data to the POV camera footage. I was busy to say the absolute least… Additional footage was provided by Red Bull Brazil.

Scenery was amazing, Rhys’ skill behind the wheel was nuts- lets just say it was an amazing trip. I am very thankful to have been a part of it and now a part of the Climb Attack series. Lets just say that this will not be the last. Next time I will have more help and plan on making the next one much, much better.

Thanks to Red Bull Brazil, Rio do Rastro Eco Resort, RMR, ContourHD and anyone else that helped out with this project.

Here is the final edited piece:

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.

PPIHC 2010- Early Morning Testing

PPIHC 2010- Waiting for the official time

PPIHC 2010- A rear view of a record run

PPIHC 2010- Zwart coming around Brown Bush

PPIHC 2010- Zwart in the S's

PPIHC 2010- Starting line on Race Day

PPIHC 2010- Engineers Turn

PPIHC 2010- Luminox Check before heading out

PPIHC 2010- Rounding Bottomless Pit

PPIHC 2010- Flat out at Ragged Edge

PPIHC 2010- Lower Gravel Pit

PPIHC 2010- Roegge 5D Incar Setup

PPIHC 2010- View from the Contour HD

PPIHC 2010- View from the Contour HD

PPIHC 2010- Pushing to the summit

PPIHC 2010- Pushing to the summit

Full video soon to come!

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.

BHD3 in use

I wanted to get some incar footage to show what its like sitting next to the driver and spice up the BTS footage. I used a Canon 5D Mk II with a 16-35 2.8L lens mounted to an Induro BHD3 ballhead. While this ballhead is a bit overkill for this camera setup, it is ideal due the violent driving style of drifting. A large amount of torque is generated from to the mass of the camera as the car quickly changes direction from left to right. I have used other ballheads and they would consistently slip over the course of a run. The BHD3 is the only ballhead I have used so far that has not loosened up after a lap or two with the 5D MK II.

Still from Incar Video

About halfway through the day of the shoot, the director of the commercial asked to see some of the footage. He was impressed with the shots and asked if they could use some of the footage in the commercial. After a bit of negotiating, I handed over the memory cards and here is the final commercial which incorporated my footage at :10 :13 and :24

A few weeks later I was called to create a preseason teaser video for Hyundai and Rhys Millen Racing- another drift team. They wanted to show the changes they made to the Genesis Coupe for the 2010 season. They were testing at El Toro Airfield in Irvine, CA and I knew that the runway surface was a bit more rough than the track where we filmed the NOS Shoot. In past shoots I have noticed vibration from the incar camera here at El Toro.

RMR / Red Bull / Hyundai Genesis Coupe

After a bit of research, I have found that the vibration was not coming from the ballhead, but from the flexing of the camera body itself at the tripod socket. My solution is to have the BHD3 supporting the camera from the bottom and a magic arm with hot shoe mount to support it from the top. While the BHD3 does the heavy lifting, the magic arm provides another point of stabilization. Here is a photo of the setup:

BHD3 Incar

BHD3 Incar

Here is the final video created using the BHD3 ballhead as the main support for my 5D Mk II. At the :20 mark you can actually see the ballhead in the window as the car drives by.

I used the ballhead recently at the Pikes Peak HIll Climb to support a locked off camera as I was following the car with another camera. The ballhead was solid enough to hold an HVX attached to a Manfrotto super clamp off of guard rails, stop signs etc. Here is an iPhone snap of it in action:

BHD3 Ballhead at the Pikes Peak Hillclimb

BHD3 Ballhead at the Pikes Peak Hillclimb

I cannot say enough good things about this Induro BHD3 Ballhead, very versatile head that is capable of holding a significant amount of weight.

On an Induro side note- thank GOD I had the CT-313 tripod with me at Pikes. We had to hike all over the mountain at an altitude between 10,000 and 14,110ft elevation over a series of 4 days. The CT-313 was so light yet so rigid I was actually able to cover a lot of ground without sacrificing a sturdy base for my camera. Since I was shooting video, I had a video head on the sticks…

CT-313 Tripod at the Pikes Peak Hillclimb

Thank you Induro, your products ROCK!

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:

Contour HD 1080P & Accessories

6 cams and tons of accessories as you can see. Here is a breakdown of what comes included in the box with the camera:

Contour HD 1080P Unboxing

Each box comes with the camera, battery, instruction manual, charger / PC cable, flat mount and extra adhesive pad. As you can see, the camera itself is TINY, smaller than my iPhone…

Contour HD vs iPhone

You can access the cameras battery and micro SD memory card from the back as well as adjust the resolution of the camera from HI (1920×1080 @ 30fps) to LOW (1280 x 960 @ 30fps). Once you hit the power button on the back of the cam, on the top of the camera there is only one switch to start the recording.

The back of the camera

Black means not recording

Red means recording

So once I turned the camera on I was delighted to see two little laser beams shoot out. Since the camera has no display, the lasers help to make sure the camera is aligned with what you are trying to shoot.

Sharks with laser beams on their heads

Sharks with laser beams on their heads

Now that I was familiar with the camera, it was time to dive into the mountain of accessories for the cam. I started off with the one that comes with each camera- a flat surface mount. The camera is has these cool looking grooves heading down the side, but it turns out they are fully functional- the mounting place for all of the various holders. Its called the TRail mount system. I slid the flat mount in and slid it all the way forward to make sure it was locked into place. I later mounted this on the side of my helmet to get some POV karting action- more on that later…

Sliding the flat mount into place

The next package was the lens kit. With all of the automotive video that I do I tend to use filters for various reasons: a polarizer to cut the glare on the car or windshield, and a UV filter to protect the lens from getting pitted from debris on the track. This kit has replacement lens ring, lenses as well as step up rings for a 37mm screw-in filter. It all fits in a neat little bag and easily tossed in with the rest of the gear.

Contour HD Filter Kit

Contour HD Filter Kit

The next item in the bag is the handlebar mount. The cool thing about this and the camera is that you can mount it just about anywhere. The camera lens twists 90 degrees from vertical so you can mount the camera horizontal! You can see in this picture that the lens is still upright even though the camera is on its side.

Contour HD Handlebar Mount

Whle we are talking about biking, this next accessory is designed to strap a camera to your typical vented helmet. The straps go through the helmet and cinch down so the camera stays snug and your ride through the trails.

Contour HD Vented Helmet Mount

This next accessory is something I was really looking forward to- the Universal Mount 1/4″ x 20 threaded adapter. This slides on around the camera and gives a mounting point that will work with most of my grip gear such as Manfrotto superclamps, magic arms etc. Like the other mounting kits, it slides right on around the camera and is ready to go.

Contour HD Universal Mount

Contour HD Universal Mount

This next one is something I have a feeling I am going to use a lot- the windshield mount. This adjustable suction cup will attach the camera to a windshield or any other body panel and allow you to lock the camera into any angle you like. Being that I shoot a lot of automotive videos, this bad boy is going to come in handy- OFTEN…

Contour HD Windshield Mount

Another item I was excited to see was a case to carry the camera in. This holds the camera on one side as well as cables, extra memory cards and batteries with room to spare. It makes it easy to transport all this stuff around without having to worry too much about it getting banged up. It also has a carabiner attached so you can easily clip it onto a backpack or something.

Contour HD Carrying Case

Contour HD Carrying Case

The guys at Contour were nice enough to send spare batteries, USB battery charger, wall chargers, car chargers and a bunch of extra sticky pads for the flat surface mount.

Contour HD USB Battery Charger

Contour HD Car Charger

Contour HD Wall Charger

Phew- thats a lot of gear… Once I finally sorted through all of this stuff, it was time to take it out on the town and do something with it. I headed down to K1Speed in Torrance to put em to the test. I mounted two cameras on the car and one on my helmet for three races. Here is what I was able to come up with for our first spin out there…

Nothing too crazy, but I was impressed with the low-light performance and low-vibration from these cameras. I have used other CMOS-based POV cams and they tend to get “wonky” around the edges under heavy vibration. I am very impressed with these cameras and look forward to putting them through their paces in the near future!

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.

Enjoy!