I am proud to announce the unveiling of GT3 Climb- a video by Will Roegge in which I helped to capture some of the footage. This video is an account of Director / Photographer / Racer Jeff Zwart as he pilots a Porsche GT3 Cup car to the summit of Pikes Peak setting a new World Record.

This is the product of two people running up and down a mountain operating up to 8 cameras at once, great input from Jeff and lots of amazing editing by Will.

Crank the audio and enjoy!

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!

So I just finished a new blog posting about the new Profoto D1 monoblocs. I give a bit of behind the scenes info on a shoot and lots of technical lighting info. Take a look and let me know what you think!

http://blog.profoto-usa.com/?p=1642

Behind the Scenes - Profoto D1 Shoot

Profoto D1 - A closer look

As you may notice by the content of my blog, I do a lot of work with Hyundai and Rhys Millen Racing. There is always something fun and exciting to produce from the ground up. Combine that with my affinity for cars and racing, and every job is better than the last. Its also fun to know that I have been involved from day one, producing the original proposal on the program, designing the renderings of the car, shooting the teaser video and soon, heading up to PIkes Peak to watch this new car in action.

The car I speak of is the RMR Hyundai PM580. This vehicle is a purpose-built racecar designed to head up Pikes Peak Mountain faster than anyone has ever done before. Here is a video I shot of Rhys and his father Rod talking about the family history at Pikes Peak:

As you can see, the family has a history with the mountain- which hopefully the PM580 will add to, breaking the elusive 10 minute barrier.

I have done some renderings in the past for Rhys, building on top of existing images to propose a new design, a new racecar livery etc. This vehicle was a chance for me to start from literally the ground up and bring to life the design that Rhys had in his head. Here is the final product- days of work, 247 layers in a photoshop document and lots of coffee went into producing this monster.

RMR Hyundai Genesis PM580

With the exception of the wheels, the rest of the car is 100% Photoshop and Illustrator. I shot a photo of the wheels at the proper angle and dropped it into the composite to add a level of reality to the car. So now that you have seen where I ended up, lets go back to where it started- at the body shop.

The start of the PM580

The start of the PM580

These are two photos I shot of the car in process- big hunks of foam, bondo and fiberglass being sanded, shaped and formed into what would be the plug for the mold. Once the shape of the car is finalized the build the mold around these pieces, a positive and negative for the final carbon fiber pieces to be produced from. I digress… These photos would be the foundation for me to create the rendering of the new vehicle. So where to begin? I started by pulling this into Illustrator and making a line drawing over the top of the car:

Vector Drawings of the PM580

At this point is was time to produce the livery for the race car. This can be tricky when working with so many sponsors, as they each have their own guidelines for how their logo can be used. Some can’t be tilted, some have to be on blue, ALL of them have to be bigger… I have some tricks that I used with layer blending modes, opacity and overlaying grayscale layers to make it look like the logos are actually on the car and interacting with the light. I would tell you how, but then I would have to kill you! Here is an animation showing the build up process:

And here is a 50% screenshot to show the level of detail in the rendering- from the vents over the fender to the way the Red Bull logo interacts with the shading of the car. Notice on the right side of the image a small section of the groups and layers of the photoshop file:

Screen capture of the PM580 detail

As if that was not enough work, this is only the front 3/4 angle. I had to do this process 2 more times for the front and the profile! All the hard work paid off, as Rhys and Hyundai were both happy with the rendering. It ended up getting blasted to all the major automotive sites like Road & Track, Jalopnik, Autoblog and even the Top Gear blog!

Looking forward to the next project with RMR and Hyundai…

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!

Here is a teaser video I put together for Rhys Millen Racing. They wanted to show the changes they made for the 2010 season and that the car is competition ready for the first race this week. There will be a full writeup about this shoot coming soon…

Shot at El Toro Airfield in Irvine, CA.

Puma x Forza 3 Speedcat 2.9

So the other day I received an email from Forza Motorsport 3 and Turn 10 Studios. Wondering how these guys got my email address opened the attached PDF and was delighted to read:

Dear Automotive Photographer / Videographer,

You have been chosen to receive a pair of limited edition Puma x Forza Motorsport 3 shoes. We value your work and passion as an automotive photographer / videographer and would like to show our appreciation for your hard work on and off the track. Your talent has shown through the motorsports imagery you have captured and we would like to thank you for sharing your passion with us.

Please feel free to come check us out online at www.forzamotorsport.net.

Your friends at Turn 10 Studios.

Maybe I made an impression on someone when I shot photos at the Forza 3 Release party?

If you know me well, then you know that I love shoes. My closet is a collection of neatly lined up Pumas, Adidas, DVS and many other shoes. As my girlfriend describes it, “All 60+ pairs are standing at attention!” So you could imagine my delight when I found out they were shipping me FREE SHOES! Not only that, but after doing a little bit research, they are only going to produce 324 pairs of these guys. I think these will make a GRAND addition to the collection.

As Mr. Will Roegge so succinctly put it, “Can’t wait to heel toe in them.”

Thank you Forza Motorsports 3, Turn 10 Studios, ID Agency and my girls Natalie and Chrystina over at Edelman PR.

Crazy treads for intense heel-toe action on Forza Motorsports 3

Business in the front, party in the back!

Embroidered Forza Motorsports 3 Logo on the tongue

I am very happy to announce that I have created a new website for myself. It has been well over a year since I have updated my old site, and it was time to start 2010 off right. I used the Livebooks platform to develop a new site that showcases my photography and video work. Livebooks is essentially a plug and play system for photographers and creative professionals. This solution is currently used by some great photographers like Chase Jarvis and Joe McNally. I figured if they are using it, Livebooks is doing something right.

I am very happy with how easy it was to get up and running. I selected one of the pre-designed templates, signed up for a trial and was uploading content within minutes. The backend is easy enough for anyone to use, even without web design experience. The interface is very smart and makes it very easy to search engine optimize your site as you upload the content. The layout of the site is straight forward and is in a format that a lot of the art buyers are familiar with. There are some great features built in like slideshow options, PDF download and printing capabilities right from the gallery. The images are pre-formatted with all the appropriate contact info on the PDF.

I also like that even though the site is flash-based, Livebooks creates an HTML version of the site for search engine optimization. So if you go on my site with an iPhone, you will be directed to the HTML version so you can still see what it is that I do. The main template is very functional, and for a bit more money I can add modules that will further customize the site.

A big concern was being able to retain existing hosting, but redirect to my Livebooks portfolio. I have a lot of content on the internet that links back to certain directories, and if I had to move everything, it would have been awful. E-mail is the same, and still goes through my existing web host. Livebooks includes hosting with the $39 a month package, but in my case, I did not need it.

So far everything is great. Even their customer support has gotten back to me in a reasonable time to answer the many questions I had. Making a jump like this is not something to take lightly, and they were able to help me out. I will let you know how things go as the integrated Google Analytics start tallying up traffic statistics!