I recently had the opportunity to head down to Santa Catarina, Brazil with the Rhys Millen Racing Team to document their RMR / Red Bull / Hyundai Genesis Coupe up an EPIC mountain Road called Serra Do Rio Do Rastro. This 156 turn 8 kilometer stretch of road is one of the most amazing driving roads I have ever seen. This is a teaser I put together for a full video debuting next week entitled, Climb Attack Brazil. I will document the whole trip in the next blog with the full video. I hope this clip shows quite how crazy the road is. -DC

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!

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.

I made this video for Rhys Millen Racing. They take a new Hyundai Genesis Coupe to a Redline Time Attack event at Willow Springs Raceway. This was a test to see how the new RMR parts help to lower lap times with each group of additions. They started off with a stock car, got a base time and then started modifying everything from wheels, tires, intake, exhaust, differential and suspension.

The day was sooooo hectic that we never really had a chance to sit down and record interviews between each session telling about the modifications. I shot the footage during the event, running back and forth from the pits to the track, trying to get a different angle each session. I had to head down to RMR the next day to get a voiceover of what happened and match footage to the audio. Not ideal, but it worked out well to tell the story of the RMR parts.

RMR 2009 Drift Team Poster

I ran down to Rhys’ shop and took some quick headshots to incorporate into the poster. I used a hero image of the car from the recent El Toro shoot. Coincidentally, it was the last frame shot of the day, after team photos as the car was about to be loaded onto the rig. The light kept getting better and better as time went on, but try explaining that to a crew of people that had been working on the car for at least 14 hours a day for a month straight. Yeah, they wanted to get home and fast… Combined all that together with an image of some of the burned up rubber on the runway to add some character and VIOLA- poster…

Lots of projects that have been going on, so I will make my best attempt to slowly sprinkle them onto the blog… New video in the works too! More to come..

Wow, time flies when you are busy… Thankfully things have calmed down a bit, and life in starting to get back in order. So many things to post, so here are the highlights of the past month.

Old vs. New

So while I was at RMR filming the Genesis being built, Cole went to the swap meet in Huntington Beach and came across these gems:

Old Camera Gear

Okay- so maybe just the ones on the right… What are they you ask? Well the camera is a Kodak Vigilant Six-20.  Some of the info:

“medium format camera was manufactured between 1939-1949 and originally sold for US $38 (about US $560 in 2007).”

Some more photos:

Quite a contrast from my new Canon 5D Mk II..  More on that later…

The other find was a General Electric Dw-58 light meter:    Made around 1946 and at that time sold for $26.50.

Once again- quite a contrast between that and my Sekonic L-358 meter.  I have yet to try them out side by side, but from what I can see, the GE meter is still in working condition, just like the camera.  Thank you Cole for such an awesome purchase…  I can’t wait to load it up with 620 film and shoot some interesting pics.

OK- now for the new toy- the Canon 5D Mk II.  Wow is all I can say- for so many reasons: razor sharp photos, 1080P HD video, HUGE file sizes and being able to see down to people’s pores when  you take photos.  It is seriously amazing…  One major gripe- the old 5D battery grip does not fit this cam, and the batteries are different too.  Oh well, get to drop $400 on new batteries and a battery grip- but one problem…  The batteries are not available anywhere…  :(  I feel awkward shooting vertically with my hand twisted all around- yes, a stupid complaint, but once you are  use to having the vertical grip, its hard to go without it.

Here are some shots from a recent shoot for Hyundai of the cam in action:

Here is the first video I put together using the 5D Mk II and a 70-200 2.8L- IS.  Nothing special, but the video I am putting together as we speak will show some cool depth of field and crazy fisheye shots.

Speaking of new video- another piece of gear that I got to help out in the video making process.. Sony HXR-MC1

Got a chance to use it at Formula D Long Beach and testing at El Toro.  WOW this thing is awesome.  Full 1080 video and it records onto Memory Stick Pro cards.  I will splice some of this video into the new cut as well.

Ok- time to get back to work.  Hopefully I will not neglect the blog like I have been…