dc chavez – the BLOG

So this is the big one that I have been working on for a while, but couldn’t talk about. Now that they have officially unveiled the car at the Chicago Auto Show, I can talk.

I have been doing a lot of work for Rhys Millen Racing in the past few months and he recommended my work to Hyundai. I have been helping out since before SEMA- creating a video of the “Art of Speed” car as it was being built. This was blasted all over the internet and at SEMA. After the great response from the media and consumers, Hyundai decided to go drifting with Rhys behind the wheel. This is where I came in.

We needed renderings of what the car was going to look like for the 2009 season. I used the studio photography from the Art of Speed car and built upon it to make the car look real so it could be painted, put on the RMR transporter and media CD’s for the Chicago Auto Show. See the process below. MANY painstaking hours went into this final product, with Rhys at my side for good deal of them saying “Move that higher, lower, bigger, smaller…”

Here is the final car image- I didn’t take this one…

Can’t forget the team transporter..

And the media CD Cover for the Chicago Auto Show:

So from this rendering came the final car. Hyundai hired me to shoot photos of the vehicle and also to make a video for the unveiling of the car at the Chicago Auto Show. Here are the results:

Here is the link to the full gallery:

So from this came the video… Hyundai used this video as part of the unveiling in Chicago. They had PR people and Rhys talking about the project, showed the video and then pulled the silk off the car. This was debuted on Edmunds.com Inside Line concurrently with the unveiling of the car. Here are some shots of it happening on Autoblog. They were looking for something dynamic that showed the car moving… QUICKLY! “Sideways with lots of smoke” was the actual request… This was all shot in one afternoon, using my XH-A1 and Rhys’ HVX-100A, edited in Final Cut Pro and color graded in Color.

RMR / Hyundai Drift Genesis from DC CHAVEZ on Vimeo.

It has been an awesome project to be a part of. Hyundai is a great company to do business with and I am pretty stoked that they have given me creative license to do what I want. I am sure this is not the last time you will hear of me cranking out projects for Hyundai. Heck- I might even have some in the works as we speak- but of course I can only tell you later.

So I will be adding lots of the new content that has been sitting around for a while… I have been so busy that its hard to find the time to get it online. I am now officially MAKING time to do this.

So I got a call a while back from my friend Rhys Millen asking if I did videos. He mentioned he had a top secret project that he wanted to make a video of. I signed on, dropped a LOT of money on new camera gear (Canon XH-A1, Sennheiser wireless lapel mics, Audiotechnica Shotgun mic, a new Apple 8-Core video editing workstation, Apple 20″ monitor and lots of other accessories) and started shooting.

The super secret project was the build up of a new Hyundai Genesis Coupe. This car is really nice- especially considering the fact that its a Hyundai. It has completely changed the way that I see the brand. Unlike Domestic automakers, Hyundai has done their homework on what consumers want in a car. They hit a home run. This is the video that shows the whole process- from stock car to carbon fiber, track-ready machine.

This is the culmination of 8 days filming in Huntington Beach and 2 hours at Buttonwillow raceway.  This video was debuted at the SEMA show and has received well over 150,000 views and counting.  I only wish we had more time at the track to get some better action shots.  I was also shooting photos for Modified Magazine on track, so it cut into our action sequence time.  Thankfully, the photo session was not a waste- the images made the cover of the December 2008 issue and was featured as the main story.

Enjoy!

RMR Hyundai Genesis Coupe Build from DC Chavez on Vimeo.