This is a time lapse I shot from a second story porch in West Hollywood yesterday. It was taken my with Digital SLR Canon 30d picture camera and interlaced together in a video. It’s almost 700 photographs and then sped up to add more motion and effect. I am going to work on some longer ones in the near future. This was mostly a test with my camera to see how it would work out. I will have quite a few of these coming out so subscribe to me on Vimeo or my Youtube.
As you all know if your a frequent blog follower that we produce NOS Energy Drink’s NOS TV series. To close out the 2007 season we headed to Miami, Florida for Hot Import Nights. This is our quick trailer from the show and we have a full version from the event coming out soon. The black Bentley in our video looked amazing. We had a blast in Miami Beach and enjoyed some amazing weather and food for December. Love to hear some feedback from everyone.
Will Roegge flew out to Atlanta and came on the drive to Los Angeles and probably had no idea what he was getting himself into. Four days later we wound up in Los Angeles and I got moved into my new place already. He did a great job capturing some good memories of our travels except cut all the good stuff about aliens because he doesn’t believe in them…but Will is still good by me, he will believe one day. Check out the video and stay peeled to UrbanRacer as more of the story goes live soon.
For day two we rolled out of Mississippi and found this abandoned motel called the Journey Motel Court and did a mini photo shoot that is on Urbanracer.
This photo I snapped on a local highway in Arkansas as we detoured and explored around Little Rock, Arkansas.
Then in Oklahoma we caught the sunset right off I-40 and camped out for the night. Day 3 of the trip we really hit the open roads and have some fun in our G37 which is right around the corner. To read the full day two story just head on over to UrbanRacer.com or click this link: http://www.urbanracer.com/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=3568&z=2
This is something I was writing for PM Lifestyle but I want to share this with you guys here. I shot this sequence and for anyone who has done SEMA or tried to shoot in a large crowd you should know how great it was to get this shot off. Thanks to Jason and Phil for shoving people out of my way to make this great video happen. The ACP rally shooting was my favorite sequence we shot at the 2008 SEMA show. Somehow we managed in the middle of the SEMA show to shoot one long continuous take around the K&N booth with the ACP rally team. The video starts with the Evo 9 image flipping over from the 2008 X-Games event and we walk to the Evo 10 that is hanging from the ceiling. What an amazing layout and Andrew and Jen just busted out a great interview on the first take. Our tripod dolly really came into play for the 2008 SEMA show for this interview. I had a blast filming this ACP interview for NOS TV.
So I have so much I need to talk about. SEMA 2008, the death spiral of General Motors, LA Auto Show, new content, and new features across Wrecked Magazine. We even have tons of new and excited stuff going on at Wrecked’s parent PM Lifestyle right now as well. So I haven’t forgotten about you blogites, great stories are coming soon. Right now I have to tackle some P/L charts, clean up the palace, and pay our 31-60 day late utility bill that was buried on my desk under some Fuze bottles and misc. credit card offers. And yes, that is me laying dead on Thursday at SEMA and Evan from Exedy sitting on top of me. I have no idea what is going on, who took this picture and why it’s on my blog. Ok this post is done.
After this accident at HIN Nightshift Phoenix I have been in some debates on forums about the safety of media at events and I must say that some people’s replies have really blown me away. After watching this incident happen at HIN and witnessed other accidents in similar environments I think we need to grow up as a motor sports community already.
As someone who owns a company in the media business and does a ton of work around the automotive industry I just see something lacking in a major way. Don’t misunderstand me for a minute either, we have been to these same HIN demo’s and our crew has filmed them in the same fashion as the people above in this accident video. The link below is a video we made for NOS Energy Drink at Hot Import Nights: Nightshift New York. http://videos.streetfire.net/video/HIN-Nightshift-New-York_167950.htm
Now the shot you see from the Drifting demo seems very harmless because no accident had happened but that was filmed by a friend in film of ours who isn’t exactly an automotive media expert. If something were to of happened, he probably had no idea the danger he could of been in around that area. The other thing is anyone with a general credential can walk right up to that wall at HIN or into a hot zone of Formula D. Especially on the Formula D side I think they need to move into a teered system of media.
There is no reason many of the people cluttering the media pits at these events should be inside the area they are in and it just makes it generally more difficult for people who know what they are doing and have a purpose to get their job done. I have witnessed (especially this season at Formula D) some people just doing very dumb things on a hot track even though Formula D takes many great precautions for the media’s safety. Sadly Formula D cannot babysit everyone in the media section constantly observe them to assure they are not doing irrational things but they have to take the liability. Look at this perfect example from Formula D Long Beach. This kid during qualifying hopped on the k-rail and took photos for several runs until security ran and took him down.
This is the major issue I really see that is going on. When you receive a media pass at HIN, NOPI, BOTI, Formula D, Pro Am or any other organization no one delineates you from a official media partner, 5 year shooting professional, blogger, kid on Flickr, local forum or anything. This is where I think a teer system can help everyone’s headache and safety. I think bloggers and local forums/sites are a key and should never have to pay to enter an event but do they really need to be allowed inside the hot media area? Perhaps we need an approval/vouch system to get into the hot area or you have to attend an event first under a cold pass to understand more of what is going on?
Another main reason that got me motivated to right this post is the events that I witnessed at Irwindale Speedway this year. So Friday I woke up wayy early to attend a mandatory media meeting which was no problem. I was upset but swallowed my pride and rolled into this meeting even though I had to bolt out to LAX right after and then head right back to the track. Well after being told for a good amount of time the basics we left and were told we had to come to the meeting tomorrow. I show up to the next meeting on Saturday which wasn’t as early but seemed as brutal time wise. The basics were like don’t run out on the track, don’t be an idiot, stand here, don’t stand here. Well during the main event what does someone do? They jump right across the k-rail while track is hot. The course worker spots them and they did get yelled at immediately. It’s like really though? What if something happened to the guy? Was he really someone worth having the liability of being in a hot zone of the race track? Hopefully he will not be allowed to return after a brash action like that took place. With all of this being said, I want to hop off my soapbox by saying that most of these concerns I am bringing here because I hope we can get this stuff solved before a fatality is caused in the sport. That I feel would be tragic for all of us in the community. If anyone would wish to contact me I am open to help with any way to improve safety at venues from grassroots to the professional series. Just drop a line through the contact form and I will get back to you.
Not to long ago Wall Speedway was home of Drifting in the the northeast and I have to admit I miss this track dearly. While going through some archived footage we dug up this awesome tandem battle with Ross Petty and Rhys Millen from the 2007 Formula D first round of Top 16. Ross Petty spent the WHOLE time before the run revving and doing burnouts at Rhys. They rolled off the bank and Ross Petty smashed right into him resulting in a zero score for him. Rhys came back and responded with some aggressive tandem right back at him. What a great race these two guys had at the Old Wall Speedway.
I headed out to Los Angeles for the 2008 X-Games in Los Angeles, California to document ACP’s NOS Energy Drink Mitsubishi Evo take on the Rally-X.
Walking around the rally pits I found a R35 Nissan Skyline which was amazing. I hadn’t seen a red one on the streets in person yet, I really like it.
More pit action…..
Check out the amazing view we had at the Home Depot Center from NOS Energy Drink’s hospitality at the end of the stadium. It was great for watching the rally jump during competition.
Check out Tanner Foust mid air on the jump during the first round of Rally.
ACP squared off in the second round to face Dave Mirra in his Subaru WRX. Tragedy struck the NOS team when they were unable to clear the landing completely and the car proceeded to flip. Since PM Lifestyle (our parent company) was producing a NOS TV episode from X-Games Rally we happened to have an in car camera inside the Evo rally car. Check out the video from the accident.
The only noticeable damage that happened to our stuff was the DV tape got this white spot on it. The camera came out with a few minor scratches and we have already used it again, amazing!
Rolling back through downtown LA we spotted the Goodyear Blimp up in the air.
Downtown Los Angeles
A friend loaned us his new BMW M6 for a while which we got to terrorize LA with. What a blast! Sadly we didn’t find the “power” button until after having the car for an hour. Make sure to turn that off when test driving (it’s to the right of the shifter). We got a whooping sub 6.0mpg and had an amazing time driving this well built machine.
Last but not least before sending LA off we had to hit up The Pantry in downtown LA which was by our hotel. It’s the longest standing resteraunt opened in the United States, they stayed open everyday through the great depression…..pretty wild.
