VOW – Joshua Herron’s FD Vegas

Formula D Las Vegas “All In” from Joshua Herron on Vimeo.

In case you have been absent from the internet for the past week- Hobo Herron’s video has been doing all the right things. That is why it’s my pick for Video Of the Week Joshua Herron‘s Formula Drift Las Vegas “All In”.

Set to Bloc Party’s “Banquet”, Josh does an excellent job of capturing the “high impact” moments from Formula Drift Las Vegas. Josh is in all the right locations – at all the right times. From Vaughn Gittin Jr’s smash to Ryan Tuerck’s bunny hop. Josh’s edit has the moments that made Formula Drift Las Vegas exciting to watch. Set to Bloc Party, the video has more amplitude and is faster paced then my edit to the Strangler’s “Golden Brown”. It could be the heroin and girl induced theme of the Strangler’s song- but Banquet is a far more energetic choice for the action depicted in Josh’s compilation.

Josh also does an excellent job of juxtaposing Pro Am footage with Pro footage. Capturing Forrest Wang’s nasty initiations and bumper rips on the outside clipping point to Justin Pawlak’s taillight exploding on contact with the barrier. The diversity in cars, drivers, and shots make for a strong edit.

Here is my score card:

• Cinematography: 4.5/5
• Edit: 4/5
• Music: 4.5/5
• Color Grading: 5/5
• Overall: 4.5/5

Cinematography, for being entirely hand-held was super smooth. One of Josh’s strengths. His ability to shoot hand-held is second to none. Editing, I feel like the pacing of the song and the edit don’t match. The edit is strong, but could have been faster paced. It might be my ADD calling, because I have a difficult time watching videos for more than a few seconds- my own videos included. Faster cuts for faster BPM. Music, superb choice with Bloc Party. Good energy. Dramatic changes in tempo and feel – great for a powerful edit. Grading is where this edit shines for me personally. Josh used Colorista and Looks to make an unobtrusive grade that is tasteful and is not over-done like our New Jersey edits. Which were intensely over-graded. Too good effect, but not for every video. Josh proves his versatility by making another solid edit from a parking lot drift course. Similar to his powerful edit from D1GP Anaheim. I don’t feel like this is Josh’s best video to date, considering the course, environment, and the action – the video is a huge success. Josh’s Las Vegas edit is better than my edit, which intentionally contains little drifting and is a humanistic study of the driver.

I wondered how viewers would react to my change in content and focus on driver over action. What do you think of Josh’s edit?