The Hobo has done it again. My pick for Video Of the Week is Joshua Herron’s Formula Drift 2009. Excellent song selection and shots of the personalities that make FD great. Glad to see Josh is doing big things in 2010. The best part is that Hobo was able to assemble this edit without attending two of the seven events this season. Make a small bag of popcorn and enjoy!

Joshua ‘Hobo’ Herron did this interview for Death Machines. When Josh was out visiting me a few months back we shot both of our interviews at the same time. Josh’s came out great. He was able to cut together his funny answers and capture his personality better than mine. Mine comes off a bit stiff – which was intentional. Josh’s though, gives you a better sense of his humor and random style.

Enjoy it. I expect big things from Josh in 2010. 2010. 2010.

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?

The RMR rig parked and at the ready to unload for Pike’s Peak testing.

Follow along with me to Colorado Springs with the Rhys Millen Racing crew to practice for the 2009 Pike’s Peak International Rally.

More photos after jump.

A little before 4:30am Costa and Rhys unload the Genesis Coupe.

As the sun starts to light up the day- bikes and cars get ready at the line to run the first quarter of the hill climb.

This is my best Point N Shoot Linhbergh monster pan impression.

Got the chance to drive a brand new 09 Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Really liked it! The V6 makes plenty of power & the interior was clean!

*Note, I am a huge moron and assumed the temperature on Pike’s Peak would be a comfortable 70 degrees- like Colorado Springs. Imagine my surprise when I had to run to Dick’s Sporting Goods to pick up the camouflage hunting beanie and hoodie last minute so I could stand the 40 degree mornings. Idiot.

10am time to pack up until testing tomorrow morning.

Trees!

Top half of the mountain location scouting.

Josh climbs up for a higher view.

Josh was probably saying how “over neck beards” he is or how high altitude gives you gas. I agree. Neck beards make your chin disappear.

Lady bugs at 13,000ft.

I’m excited.

Rhys heads back to the rental car.

High altitude groundhogs are common. I’ve heard they enjoy the views.

Parting shot. Colorado railroad.

My Video Of the Week pick is here. Joshua Herron’s Long Beach 2009 edit. Great song by RJD2 , dupa smooth dolly shots, nice tilts, pans, super smooth camera control- which fits well with the car control exhibited between the walls off Long Beach. Josh has really stepped his game up with this edit. 

Not bad for a dude that has been sleeping on my couch. 

Stay up for big things from Joshua Herron for the rest of 2009. 

Framing up a shot in my Cosby sweater.

April 10th & 11th, 2009 was the first round of the 2009 Formula Drift Season at Long Beach. The Long Beach track is a portion of the setup used by the Long Beach Grand Prix which is held the weekend after Formula D. This year, shooting for StreetFire.net instead of Riceboytv- Ricky Chu, Ricardo Glock, Joshua Herron, and I set out to shoot the event. Here are some images from my Panasonic LX2 from the new StreetFire office in downtown LA, Korean BBQ Tacos courtesy of Scion (thanks Fred), some dupa fresh clouds, and of course drifting from LBC.

Check it out:

If you didn’t know this about me- I really like clouds. In Southern California we don’t get many big white fluffy clouds. When we do, I’m usually lost in them- like this past week. Head in the clouds. Reminding me of someone special…

Joshua Herron is in town and crashing on my couch- nice having two different S14′s to drive everywhere. Plus some much video dorking out.

Crazy J shift knobs are what the slider kids are rockin.

When you ride shotgun you can take photos and enjoy your world a bit more.

110 North express lanes overhead – I dig how it looks. Stacks and stacks of highways.

Downtown Los Angeles.

Outside the StreetFire.net office/loft

Inside the new digs.

8 stories low.

Downtown Long Beach. Dark skies.

Rik and I schemed to get our hard cards with photos of us with cowboy hats on- no luck.

Head in the clouds.

JTP, Justin Pawlak’s FC RX7

The new Bergenholtz racing RX8

Ricky Chu takes over so I can shoot some stills

Ross Petty’s rasta S15, remember the white S15 Ross was driving in Mexico- looks a little different now. Very nice from Garage BOSO.

Formula Drift starting grid

Korean BBQ steak and tofu tacos courtesy of Fred Chang and Scion.

Kogi Korean BBQ tacos

Ricardo Glock and Ricky Chu approve.

Couple of crazy supercharged G35s.

Victor’s Emergency Hookers towing service

Pat’s freshly painted Nissan 240sz S14, gold with white and red graphics- running an AIT body kit. 

Glad to see everyone out at Formula Drift! Till next time.

Video Of the Week, Joshua Herron‘s Media Day edit. 

Josh works the eazy dolly and gets some awesome dolly shots along the fence at the Long Beach course for Formula Drift Media Day.

Super smooth dollies with foreground fence movement- combined with drifting looks phenomenal. 

Rhys Millen and the RMR crew putting the trunk lid and wing on the Red Bull Hyundai Genesis Coupe. DC Chavez asked me to shoot with him at Rhys Millen’s test out at El Toro air field. The infamous strip that has been home to Samuel Hubinette’s BF Goodrich hangar drift advertisement and Ken Block’s Gymkhana Practice video. El Toro is also a sweet spot to do some testing and tuning- with miles of runway to play on.

Joshua Herron and I joined up with DC Chavez to shoot the practice for Hyundai. Josh brought along his new EZ-Dolly and we go to compare the Panasonic HVX side by side with the Sony EX-1. Something I’ve always wanted to compare on a shoot.

Check, Check, Check it out…iPhone photos.

Rhys checks out the hood of the coupe.

EX-1 at the ready. 

El Toro, former air base. A few of the old hangars in the back ground.

Old classrooms inside the hangars.

Broken windows. Decaying facilities. 

The blue and silver paint with the gold Enkei RPF1′s are great looking.

The Panasonic HVX and EZ Dolly lined up for some interior hangar beauty shots. Really impressed with the EZ Dolly so far. 

The LCD on the HVX is not as sharp as the EX-1′s. It’s also standard 4×3 shaped. While the EX-1 only shoots in 16×9 aspect ratio.

Getting prepped for some more passes after lunch.

Parting shot. The red roof beams inside the hangar looked stellar in contrast to the greenish tinted floor. 

Thanks to DC Chavez, Joshua Herron, and Rhys Millen for making the day fun and exciting. I can’t wait to see how they end up using our footage and to make an edit out of the footage I have from the testing. Stay posted.

Joshua Herron along with Patrick Mordaunt went to Tokyo, Japan for a week during Tokyo Auto Salon. He made this edit with his Panasonic DVX-100b (ps). Its a very cool edit. Enjoy my pick for Video Of the Week. 

As featured on speedhunters.com and wreckedmagazine.com here is my pick for Video Of the Week- Joshua Herron’s Ziptied All Star Bash V edit. Josh did a sweet job of combining a killer track – EPMD – K.I.M. and some clean color grading + a nice mix of drifting action and scene establishing shots to make this edit really fonky fresh. Keep droppin dem hammers Josh.

And watch out for my cameos. I’ll be that crazy guy with the neon vest on pretending to crank a mechanical film camera.

One of the coolest things about art is how differently people interpret the same scene. Josh Herron and I were shooting from the same locations for most of the event. If you watch my teaser compared to Josh’s you will notice some similarities, but the greatest thing is seeing how Josh cuts together the moments he captured differently. It really reminds me of being in art classes in high school and drawing still life. Same group of objects, slightly different angle, completely different outcome. So dig on Josh’s edit for a minute – you’ll be glad you tried out his perspective.