Hyundai Motor Company North America – Speed Golf with Rhys Millen

Production Company: Self Produced/Rhys Millen Racing

Project: While working on the Leadfoot festival promotional material in New Zealand – Rhys brought up his idea to do a golf cart video with his Hyundai Veloster Rally Car. We had a down day of filming from the Leadfoot spots and we shot this piece – which has been released by Hyundai North America. A golfer uses Rhys and his Hyundai Veloster Rally Car to get to the green the quickest way possible – Speed Golf. Shot in one day.

Role: Director & Editor. Behind the Scenes & golf ball vfx by Skylar Smith.

Shot on the Canon 5D & Panasonic HPX

Special thanks to Rod, Shelly, Rhys & Eddie.

Electronic Arts – Need for Speed “The Run” Promo

Production Company: Self Produced/Need for Speed Branding

Project: Need for Speed was launching their newest title – The Run and asked me to come up with a chase sequence between two of its featured cars. The cars, Vaughn Gittin JR’s 1969 Mustang RTR-X and the present day RTR Mustang GT. We shot out in a highly confidential location in Arizona and were able to pull of some awesome stunt work thanks to the talents of Vaughn Gittin JR and Chris Forsberg who were the stunt drivers in the spot. In post, we cut in Los Angeles with Gypsy Sound doing the audio post work and Jerimiah Morey doing the final color grade. This project was a blast to work on from conception with Charles Kha and Rachel Kelly – all the way to the finishing.

Role: Director & DP, Camera Operators: DC Chavez & Skylar Smith, Color by Jerimiah Morey, Sound by Justin Gay & Gypsy Sound

Shot on the RED One, Canon 5D, Sony EX1, and Canon T2i

Special thanks to Justin Gay & Jerimiah Morey.

Nissan North America – 14th Annual Petit LeMans

Production Company: Digital Guerilla

Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day

Project: Document the Signatech Nissan LMP2 team at the 10 hours of Petit LeMans. As part of a five video series for Nissan North America -promoting Nissan’s racing efforts in a variety of professional racing series – World Challenge, Grand AM, TORC, and ALMS. The Signatech Nissan LMP2 team entered Road Atlanta – leading the LMP2 Intercontinental LeMans Championship. Qualifying 2nd position in LMP2 they finished third in class and clinched the championship before the final race at Zhuhai. The Signatech team was a pleasure to shoot – their future looks very bright.

Role: Director, Co-Editor (DC Chavez/Skylar Smith)

Shot on the Canon 5D and Sony EX1 cameras

Need for Speed – The Making of the RTR-X

Production Company: Need for Speed

Project: Document the build, tuning, and testing of Vaughn Gittin JR’s Mustang RTR-X with interviews with the key people in the conceptualization, design, and build process.

Role: Director/Operator/Co-Editor (Skylar Smith)

Shot on the Canon 5D and T2i cameras.

Special thanks to Charles Kha, Rachel Kelly, Vaughn Gittin JR, Andy Blackmore, Twins Turbo Motorsport, and Skylar Smith – for their help on the project.

Porsche North America/Porsche Motorsports North America – Jeff Zwart Pikes Peak Hill Climb 2011 In-Car

Production Company: Digital Guerilla (self produced)

Project: Jeff Zwart, seven-time Pikes Peak Champion bests his 2010 record setting run by 10 seconds in his street-legal Porsche 911 GT2 RS. He also set the record for the fastest street-legal car to ever race at the Peak. This is the entire run up the hill, captured from a Canon 5D Mii and a Contour HD camera. More details on the race at http://www.ppihc.com

Role: Director and editor.

Shot on the Canon 5d & Contour HD camera

Porsche North America/Porsche Motorsports North America – Porsche, the Road to Pikes Peak

Production Company: Digital Guerilla (self produced)

Project: Jeff Zwart and Porsche Motorsports look to repeat their record setting performance at the 2010 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb – this time in a street legal model the Porsche 911 GT2 RS. The 997 GT2 RS is the most powerful production model Porsche ever made. Instead of trailering the 997 to the base of Pikes Peak – Jeff decided to drive it himself to the race. Clearly not a trailer queen, the GT2 RS achieved a 22+ MPG average on the 1132 mile drive from Santa Ana, California to Pikes Peak, Colorado. The goal of this video was to show the versatility, reliability, and performance of the GT2 RS. One day its cruising around Utah, gas stations, highway driving, mountain roads, drive thru’s, and the next day its putting its 620hp to use as a full blown race car in America’s second oldest race – the Pikes Peak Hill Climb.

Role: Director, camera, and editor – special thanks to Derek Hayes who operated second camera and drove the pursuit car.

Shot on the Canon 5d .

The Mustang RTR-X sounds as good as it looks – amazing. A 1969 Ford Mustang with a present day Ford Racing 5.0L Coyote Engine – breathing with Kinsler Individual Throttle Bodies and controlled by a MOTEC stand-alone ECU. Which allows the tuner to adjust cam angle through the ECU and uses the Ford’s cam position sensor – instead of just disabling that feature. Built and tuned by Twins Turbo Motorsports in Signal Hill, California, dreamed up by Formula Drift champion Vaughn Gittin JR and designed by Andy Blackmore – the RTR-X is a thing of beauty. I cannot wait to shoot it in action.

Here is a quick video I shot and edited featuring the RTR-X and it’s first session on the dynometer. It produced over four hundred horsepower at the wheels – whereas many tuners quote their power output at the flywheel, this is four hundred to the ground. On pump gasoline. A street car. YEEhaw.

Last year, I directed the Cinematic sequences in the upcoming Need for Speed Shift 2.  Now since the game has been announced and details are being released – I can finally talk about my experiences!

The marketing video up top contains live action footage of mine from many different events last year. Team Need for Speed BMW Z3 from Silverstone, SUMO Power Nissan GTR GT1 from Silverstone, Team Need for Speed BMW Z3 from the Dubai 24h race, Vaughn Gittin JR from Irwindale Formula Drift, and interviews with Chris Rado, Vaughn, Rod Chong, and Tommy Milner – that I had the opportunity to shoot and direct for this project. Very cool to see what Charles Kha and the producers were able to do with the Need for Speed Shift 2 in game footage! It’s awesome to see one of my pan shots transform into a shot taken directly form Need for Speed Shift 2′s game play. Having worked on the game – it is a new bar for racing visuals, truly stunning in detail and beauty.

Here is a still from Vaughn Gittin JR’s recent Speedhunters post about Shift 2. Showing Linhbergh standing in for Vaughn as I check the shot and Rod and Vaughn reviewing the script one more time before Vaughn’s performance.

I’m excited for the Shift 2′s release!

Need for Speed – Shift 2 Unleashed Career Intro

Production Company: Need for Speed

Project: Using in-game capture from Shift 2, along with footage of the Team Need for Speed BMW Z4 GT3 and Vaughn Gittin Jr’s Mustang GT Competition drift car, with interview footage of Vaughn Gittin Jr. – to create an overview of the Career in Need for Speed Shift 2.

Role: Director and Camera Operator.

Shot on the Canon 7D.

Speedhunters – SUMO Power Retrospective

Production Company: Speedhunters

Project: Three rounds of FIA GT1 championship edited together to highlight SUMO Power’s inaugural season.

Role: Director, Camera, co-Editor, Colorist. Music by Ekstrak.

Shot on the Canon 7D &Panasonic HPX-170. Converted to Sony XDCAM HD422 50mb/s codec. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks.

NOS Energy Drink – Chris Forsberg 2010

Production Company: Keep Drifting Fun

Project: mix interview segments of professional drifter Chris Forsberg with footage from the 7 event Formula Drift season.

Role: Director, Co-Camera, Editor, Colorist. Additional camera by Joshua Herron. Music by Run Sheng.

Shot on the Canon 7D, Canon T2i, Contour POV, Panasonic HPX-170 & Panasonic HMC-150. Converted to Sony XDCAM HD422 50mb/s codec. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks.

Watch it 1080p with the speakers cranked for the best experience.

NOS Energy Drink – Chris Forsberg @ Formula Drift Irwindale 2010

Production Company: Keep Drifting Fun

Project: Document Chris Forsberg’s weekend at Formula Drift Irwindale 2010 – where he ended the season 6th overall.

Role: Director, Co-Camera, Editor, Colorist. Additional camera by Joshua Herron and Pete Varley. Music by Praun.

Shot on the Canon 7D & Panasonic HMC-150. Converted to Sony XDCAM HD422 50mb/s codec. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks.

Recently did an interview with Will Cannady of Will’s Car Cast. Listen in to find out about how I got started in automotive filmmaker, what’s a medium monster, and more Keep Drifting Fun.

Chris Forsberg (2009 Formula Drift Champion) v James Deane (2010 Pro Drift Champion) in the Great 8 @ Formula Drift Sonoma. Shot on Contour HD cameras.

Team Need For Speed/Speedhunters – Ask Team Need for Speed

Production Company: Speedhunters/Need For Speed

Project: Pose a prompt to the Speedhunters audience and ask for questions to the drivers of Team Need for Speed.

Role: Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Colorist.

Filmed over the course of 6 months – covering Formula Drift New Jersey to Formula Drift Sonoma. On location in Vancouver, British Columbia and in Marseille, France. Converted to Sony XDCAM HD422 50mb/s codec. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks. Motion graphics by Josh Awesome. Music by Guilty About Girls

NOS Energy Drink – Chris Forsberg @ Formula Drift Sonoma 2010

Production Company: Keep Drifting Fun

Project: Document Chris Forsberg’s weekend at Formula Drift Sonoma 2010 – where he finished fourth.

Role: Director, Co-Camera, Editor, Colorist.

Shot on the Canon 7D & Panasonic HMC-150. Converted to Sony XDCAM HD422 50mb/s codec. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks.

Blue Media – Behind the Scenes – :60 Promo

Production Company: Keep Drifting Fun

Project: Behind the Scenes look at Phoenix, Arizona’s leading provider of design and printing for vehicle graphics, large format printing and environmental graphics.

Role: Director, Co-Camera, Editor, Colorist.

Shot on the Canon 7D, Panasonic HMC-150 & Panasonic HPX-170. Converted to Sony XDCAM HD422 50mb/s codec. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks.

Thanks to BlueMedia for supporting Keep Drifting Fun.

Team Need For Speed/Speedhunters – Behind the Scenes – Speedhunters

Production Company: Speedhunters/Need For Speed

Project: Interview and create a narrative thread that familiarizes the Speedhunters audience with the team that creates the content.

Role: Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Colorist.

Shot on the Canon 7D and the Pansonic HPX-170. Converted to Sony XDCAM HD422 50mb/s codec. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks. Motion graphics by Josh Awesome.

NOS ENERGY DRINK – Chris Forsberg POV @ Formula D Seattle

Production Company: Keep Drifting Fun

Project: Shoot an entire Formula Drift event with Contour HD Point Of View cameras.

Role: Co-Director, Graphics, and Co-Camera Operator, Edited by Joshua Herron

Shot exclusively with the CONTOUR HD cameras. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Graded in Magic Bullet Looks.

For Formula Drift Atlanta, Josh and I decided to follow each of Chris’ runs and produce a 7 minute video that was an in-depth look into the competition. For Formula Drift New Jersey, we made a widescreen cinematic visual narrative short. Both videos were radically different from previous drift videos and marked a new level in quality for individual driver re-cap features. For Keep Drifting Fun, we teamed up with Contour HD and started using their 1080p POV cameras on and in-car to capture a different perspective of grassroots drifting. I wanted to make an entirely POV based short. I worked on the Need for Speed – Driver’s experience films as a camera operator and had experienced the challenges of mounting cameras to drift cars and drivers. With Contour HD’s support and utilizing Chris Forsberg’s own Contour HD cameras we mounted around 6 cameras to the car for each run. Downloading each camera between rounds, making changes to camera placement, and settings. This is no easy task on a professional drift car – where body panels are zip tied in place and the fiberglass panels tend to vibrate and move under the violent action that is drifting.

Thanks to NOS, Contour HD, Chris, Kevin, and Sergio – for their support with this project. It was a big risk and I’m pleased with how Josh’s edit came out from the coverage we acquired with the Contour HD cameras. Another first.

Team Need For Speed – Formula Drift – Seattle In-Car with MadMike Whiddett

Production Company: Speedhunters/Need For Speed

Project: Short in-car clip of Mad Mike Whiddett utilizing the Contour HD 1080p Camera.

Role: Director, Editor, Colorist.

Shot on the Contour HD, converted with MPEG Streamclip to XDCAM 1080/30p 35mb/s, edited in Final Cut Pro, graded with Magic Bullet Looks.