The Greatest Road in California

Tahoe Snow Challenge

2010-08-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

Our second film is now online!

We recommend viewing in 720p HD.

direct link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=676CD01B8DABFA6C

forum discussion here: FinalGear Discussion Thread

We're at it again!

2010-01-10T10:39:00.001-08:00

We recently went up to Lake Tahoe, CA to determine what type of car is best for the snow... and of course, for some tangentially-related shenanigans. Here is the teaser for the forthcoming film:

And here are a few still shots:

Europe Driving Montage

2009-06-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

We're in the process of devising our next project. In the meantime, I cut together a bunch of footage from our group's trip to Europe in January 2009. There was a lot of sightseeing and snowboarding stuff that I left out; this is just the driving bits showing some of the roads we drove.

Between the Autobahn in Germany and the twisty alpine passes in northern Italy, there was some fantastic stuff. Of course, we also had a couple mishaps along the way. The video is a short, approximately 4-minute montage. Check out the video here:

Here are some still shots:

Here is a rough map of the route we took through northern Italy:

We've been blogged! (again)...

2009-03-26T22:04:00.001-07:00

We were picked up by another blog, this time one in Belgium!

Check it out here: http://drivr.be/2009/03/19/video-californische-top-gear-hommage/

My Dutch is a little rusty but here is a rough translation of their review:

"Top Gear's format is a unique concept which cannot be copied," I previously wrote regarding the inferior Australian spin-off of the show. Today I must take back those words, because where a huge budget and a professional television team down under failed, three enthusiastic American fans with simple Youtube film succeeded. In an homage to their favorite car show, they use the tested recipe of the cheap car challenge as the premise for a three-day roadtrip in search of the best driving road in California. Sound camera work, a great premise, but in particular, real emotions and comradery against breathtaking scenery; at last a Top Gear takeoff worth watching as much as the original.

We've been blogged!

2009-03-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

Transmission, one of the blogs on the Top Gear site, written by the Mole just did an entry about our video. Feel free to check it out here.

Thanks for all the support.

We've Been Pirated!

2009-02-17T11:12:00.001-08:00

Someone took the time to put together a torrent of our entire film and do an absolutely outstanding write-up summary... check it out:

Three California mates bring you a fan production of The Best Television Show Ever. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this film blends Top Gear themes such as a cheap car challenge, a quest to find the world's greatest driving road, and an iconic unnamed stunt driver; into a perfect tonic for between-series TG deprivation syndrome. If you like Top Gear, you WILL like this, guaranteed or your money back!

If you want to download the entire film via the torrent, here is the link:

Piratebay.org Torrent: A Californian Homage to Top Gear

File size is approx 700MB.

See also: FinalGear.com Discussion Thread
(FinalGear is the #1 Top Gear fansite so we're getting the most feedback from there)

A Californian Homage to Top Gear

2009-01-25T16:17:00.000-08:00

So we finally settled on "A Californian Homage to Top Gear," which, maybe isn't all that inspiring but at least it accurately describes our film. We thought about coming up with a title but ultimately decided to avoid branding ourselves with a silly name.

After long hours editing and much anticipation, we are now releasing the final film!! It's being broken up into 6 parts and is being posted to blip.tv as I type this (and will later be posted on youtube once we sort out format issues).

Click the link below to open iTunes and download the 6 parts as a podcast for your iPhone or iPod.

iTunes link

Click the following links to view the film in its 6 segments:

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

If you want to watch full-quality HIGH DEFINITION versions, you can select Source from the dropdown menu on blip, or go directly to these links:

Part One HIGH DEFINITION

Part Two HIGH DEFINITION

Part Three HIGH DEFINITION

Part Four HIGH DEFINITION

Part FiveHIGH DEFINITION

Part Six HIGH DEFINITION

PART ONE (The First 15 Minutes)

2008-11-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce that Part One, containing the first 15 minutes of our film, is now online and available here!

EDIT: THIS CLIP HAS NOW BEEN REMOVED DUE TO THE FINAL VERSION BEING RELEASED.

Also, see the full discussion thread on the largest Top Gear fansite here:
FinalGear.com Discussion Thread

Still Shots from the Wrap-Up Shoot

2008-10-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

We are getting close to a release! We recently finished filming the wrap-up, so here are some still shots:

Second Trailer!

2008-10-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

The second trailer for this film is now online:

We've gone ahead and decided to do some additional shooting which will be happening sometime this month (October). Ultimately it became necessary to do in order to ensure that the film is really complete when we release it. So we're probably looking at December for a release date.

Blip.tv: blip.tv/file/1320360

YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=_VTjPVQqYrk

Technical filming info from the DP

2008-09-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

WOW, sounds like quite a few people are interested in this project. Below is some technical info I wrote up for one of the forums. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or anything else.

Most external footage was shot on the Panasonic HVX-200. I shot 720p in 30PN mode. We used two 16GB P2 cards, and downloaded them as we drove. I used an old Apple Powerbook as the card reader and dumped the cards to a small portable HDD for the day. At night I would dump the drive to out production 750GB drive. I also used a small little app called P2Formatter to reformat the cards in the computer so I wouldn't have to stop filming to do it in the camera.

Each car was fitted with a small miniDV camera for the driver shots. They were mounted to the windshield with 4 inch suction cups and mounting hardware from Manfrotto. The cameras used were a Canon ZR10 and two Canon ZR40s.

Lastly I fitted a fifth camera outside to various places as a throw away camera. It was a Sony HC85, that I had picked up for free and fixed it. Cracked Lens area and no audio. Perfect material for dusty outside stuff where I didn't want to hurt a camera.

Audio, I'm ashamed to say was not as well equipped, but should work out okay. I used a camera mounted shotgun mic, and a wireless lapel system would I could. The shotgun was an AT835 (mono version) and the lapel mic was a TR50 hooked into a Sennheiser g2 series wireless system.

All of the in-car audio was on-board camera mics, which worked surprising well.

Lighting was tough, as we were constantly on the go. I used a Litepanel mini LED setup on the HVX, and we used, I'm embarrassed to say, car windshield reflectors that go inside to protect your dash when you park your car as bounce for the daytime exterior shots.

I also brought along some open faced 500watt photo lights that I used to light a few of the talking scenes, when I was low on light. I ran those off of a 2000watt Vector Power Inverter that ran off of a spare Red Top Optima battery.

An Apple 1.25GHz Powerbook was used as the card reader and tape capture device. While a 2.4GHz MacBookPro was used for ingesting the HD footage from the .mxf files.

oh ya, and the most impressive and important tool of all was the camera vehicle. It had to haul ass and keep ahead of the BMW, ACR, and Fiat. I filmed a large part of the project out the back or a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I strapped a small shitty plastic tripod down to the tie down points and used it as a camera mount.

When not going handheld (rare for a show like this) I had a cheap Bogen 501 head and sticks for camera support.

Lastly: Why the HVX-200 and not a cheaper HDV camera or more professional ENG style camera?
-no tape, no dropouts due to dust or G-forces and vibration
-HVX-200 is super durable, we were shooting where it was dusty and it performed like a champ
-pretty lightweight good for handheld stuff
-small enough to muscle around in a moving car unlike Sony's CineAlta line or other ENG style cameras.
-I had access to one
-Oh ya, did I mention NO TAPE!! (I hate tape, especially from dusty cameras mounted to cars with stiff suspension)

Anyways, I hope that covers the technical stuff for the most part. Feel free to ask questions, and I really appreciate all the interest in the project. A ton of fun, looking forward to doing more stuff like this.

-CJ Arnesen

Behind the Scenes

2008-09-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

A couple of behind the scenes shots for those who have been asking about our setups:

Questions & Answers

2008-09-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I posted this project on a few message boards. I'd just like to say that we are all very excited about the outpouring of positive response so far!!

A number of people had questions about the project so I will try to address them here to the extent that I can and to the extent that I want to (No, I won't tell you who our Stig is).

Q: When will this be out?
A: This seems to be the most asked question so far, which is awesome! I'm glad people are stoked to see the final product. Unfortunately it's still a ways off, for a number of reasons.

First, we literally just finished production. The trailer was the first thing I did after logging all the footage. I'm just starting to get into editing now. I can reasonably project that the final cut of the film will be ready by the end of the year. But we're not a studio looking to time our release or anything; if it's finished sooner, it'll be out sooner.

Second, we may still shoot more. We've talked about going back to a couple places to get "pickup" shots where we may need them. We've also discussed shooting a Top Gear-style in-studio wrap-up scene for the end of the film once I have a rough cut ready. Either of these will mean a delay in editing, but ultimately a better film once all is said and done. So bear with me, I will keep you updated.

Q: Where were the roads?
A: I won't give away any of the exact locations, but just from the trailer and the stills I've put up, you can probably figure out some of where we were. And, I have already stated that the trip began in San Luis Obispo, so that should give some clues.

Q: Is that a Neon?
A: Yes.

Q: Hoping Andy Wilman will get a look at it, eh?
A: We made this film for fun and for ourselves. We're not trying to get anything out of it. But, it would be awesome if Wilman, or Clarkson/Hammond/May ever saw our final product. I'd love to hear what they think of it.

Q: What did you shoot on/what equipment did you use?
A: I'll let our DP field this question as he knows better than I do.

Trailer on Youtube

2008-08-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

Our 1min trailer is now up on Youtube!

Still Shots

2008-08-31T12:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some still shots I grabbed from the high definition camera:

Overview

2008-08-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

This project was created when my friends and I decided that there were some great roads in California that Top Gear had overlooked in their "World's Greatest Driving Road" segment. We also came together under the common desire to make a film, something we hadn't done as a group for a number of years. We were fortunate enough to have among our group of friends a highly skilled Loyola film graduate pursuing a career as a Director of Photography. His name is CJ Arnesen.

Most of us have finished or are finishing school and we all have different jobs in various fields. Some of us work 9-5 and others work all sorts of odd hours, so coordinating one time that we'd all be available took some doing.

The project was envisioned as a three-day film shoot going up the coast of California, starting in San Luis Obispo. Not having a Top Gear-sized budget, we decided to do it as a "cheap car challenge" and set an arbitrary budget for the cars of $5,000. Not dirt cheap, but not too expensive either -- given our limited time we wanted to be sure we weren't just fixing beater cars for the entire trip, something that could have easily been the case had we gone with a lower budget of say, $1,500. To get everything we'd need in just three days was extremely ambitious and would require us to spend every waking moment working on the film.

Ultimately our shoot was a huge success; we drove some of the greatest roads any of us have ever driven. we met with successes and failures along the way, and encountered challenges, including a very unique race across the streets of San Francisco.

We're now in post-production. Stay tuned for updates.