BANGERS 'N MASH PT. I

One last trip for 2011.

Ryan and I are out in Ireland for a few days. We shot a wedding for one of Ryan's boys yesterday in Killkenny. The afterparty lasted until 5AM. No kidding.





Few new Irish friends from the pub.


That's Shane and his brother Ross. Shane's dream is to visit America because we wants to try Wendy's and Hooters.



Flight over was actually not too bad. We flew Air New Zealand from LAX to Heathrow. I was sort of dreading the 10 hour flight but Air NZ was so legit it was actually really chill. All free on-demand TV and movies, nice staff and two good meals including chocolate Santas and Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

Tomorrow morning we're checking out the Ring of Kerry. Anyway, internet's sort of dodgy here. More pictures soon. Talk to you lads later.

CATCHING UP

Back on my blog game.

Things got hectic last week, here's what you missed.

TUESDAY we went to a dinner with Tim Cadiente from Barton Perreira. It was sort of a Wrap Party for a shoot we helped work on a couple weeks ago. I'll throw some photos of that up as soon as I'm officially allowed to. Anyway, had some steak at 555 East in Long Beach - good time.


Got this sample of AeroShot Energy in the mail - it's like breathable flavored energized mist or something that comes in a little inhaler cartridge. Neither Matt nor I drink coffee - we'll see how this goes.

WEDNESDAY we went up to The ID Agency offices in LA and cast actors for a little commercial shoot we're working on.


We're also working on a small thing next week for Shriner's Hospitals for Children and they mailed us a few flash drives. We're shooting some stuff for them at this year's Tournament of Roses Parade.


A couple issues of Arkitip came in the mail - old and new. This Sheperd Fairey one with a stencil cover is legit - I'm looking forward to catching up on these.

THURSDAY Matt went up to Santa Barbara and he and our boy Josh actually shot video of a wedding proposal for Cloudless. The client hired a planner, a photographer and us to document the entire proposal - kind of a cool idea.

Meanwhile Ryan and I went to The ID Agency Holiday Party. Sushi, bowling and karaoke (don't look at me, it was not my idea). Anyway, really good time. Nice to chill with everyone outside the office. Ryan and I hit Krispy Kreme on the way home, came back to OC and went to sleep around 3AM and woke up 5 for the commercial shoot.


FRIDAY we shot at a private gun range out in Simi Valley all day. Shoot went well. More details later.


Our 0484 Holiday cards arrived from the printer. I'm leaving tomorrow for a week so these will probably start making their way out the door in early January. Whatevs, not too worried about it.


SUNDAY New sneakers courtesy of my brother. Would've been such a perfect Christmas if only the Lakers could've executed down the stretch. Oh well. Rose is a beast. Lakers reserves look real questionable (and pale).

Anyway, Ryan and I are going on a little trip. I'm currently downloading Horrible Bosses, Reservoir Dogs and Page One: Inside The New York Times on the iPad in preparation for the flight. Sort of a random movie assortment, right? Our flight is this afternoon - I haven't started packing yet but the good news is that I did just find my passport.

MAKR

Stopped by the Makr Carry Goods studio over in Winter Park last week.

Matt and I had like half a day free when we were in Orlando so we decided to go check this place out. Makr is basically a high end, hand crafted specialty product design company started by this guy Jason Gregory a few years back.



To be honest with you, I really hardly knew anything about Makr before we went down there. I'd seen a few of their products online and in magazines before but I'd never spent much time on their site or purchased anything. But, I went on The New York Times Travel section to find some cool stuff in the Orlando area and Makr's studio popped up there.

I had no plans or contacts at Makr, just thought we'd pop into their showroom / workshop and look around a bit.



So we walked in and met Shane, who basically runs the place, and he gave us a tour of the studio and sort of just explained how it all goes down. Almost everything is made onsite, by hand, and they're really stringent about quality and overseeing their supply chain. Anyway, Shane was cool - he introduced us to the rest of the guys working there and we actually ended up all grabbing lunch together.

Shane's just out of business school and handles that side of things for Makr. It was really interesting to sit down with him and talk about the phenomenon which is Makr in terms of the the numbers and how the financials effect the business decisions.

Makr is an incredible story and it's completely emblematic of the time we're living in right now. This guy Jason quit his job, bought a used laser cutting machine and started designing handmade leather wallets in his apartment. A few years later, they've blown up largely thanks to the power of the internet. And now they're making dozens of products, have expanded into furniture, and despite being carried at a select group of boutiques all over the world, they're still moving a ton of product direct to consumers from their website. This guy took a laser cutting machine and pieces of leather and created a million dollar global brand that sets all it's own terms, has a cult online following and does not advertise at all.



Anyway, really cool company with an amazing story - very inspiring and insightful visit. Glad we decided to take the time and go pop our heads in over there. The alternative was killing time at Epcot center but that'll have to wait until our next trip.

WTT

Clocked out early yesterday and went up to Staples to see Jay and Kanye.



No opening acts so you sort of just chill for a couple hours at first. Drake showed up and everyone went nuts as he walked through the crowd. Then H.A.M. came on and everything kicked off.



3 hours of hits. Amazing. Their solo stuff was even better to me than the WTT tracks and it's unbelievable how many smashes they each have. Gold Digger, Hard Knock Life, All Falls Down, Jesus Walks, Big Pimpin, Black Album hits, 808 songs, everything.



Izzo comes on and they talk about how that was Kanye's first Rocafella record. Kanye always mentions the fact that he used to be a Jay-Z fan - he went to the Hard Knock Life tour in '98 in Chicago as a fan. When you see where he's at now - that's just so unbelievable to think about.





Really cool atmosphere. Both Jay and Kanye seemed to be in really chill moods. Near the end of the show, a fan handed Jay a vinyl album cover from The Blueprint and he and Kanye both signed it while onstage.



And then of course, the encore. Ni**as in Paris. 10x in a row. Seriously. Back to back to back. The song will probably be stuck in my head for the rest of year. Not mad about it.

ORLANDO I

Quick peak at our trip down to the Magic Kingdom.






Very cool couple days down south. Shut down Disney World Speedway and shot some stuff with our boy Tayler Malsam.


More details soon. I need some sleep. We're filming in Chino tomorrow morning and the call time is at dawn. The shoot actually conflicts with the Lakers ticket presale so I'm typing up a list of games and seating preferences to send to Spellman right now. #priorities #firstthingsfirst

WHAT'S NEXT?

For this, the 300th NoBizPlan entry, a preview of something new that we recently started.

It's been about a year since we started getting serious about producing videos for the web. Last November we flew out to Charlotte and Miami and shot a profile of TaylerMalsam, a young up and coming NASCAR driver. In the past 12 months we've shot a ton of different types of videos focusing on varying subjects and events.

For the past 6 months or so, we've been kicking around ideas of shooting a series of videos solely for ourselves. Something self initiated and not commissioned by any client or sponsor. A project that would allow us to tell stories in our own way and cover stuff which we find interesting.

Finally, recently, everything just sort of came together and we got the ball rolling. Matt and Ryan and I shot the first of these videos this week in LA along with our boy DJ Hapa. There are a long list of people whom I had in mind for this video series but Hapa was our first choice to kick this off. I'm thankful for how gracious he was in giving us his time and attention for this.

Anyway, really don't want to say too much more about it at the moment, but we're hoping to launch the whole thing sometime next month and I'm excited about it.

In the meantime, tomorrow morning Matt and I fly to Orlando to shoot new stuff with Tayler as he prepares for the 2012 Nationwide Series. Stay tuned.

DRIVES ON DRIVES ON DRIVES

Ryan dropped these off with us while he was out of town.

It's about 19TB (that's terabytes) of footage nestled in a little custom fit waterproof, shockproof Pelican case. And 19TB is a lot - there are dozens and dozens of projects in here.

One of the things I never really thought about before we got too deep into this video production game was how you store, backup and transport all of the footage in a way that's safe and somewhat organized. It can be a major headache.



The data on these hard drives means everything. Without them, there can be no projects, no videos, etc. Bottom line, there'd be a lot of frowning people around if something happened to all of this stuff. We go through great lengths to be extra careful about handling it and backing it all up. And then consider this, the bigger the project, the more elaborate the production, the more valuable the footage becomes - the more nervous I get about the whole situation.

For example, when we were in Mexico for 10 days, we downloaded all of the footage - audio, video and GoPro stuff - to a portable 1TB drive that we named 'DUCATI MEXICO 1'. Each day we backed up all of that footage to a larger powered 3TB drive aptly named 'DUCATI MEXICO BIG DOG'. During the days, we kept the 2 drives in separate suitcases and in separate cars whenever possible. By the time we got to the last couple days of the trip we made yet a third copy of everything - hundreds of GB of data by that time. When we left the hotel, we would hide the third copy in a separate hotel room on a separate floor than the others - just in case.

We even brought extra blank hard drives with us - just as standby substitutes in the event of a hard drive emergency. That's usually not necessary, because there's a Best Buy around every corner, but it was Mexico so we had to be way over prepared.



It's weird. It seems paranoid, I know, but you sort of have to be that way in order to be safe. You don't want to lose the data. Trust me.

Back your stuff up everybody. And hide the copy safely. You'll thank me later.

DUCATI PANIGALE PREMIERE

Our recap vid from last week's 1199 Panigale unveiling.

Keep your eyes peeled, besides the runway models and the bike itself, there are some quick cameos from John Conway of The Bravery and one of the kids from Nip/Tuck.

Shout out to The ID Agency and Ducati.

0484DESKTOP

Random new stuff lying around the office this week.


Ryan's such a sweetheart. He picked up a couple new books for me recently. The Jobs bio, of course.


The new Seth Godin joint is about the end of 'mass culture' and how the digital age gives rise to more choices and customization of everything across the board. Hope to get around to reading these one day soon.


Album of the year(?). As much as I was awaiting this album, when it leaked a few weeks back I never bothered to download the bootleg. Not because of any ethical piracy qualms - definitely not - but in cases like this, I'd just rather wait and get the final product the way the artist intended - the real versions of the songs, the full sequenced album, etc.

It's definitely slower and more introspective than Thank Me Later. A lot more similar to So Far Gone. I like 'Look what you've done'. I'm a sucker for personal storytelling types of songs.


Passes from last week's Panigale premiere. CNN actually ran a short piece about Ducati the other day, check it out.


For the past couple of years we've used an online time-tracking and invoicing system called Harvest. It's really convenient, easy to use, etc. Keeps things organized which is good. Anyway, the team from Harvest sent us this Business Leadership book as a gift recently which was really nice of them.


Black Incipio Feather iPhone 4 cases. Great case but the corners tend to crack and come off every once in awhile if you beat your phone up too badly. Therefore we got a few replacements this week. Incipio sent us these as part of their Influencer Marketing program where they gift product to influential bloggers and social media personalities.

Just kidding, nobody reads our blog, we bought these online. Amazon Prime baby.

DUCATI REUNION

Got to hang out with the whole Ducati fam on Friday.

They were debuting a bike - the new 1199 Panigale - for the first time in North America so they threw a little party at Drai's at the W to help celebrate the occasion. We went out there along with The ID Agency to shoot some video of course.

Matt and I drove up to Hollywood through some killer traffic on Friday afternoon. Ryan is actually chilling in Belize right now on his honeymoon but my boy Petra was able to come out and shoot with us.

Right off the bat, in addition to Arrick and the whole Ducati North America crew that was there, John from ID was there shooting stills so that was cool.


Greg Tracy from Pikes Peak and our boy Carlin Dunne showed up. Mark Cernicky from Cycle World was actually there as well. Really good to see and catch up with everyone.

It's such a trip that we're even remotely connected to this motorcycle universe in the first place. Matt and I aren't really the most typical motorcycle type of guys, per se, but honestly all the riders and crews and Ducati team have been super chill to work and hang out with and really down to earth.


Our boy DJ Hapa was in the building, doing his thing. By the time I saw this guy it really started to feel like the whole crew was there. Anyway, Hapa killed it - he actually developed a specific sound and feel for his set inspired by the new bike.

In my next life I'm going to be a DJ. I'll tour around the world pretty much nonstop. I'll spin mostly hip hop but also throw in some Craig David and stuff like that for good measure. And a little dash of Deadmau5 type stuff - just to keep the crowd involved. It's going to be pretty epic, trust me. Anyway...


Ducati Fashion Show prior to the bike unveiling.


Even MotoGP rider Nicky Hayden, who we shot earlier this year up at Laguna Seca, was on hand. This guy's actually my favorite GP rider - he's from Kentucky and he reminds me of white Jason Williams from the NBA. Plus he threw our Laguna Seca pre-race vid on his Facebook page which helped it get like 30K views which was cool.

Anyway, as I'm sitting back here at home with a bunch of Ducati videos to edit and deadlines approaching, I'm really just grateful for the opportunities that Victor from ID Agency and Arrick from Ducati have extended to us. They've brought us in on some amazing projects all over the country, laced us with a ton of gear and really just treated our whole team like their own which has been incredible.

When I buy my first bike, it'll be a Ducati - no doubt. Although Matt doesn't seem to trust me on a motorcycle yet, so I'm going to just stick with the video and computer stuff for now. But who knows, Nicky may hit me up one day out of the blue and we'll start a Biker Gang together - you never really know.


Bam. The 1199 Panigale, seen for the first time in the states. Amazing bike. People at the event were going nuts over it. $23K just in case you were wondering.

Recap video of the event coming sooner than you think...

LA CARRERA PANAMERICANA PART II

We still have a ton of photos from the Mexico trip.

I've been sitting here listening to Take Care and sifting through the images for the past couple hours.



We had met with Ducati and The ID Agency before we left and tried to get an idea of what shooting this race would be like but there are just so many random things that pop up along the way. The production conditions were nuts but we really just rolled with it.


Shane. Chillin in a cornfield. Whatever it takes to get the shot.


We took the rental SUV out on the track and hung out of the back to shoot stuff like this. A little risky but definitely worth it.


Tunnels in Guanajuato.


0484. All day.


It's hard to really convey how random the trip was. For example, the first day of the race, we left lunch and starting driving down the race route. A couple miles in, we encountered a few hundred local people who were protesting and blocking the road as part of a demonstration. They were stopping all traffic both ways as a means of gaining media attention. The entire race is scheduled and timed to the minute - so there are really no allowances for any type of detours or distractions. That's one of the reasons why everything is really intense and it all happens very fast.

So our driver spoke with some of the demonstrators and then suddenly told Matt to open the door and allow this 12 year old boy to hop inside our car. We don't really actually speak very much Spanish - believe it or not - so most of the time we were completely in the dark as to anything that was really going on. Apparently our driver Manuel had convinced these protesters to lend us one of their children as a means of navigation. We turned the car around and this kid Jesus helped direct us through some side streets toward an alternate route. The entire race - with over 100 cars - eventually ended up being re-routed and pushed way behind schedule. We dropped Jesus off and gave him a can of Coke for his help.


Really legit boutique hotel in Morelia. Thanks to Ducati for the killer accommodations.


One of the bikes was laid down in one of the mountain stages midway through the week. It looked bad on camera but luckily Roland, the rider, was fine. The footage will be in the recap video that we're currently working on.


Christmas shopping.


We had 2 production vehicles - a Toyota Tacoma and this rented Chevy Traverse. One day, one of our drivers mistakenly backed into this small ditch. We were all in the truck and drove around the corner and were sort of shocked to see this. We had less than 2 minutes before the next section of the race began - we had to either somehow get the SUV back on the road or we would fall behind the other racecars and there would be no more motorcycle racing footage for the rest of the day.

In less than a minute, we lifted the car out of the ditch, hopped in, sped off and kept shooting. None of us could really believe it but it worked out. I wish we had footage of the excavation but at that moment we really needed all of us to help lift the car and unfortunately there was no time to set a camera up.

Shout out to Arrick from Ducati - I stole this photo from him.


Hotel lobby.


The seventh and last day of the race finishes in Zacatecas. That night, everyone who participated in the race takes part in a walking parade through the town leading to the final night's banquet. Everyone is given these tiny clay pots to hang around their necks and a donkey leads the parade carrying jugs of bootleg Mezcal on its back. I took one shot with one of our drivers to thank him for keeping us alive all week. The Mezcal tasted horrible - it really burned going down. But I figured when is the next time I'm going to have the chance to drink bootleg Mezcal that came from the back of a donkey, right?

Anyway, more Ducati stuff soon.