RANDOMNESS

A few unrelated things.


Matt and I hit the boardwalk in Long Beach on Saturday morning for a bike ride. Didn't know that we rode bikes, did you? We actually don't - it was a goodwill thing for our boy Petra. Get well soon buddy.


Bought these on Amazon last week - and we were excited about it too. (We're such nerds sometimes)


If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Pleased to say that Maker Studios is our newest client. Just started a web design project with them. First meeting was today at one of their offices in Culver City. If you've never heard of Maker you can check out this article about them from the New York Times. #nobigdeal

They have a very cool, young, tech, start-up type vibe going which I really like. Feels real The Social Network-ish.

Randy Moss Motorsports hit us up a few weeks ago and we put together these 'Hero Cards' for their new driver Todd Bodine. Super quick turnaround time but we managed to get these designed, printed and shipped to the racetrack in just a few days. I've caught myself paying more and more attention to NASCAR highlights on Sportscenter recently - it's really quite scary how avid a fan I'm becoming.

THE HANGOVER 3

A couple weeks ago I threw Matt a little bachelor party.



About 12 of us went down to Dana Point for the weekend. Here are the photos and details that I'm allowed to divulge publicly:


My intent from the start was to throw a once-in-a-lifetime type of event. I told everyone to tell their girlfriend's that they'd be home Sunday and to turn off their phones for the weekend.




Needless to say, we will not be going back to this PF Changs anytime soon. Kids: Don't try this at home - those statues are actually way less solid than they appear.


Four of these guys have Engineering degrees. Still took us over an hour to put the volleyball net up. #nokidding



Anyway, all went well. Perfect mix of fun and sketchyness - which, as you know, is what all good memories are made of.


P.S. Ryan's bachelor party starts this Friday. In Vegas.
Stay tuned.

THINK DIFFERENT

When I was young, my dad used to have an Apple IIe.

Sometimes I still type sort of unnecessarily hard - if you'd seen the IIe keyboard then you'd understand.

I still remember using the super boxy beige corded mouse to play Shufflepuck. You kids don't know about Shufflepuck.

In the mid 90's my brother got his hands on an external CD burner and hooked it up to his Mac Performa. He burned a 'mix CD' of all these random Wu-Tang, Busta Rhymes and DMX songs all on one disc and it blew my mind. Back then the blank CD's were still like $20 each.

When Matt and I were in High School we learned how to use Illustrator and Photoshop on Ruby iMacs. Well, I technically still don't really 'know' how to use Photoshop - but, you get the point.

In 2002, I used some scholarship money - thanks Lompoc Elks Lodge - to buy a white 13" G3 iBook. It wasn't really that long ago, but I can remember that they still had a lot of 'Switch to a Mac' sales brochures that assured people that they'd still be able to open Word docs if they worked up the courage to leave their PC's behind.

By the time I got out of college, everything had shifted. Everyone had iPods and they began trading in their virus-ridden Dells for MacBooks.

I can remember when they announced the introduction of the very first iPhone. There was a collective awe and curiosity as to what it would be actually be like. Nobody saw Angry Birds coming.

From $6 a share to $400 in the last 8 years - not a bad little run.

Anyway, thanks Steve.

0484FLICKR

Some random shots from the past few weeks.


We stopped by Huntington Beach for the US Open of Surfing. Packed with people but we had a good time.


Copped a 5D about a month ago. You might think Ryan's photo/video wishlist would be dwindling by now but you'd be surprised...


Stopped by the races in Del Mar recently. Races themselves were whatevs but the funnel cake did not disappoint.


A shot from Ryan's birthday dinner at PF Chang's awhile back.


Headed downtown for some meetings last week.


Stopped by The ID Agency office and saw my boy John's Lincoln MKX project car parked outside.


John worked on this car awhile back along with James Bond from Undftd and it ended up making the cover of DUB magazine.


Shot of Robert and Mark at BJ's a couple weeks ago. We had a little going away thing for Mark who just left for Vanderbilt Law - no big deal.


Matt's new wetsuit came in the mail along with a few other things recently. Ryan shot a wedding awhile back for a girl who works at Quiksilver. She was nice enough to throw us a discount code and we did not let it go to waste.

THE MOTOGP VID

The 2011 Ducati Island at Laguna Seca MotoGP video.







Below is the 4 minute cut of the video that we produced along with The ID Agency for Ducati last month. The full length version of this piece is actually 14 minutes long and seems like it was pretty well received. Nicky Hayden posted it to his facebook page which helped it gain some visibility.

So the funny part is this - last I checked, that video had around 19,000 views on YouTube - which in my mind was a success and something I felt quite proud of. Then, earlier this week, one of my friends hits me up and tells me that he got a job editing for an online video production house. The division of the company he's working for specializes in a series called 'Epic Rap Battles of History' (you can't make this stuff up). Anyway, he mentions that they recently made a 'Justin Bieber vs. Beethoven' parody rap video which garnered over 18 MILLION views. But wait - I started clicking around on their YouTube page only to discover that their 'Darth Vader vs. Hitler' video is sitting on over 29 MILLION. Craze, right?

Whatever. Good for them. But if you catch me on here a month from now talking about how we've dropped everything in order to produce 'Snooki vs Dr Seuss' breakdancing battle vids at least you'll know why. Until then, enjoy the MotoGP clip.

ART IN THE STREETS

Finally made it to the Street Art exhibit over at MOCA a couple weeks ago.

It was one of the last Sundays before it closes and there was a huge crowd. Really hot day and thankfully I had some comped tickets so I narrowly avoided waiting in the ridiculous line out front. Apparently I hadn't realized that going to art museums on the weekend has now somehow become a cool thing to do. (I'm sure the people at Disneyland are panicked)


Yogi. Steam rolled.

The range of styles and types of pieces on display was immense but I always tend to like stuff like this - clever twists on the mundane that flip your perspective on something and make people smile.

Anyway, got to see all my faves:


Retna. This dude really blew up seemingly out of nowhere. Amazing work and a style that is truly all his own.


Krink.


Banksy. Few weeks back Banksy decided to sponsor free admission to the exhibit on Mondays for the general public for the duration of the show. He released a statement that read, “I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it."


And of course, Mr. Cartoon.

SEATS SHOOT

Few shots from the video shoot we did out in Detroit last week.

Matt and Ryan and I flew out to Recaro's North American Headquarters with The ID Agency for a couple days. (BTW, who knew that Detroit is on Eastern Standard Time? Seems weird, right?)



Recaro has been around for a million years and they make seats for everybody - Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Aston Martin... everybody.



We shot footage for a few different things but mainly focused on a piece we're putting together showing the manufacturing of the seats for the Cadillac CTS-V.





Cool project - we shot the whole construction process from cutting the leather for the seat covers to assembling and testing all the internal mechanisms.




They were also working on all the Cobra Mustang seats while we were there.


Ryan shooting one of Recaro's racing seats. Jennifer is the account rep from ID Agency who came out there with us - super nice and easy to work with, plus she bought us all of the energy drinks and junk food throughout the trip.




Flew through some crazy storms near Phoenix on the way home.



Anyway, working on the edit now. Hopefully I'll post it up here in a couple weeks.

AMG

Besides the stuff for Ducati, we shot one more short video while we were up in Monterey.

It was for a car maker. From Germany.


This is the 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster. And this, actually, was the North American debut of this car. It's the sister model to the coupe with the gullwing doors and when it ships later this fall - in case you're interested - it'll run about $183,000.









For us, honestly, this was a next level type of thing. I mean, it's Mercedes-Benz - it's next-next level.

When Ducati and The ID Agency first approcached us about going out to MotoGP, it was actually the weekend we'd planned for Matt's Bachelor Party. That got re-scheduled quickly - no second thoughts. When Victor from ID called and told me AMG wanted a video as well, it was really just a bonus.

It's crazy to me to think that it was just a year ago that we even decided to seriously get into video production. Sometimes you start out with a plan or a vision for what you're setting out to do and sometimes things sort of just take off. It's not that I didn't think we'd get here - it's more just that it came quicker than I might've thought.

We're not yet jaded about most of these situations and I know that's a huge advantage for us. We've had some really crazy schedules and same day editing deadlines recently but, at the end of the day, we're still just happy to be here.



Shot all day Friday and Saturday for Ducati. Edited for Ducati all night Saturday until around 10AM Sunday. Delivered Ducati their MotoGP Pre-Show video, showered, grabbed Burger King and drove immediately back to the track to shoot for AMG. By the time we flew home Sunday night we were exhausted.


Sunset at San Jose Airport.



Anyway, here's the piece we produced for them. Yes - it could've been a bit more exciting if we had some footage of the car rocketing around the racetrack at top speed. Unfortunately, due to the rare exclusivity of this car combined with my utter lack of stunt driving experience, the Mercedes reps didn't seem quite onboard with that plan. Oh well, maybe next time.



Shout out to everyone at MBUSA, Ducati North America and of course, The one and only ID Agency.