THOUGHTS ON A PLANE

Random notes from up in the air on the way to Chicago.

We've got a lot of things in the works - most of them are sort of cool. Spent all of last week in front of Google Flight Search and iCal.

Ryan's little wedding video thing is going well. He's been double and triple booking some Saturdays and forcing Matt and I to dress up and shoot a few of them ourselves. I filmed one on last Saturday along with Petra and Daly down in San Diego. Sure, we missed most of Lakers/Thunder Game 4 but on the bright side, the chocolate cake they served was amazing.

For all these commercial gigs that pop up last minute and also these weekends where Ryan books multiple weddings that all take place in different random middles of nowhere, it's so key that we a ton of friends who we work with a lot and that we can all shoot in a very similar style. If there's a chance to work on something legit, we never really say 'no'. We change our flights, we stay up all night, or all week, we recruit extra guys and split into teams - whatever it takes really. That philosophy has gone a long way for us. If we didn't do that type of thing, I really don't know where we'd be at this point.

It helps that everyone is on the same page and willing to put in the extra blood, sweat and tears.

"Once every few years a great new agency is born. It is ambitious, hard working, full of dynamite." - David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963)

Anyway, other randomness... we hit 84 Likes on Facebook the other day. Hopefully it stays that way for awhile (if things continue as usual, we're not in any danger of it changing anytime soon).

Our boy Amir Sadollah had a nice fight last week. A bit nerve wrecking but definitely fun watching him on TV and rooting for him.

Also jeffstaple announced his new Beats collabo last week - these are nice.

And of course, the NBA Burrito Leaderboard has been updated since the Second Round of the Playoffs is now complete. In related news, when I booked my trip to Chicago a month ago, I timed it to come out here and go to what should have been the Bulls/Heat Eastern Conference Finals. Yeah, ask me how that's going right about now :) More from the Windy City soon.

SAN FRAN

Spent a couple days in the city last weekend.

I talked the woman at the Hilton into upgrading me to this 24th floor view - quite proud of myself. You can sort of see Alcatraz out there.

Really just roamed around the city for a few days, popped into a few art galleries.

Found some cool street art in an alley off of Polk street.

Went to the Cal Academy of Sciences for the first time.

Pretty cool place - they have an indoor rainforest, an aquarium, stuff like that...

And then basically spent the rest of the weekend eating - pizza at Calzones, brunch at Sears Fine Food, lunch at La Boulange, sundaes at Ghiradelli Square, that type of thing.

LAST WEEK

First off, Matt and I left town for a few days.

Filmed some more stuff way out in the middle nowhere.

Had this thing for a couple days. We're rough on rentals sometime.

Then on Friday, Matt flew back into OC and he and Ryan went straight to Burbank to work on a new vid with The ID Agency.

Not sure what we're able to say about this project, at this point, but here are a few snazzy preview shots.

Meanwhile I flew up to San Fran for the weekend.

More Bay Area pics coming soon...

Meanwhile Formula Drift Round 2 took place down in Atlanta over the weekend and Spellman held down the whole FD site and worked with the crew from ID to keep that thing running smoothly. And of course the Lakers and Clippers both managed to make it to the second round of the playoffs - we've updated the NBA Burrito Giveaway Leaderboard.

UFC x NASCAR

New vid with UFC's Amir Sadollah and NASCAR's Tayler Malsam.

We produced this back in March while Tayler was out in Vegas for a Nationwide race and Amir was training for his upcoming fight.

We just wanted to showcase each of these guys and their passions. By getting them to talk about their respective fields we found that their were a lot of similarities between both disciplines and also a lot of mutual respect between the two of them.

Anyway, really cool project to work on and we're happy with how it came together. Strong launch so far - over 1,000 views in its' first day with no real promo push behind it at all.

Amir fights Tuesday night in Fairfax, Virginia on UFC on FUEL TV 3. The homie Tayler Malsam races tonight in Darlington on ESPN2. Tayler had a killer race last week at Talladega and was in the top 10 when a late crash took him out and wrecked his finish. (Nice live ESPN post-crash interview though)

Anyway, big shout out to Amir for all his time, also to Ed and James over at UFC and Chip Hanauer for linking us all up.

THE RECAP

A lot of stuff going on the past couple weeks.

Here are a couple highlights of stuff we've squeezed in when we're not watching the NBA Playoffs.

We worked on some cool stuff with Contour recently and they were nice enough to send us this box stuffed with gear last week.

A couple Contour +'s, waterproof cases, surfboard mounts, all sorts of little things. We should get some good use out of it.

Then Matt and I drove up to Santa Barbara recently and filmed a conference for the University of West Florida.

Ryan and I did some rock climbing, and filming, in the middle of nowhere.

We picked up a couple new lenses. The fancy 35mm and a 100mm macro.

Speaking of Ryan, he dragged me down to San Diego and had me film a wedding with him a couple Saturdays ago. Outdoor ceremony and reception at The Condor's Nest Ranch. Great weather, good tri-tip, really tasty mini cupcake dessert bar.

The koi over at Fashion Island in Newport.

And we got to do a little filming with our boy Petra last week.

Anyway, another busy week ahead. We're rolling out our new video with Tayler Malsam and UFC fighter Amir Sadollah in the next couple days - keep an eye out. More soon.

FREE BURRITOS

Like we always do at this time.

For the 5th year in a row, we bring you the 0484 NBA BRACKET CHALLENGE. The winning bracket this year will walk away with a $340 Chipotle Gift Card (about 52 burritos worth).


Matt and I noticed that some companies have been getting a bit out of control with their contest requirements. Of course, unlike 0484, most of those companies are run by 'adults', so we tend to do things a bit differently. Anyway, if you have some time to kill, you can fill your bracket out here.

NBA PROMO PREVIEW

Our NBA Playoff Bracket Challenge is coming.

Matt and Ryan and I shot a quick little spot to promote our NBA Playoff Contest with our boy Jordan Warren out in LA last week. Whole shoot came together really quickly. If there's anything film school taught me, it's how to procrastinate pre-production until the last possible minute. That, and creative ways to get away with shooting stuff for dirt cheap.

We basically wrote, produced and shot the entire spot within 24 hours. Shout out to Rick Escamilla for hooking everything up to let us shoot at the Hollenbeck Youth Center. Jordan was great to work with, as always. I've known him since I made Eviction Notice in college and we've stayed in touch and shot a few things together since then. The kid has a ridiculous amount of talent - working with him is really fundamentally different than filming with almost anyone else.

Anyway, vid launches later this week. P.S. We're giving away a lot more burritos this year.

36 HOURS IN DENVER

Quick trip out to Denver last week.

Matt and I touched down Monday night. Sam and Tayler were nice enough to come through and pick us, and all of our gear, up at the airport. We grabbed some dinner at a diner downtown and then went straight back to the hotel where Matt and I unpacked and prepped everything.

Woke up Tuesday morning and filmed a few exterior shots around Downtown Denver.

Then we headed over to the Forza Gym inside the Ritz-Carlton. This is gym where Carmelo used to train, back in the day. His logo, in Syracuse colors, and signature are ingrained at center court.

Anyway, we filmed a few scenes here for a small independent movie that's currently in the works.

Matt filming here with Zo Azubuike. Zo's brother Kelenna is a shooting guard in the NBA. He's actually the guy who Mark Cuban signed to replace Lamar Odom a couple weeks ago.

Tayler and Matt squeezed a workout in between scenes.

Then we wrapped the day up by heading to a high school just outside the city and filming with Anthony Tolliver from the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Both Anthony and Zo were really chill. We got to chat with them a bit about all aspects of the league and everything from Ricky Rubio's injury to the Mavericks' upcoming playoff picture.

Then we woke up before dawn on Wednesday and came home. Anyway, good trip for sure.

Meanwhile, we're staying busy back home. About to shoot a bunch of new stuff in next few days. Stay tuned.

JEFFSTAPLE AND RZA II

Me and the RZA connect.

The videos that Matt and Ryan and I made with jeffstaple and RZA dropped yesterday. And they're now worldwide thanks to Hypebeast and Freshness Mag and NahRight amongst others. It's one epic 20 minute interview split into 2 parts. What's cool about jeff's 1-2-1 series of videos is that they really are direct and intimate. There are no product-plugs and pre-canned answers so everything is truly real and direct.

Anyway, the videos cover everything - from the roots of the Wu and RZA turning his life around after being incarcerated to working on his forthcoming feature film. There's some deep stuff in here - for real. I know 20 minutes may seem like an eternity online but they're worth it, trust me.

Check out jeff's site for his commentary about how it all came together and some behind the scenes stills. Thanks to Amanda Lopez for the shot of me and Bobby Digital.

Also, worth mentioning, both RZA and jeff were really chill to work with. RZA was humble and charismatic. Jeff was pretty laid back and took a lot of our input throughout the shooting and editing process.

FORMULA D WEEKEND

The new Formula Drift season kicked off in Long Beach a few days ago.

Our boys at The ID Agency have been handling all the marketing for FD for years. As of a couple months ago, they brought us on board to help handle everything related to the Formula Drift website - content updates, live event streams, ad management and tracking, and everything on the backend. We're also helping to launch their all new e-commerce store which will go live later this week.

Anyway, Matt and Ryan and I stopped by the ID suite on Saturday and took in some of the action. Great weather, front row seats and all-you-can-eat hot dogs - 'nuff said. Anyway, you can check out more pictures of smoking tires and stuff at formulad.com

Shout out to The ID Agency for the work. And the hot dogs. And shout out to Spellman for programming his ass off last weekend making sure everything ran smoothly.

Anyway, super busy week coming up - shooting a few new videos. Follow along with all the action via Twitter - should be fun, trust me.

GALAXY LACES AND JELLYFISH

We're not on Pinterest.

Nevertheless here are a few images I found online recently.

Speaking of Kanye, here's a download link to his new joint, Theraflu, where he talks about falling in love with Kim Kardashian and how Kris Humphries is lucky that Kanye didn't make Jay drop him from the Nets (Yikes, right?). Anyway, you heard it here first.