"A Californian Homage to Top Gear"

svb · January 26th, 2009, 12:23 AM

WE ARE RELEASING THE FILM NOW!!

For anyone who hasn't seen or heard of our project before, here is the basic rundown again: My friends and I decided to take on Top Gear and challenge their assertion that the greatest driving road in the world was in Europe. We reasoned that it could be found in California, and so we decided to have a cheap car challenge to determine if we were right. We gave ourselves a budget of $5,000 each for the cars and then set out to see what we could find.

So the title we finally settled on was "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).

All 6 parts are converted to flash on blip.tv now. You can also watch full quality Quicktime clips.

Please see our website for links to all the videos:

http://greatestroadinca.blogspot.com/

http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v341/234/41/8503920/n8503920_32095405_9399.jpg

teeb · January 26th, 2009, 12:47 AM

Watched parts one to three through - some of which I've seen before.

It's still really good and enjoyable. Can't wait for the last 3 parts.

Two little things. One is the camera car and the footage it took. Sometimes it looks really great - on the motorways and on some of the roads - and sometimes it is really 'bumpy' and shaky - second half of part 3; which is a shame - it looked great in the second half of part 2. Is that just down to the road quality? The other is the name. I can see why you changed the title but I did quite like "The Greatest Driving Road in California"...

LeVeL · January 26th, 2009, 1:13 AM

need to see moar now!

Dsemaj · January 26th, 2009, 1:28 AM

Are you going to have a seperate complete .avi file to download? I'd much rather be able to get a standalone file so I can watch it on my TV images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Fantastic to see this finally done! images/smilies/biggrin.gif

EDIT: Downloading the HD .mov's, they look fantastic! Shame about the quailty of the in car cameras though, very pixleated. But it still looks fantastic.

scull20 · January 26th, 2009, 1:58 AM

Great Job! Looking forward to the last half.

svb · January 26th, 2009, 2:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teeb

Two little things. One is the camera car and the footage it took. Sometimes it looks really great - on the motorways and on some of the roads - and sometimes it is really 'bumpy' and shaky - second half of part 3; which is a shame - it looked great in the second half of part 2. Is that just down to the road quality?

In a word, yes. Especially on the first day, the road quality got worse as we went along. As such, the footage was unfortunately somewhat shaky. We tried to order a Citroen C6 for the shoot but we were told they apparently don't sell that in the US so we had to settle for a Grand Cherokee.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dsemaj

Are you going to have a seperate complete .avi file to download? I'd much rather be able to get a standalone file so I can watch it on my TV images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Yes, we will have a full start-to-finish high quality file, hopefully within a week. Once we do, we can do a torrent for you guys who want it (as long as someone can set that up for me; I've never -started- a torrent before).

Also, PART 4 IS ONLINE NOW!! (see links above)

Posmo · January 26th, 2009, 2:46 AM

I really like the idea, and I love the Fiat, but frankly I found it painful to watch. The whole vid seems too pretentious, I know you're not actors, and you dont have a huge budget which is a shame because the "Californian homage to Top Gear" could really have been something. As it is, its just a collection of clips of 3 not-very-interesting guys in California, must have been a blast to make though images/smilies/tongue.gif

No flaming please, just an honest opinion.

thedguy · January 26th, 2009, 2:49 AM

Definitely felt forced. Though I've been saying that California has plenty to compete with on the world front for driving roads. I've also disagreed that Stelvio was the best on account that a bunch of straights+ hairpins will get boring quickly.

edit: How come you guys never once show the roads you're actually driving on? That was the point of the whole video wasn't it?

edit2: Being from Norcal explains a lot images/smilies/tongue.gif

Ghostedition · January 26th, 2009, 4:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Posmo

I really like the idea, and I love the Fiat, but frankly I found it painful to watch. The whole vid seems too pretentious,

Fully agreed.

yeeha · January 26th, 2009, 5:04 AM

Very well done. I've enjoyed it so far and will definitely watch the last couple parts when you post them. The quality is good, particularly considering the resources you had.

Somewhat surprised at how much money you spent to make this (maybe I'm just poor) but it looks like it was a lot of fun so I'd say money well spent.

Blind_Io · January 26th, 2009, 5:57 AM

Fucking QUICKTIME?!

Can you please release these in another format or on another service? I fucking hate Quicktime, and I can't get it to play sound on my computer.

MadCow809 · January 26th, 2009, 7:17 AM

Nice slops there : p

Blind_Io · January 26th, 2009, 8:35 AM

Just finished watching everything that's up so far. Nicely done and excellent production! I really wish I had been a part of this, it looks like you guys had a blast!

Could this be the start of something? FinalGear.com user-generated content? If everything is as good as this, we could do it. Think about it, all our members from all over the world on a quest to find the greatest driving road! It would be one of the most epic undertakings we have ever managed, eclipsing Hammond's helmet or even the 24 hours of LeMons races.

I'm going back to Utah later this year and I know of a few excellent roads in the area. I can see about some cameras and I know a guy who would help with the editing (since I've never done it before).

This could work...

Luca · January 26th, 2009, 10:48 AM

I enjoyed that. images/smilies/smile.gif

Needs more hard driving though. Not so sure on the bmw driver shirts or the fiats driver subaru hat.

Scott · January 26th, 2009, 11:02 AM

If anyone gets a chance to put these on an FTP, I would be incredibly grateful! I can even provide the FTP if someone can upload them!

Dsemaj · January 26th, 2009, 1:39 PM

I mean, you guys have made a great video and I love it (on part 4 so far), but you probably need to try and show the roads a bit better. Sometimes I find that when you talk about something, it would have been a lot better with a filler shot. Like, when the weird-3-wheeler car drove past the guys and went out of the shot, I was expecting you to cut to it moving around or something. But I guess that was probably limited by the fact you had only one exterior shot camera, yeah? That said, you only had one camera car too. Probably a bit harder to show without a helicopter too..

It's not perfect, but still a good load of fun.

Voiceovers could feel a bit more natural. When you went to get brake fluid, the resulting voiceover feels a bit boring and/or sorta forced. I'd think a more colloquial statement like "After the Fiat's fluid was topped up again, we set back to the road" would flow a bit better with what really is a colloquial sorta thing images/smilies/tongue.gif

But honestly, like I've said in the past, I'm really jealous of what you guys have done. Feels like a whole load of fun.

svb · January 26th, 2009, 3:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dsemaj

I mean, you guys have made a great video and I love it (on part 4 so far), but you probably need to try and show the roads a bit better. Sometimes I find that when you talk about something, it would have been a lot better with a filler shot. Like, when the weird-3-wheeler car drove past the guys and went out of the shot, I was expecting you to cut to it moving around or something. But I guess that was probably limited by the fact you had only one exterior shot camera, yeah? That said, you only had one camera car too. Probably a bit harder to show without a helicopter too..

Exactly... a helicopter would have been great! But yes, one of our biggest limitations was our inability to get a lot of good forward-facing shots. We tried it a few times but with the cars and the equipment we were using, it never came out the way we wanted and we figured the shots of the cars show enough to give you somewhat of an idea the bends & twists of the roads we were on. We were also pretty severely limited by time as we had 3 days to do everything you see here.

As to the other criticisms, all I can say is that this was the first time we'd ever attempted anything of this nature or on this scale. It took us a bit to get really comfortable and to know what we were doing, and I think we really hit our stride the second day with the challenge in San Francisco. If you're not liking it right off the bat, skip ahead to part 5 and see what you think; our best stuff is there.

Anyway, PART SIX is online now. It's not encoding to flash for some odd reason (we've tried a couple times now), but for now if you want to watch it in full quality quicktime (I know, the horror...), you can. See links above.

Akilles · January 26th, 2009, 3:54 PM

Why no torrent with the whole "movie"? =)

svb · January 26th, 2009, 4:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akilles

Why no torrent with the whole "movie"? =)

Quote:

Originally Posted by svb

Yes, we will have a full start-to-finish high quality file, hopefully within a week. Once we do, we can do a torrent for you guys who want it (as long as someone can set that up for me; I've never -started- a torrent before).

LeVeL · January 26th, 2009, 4:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

Fucking QUICKTIME?!

Can you please release these in another format or on another service? I fucking hate Quicktime, and I can't get it to play sound on my computer.

+1
Please make part 6 not quicktime

January 26th, 2009, 12:23 AM	#1
svb Joined: Jul 21st, 2008 Last Online: Yesterday Location: Venice, CA Posts: 136 Car: 2009 VW GTI Rep Power: 14	"A Californian Homage to Top Gear" WE ARE RELEASING THE FILM NOW!! For anyone who hasn't seen or heard of our project before, here is the basic rundown again: My friends and I decided to take on Top Gear and challenge their assertion that the greatest driving road in the world was in Europe. We reasoned that it could be found in California, and so we decided to have a cheap car challenge to determine if we were right. We gave ourselves a budget of $5,000 each for the cars and then set out to see what we could find. So the title we finally settled on was "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). All 6 parts are converted to flash on blip.tv now. You can also watch full quality Quicktime clips. Please see our website for links to all the videos: http://greatestroadinca.blogspot.com/ __________________ A Californian Homage to Top Gear (FILM) Last edited by svb; January 31st, 2009 at 5:15 PM. Reason: added parts 4-6

January 26th, 2009, 12:47 AM	#2
teeb Joined: Sep 23rd, 2005 Last Online: 4:37 PM Location: Bordeaux, France. Age: 22 Posts: 2,901 Rep Power: 79	Watched parts one to three through - some of which I've seen before. It's still really good and enjoyable. Can't wait for the last 3 parts. Two little things. One is the camera car and the footage it took. Sometimes it looks really great - on the motorways and on some of the roads - and sometimes it is really 'bumpy' and shaky - second half of part 3; which is a shame - it looked great in the second half of part 2. Is that just down to the road quality? The other is the name. I can see why you changed the title but I did quite like "The Greatest Driving Road in California"... __________________ ...I'm meant to put something here?

January 26th, 2009, 1:13 AM	#3
LeVeL Joined: Jun 16th, 2007 Last Online: Yesterday Location: MA Age: 21 Posts: 2,764 Car: CG5/F23A1 Rep Power: 81	need to see moar now! __________________ ^Don't worry he's a closet ~~homosexual~~ Miata driver. - Twerp128 flickr . . . photography + UMass Motorsport

January 26th, 2009, 1:28 AM	#4
Dsemaj Previously Known As Jamesd Joined: May 3rd, 2006 Last Online: 12:01 AM Location: Adelaide, Australia. Age: 18 Posts: 2,657 Car: '95 BMW 530i, '85 Nissan Bluebird S3 GXE Rep Power: 40	Are you going to have a seperate complete .avi file to download? I'd much rather be able to get a standalone file so I can watch it on my TV Fantastic to see this finally done! EDIT: Downloading the HD .mov's, they look fantastic! Shame about the quailty of the in car cameras though, very pixleated. But it still looks fantastic. __________________ 1995 BMW E34 530i V8 M60B30 218HP/163kW 5sp Auto 1985 Nissan 910 Bluebird I4 CA20S 105HP/78kW 3sp Auto Last edited by Dsemaj; January 26th, 2009 at 1:39 AM.

January 26th, 2009, 2:46 AM	#7
Posmo Joined: Oct 5th, 2007 Last Online: 5:25 PM Location: Finland Age: 19 Posts: 2,440 Car: 1986 Ford Sierra iS Rep Power: 70	I really like the idea, and I love the Fiat, but frankly I found it painful to watch. The whole vid seems too pretentious, I know you're not actors, and you dont have a huge budget which is a shame because the "Californian homage to Top Gear" could really have been something. As it is, its just a collection of clips of 3 not-very-interesting guys in California, must have been a blast to make though No flaming please, just an honest opinion. __________________

January 26th, 2009, 1:58 AM	#5
scull20 Joined: Jul 30th, 2008 Last Online: July 30th, 2009 Location: New Jersey Posts: 10 Car: '04 Liberty, '68 Impala SS Rep Power: 0	Great Job! Looking forward to the last half.

January 26th, 2009, 2:49 AM	#8
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Last Online: 7:47 AM Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,419 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 144	Definitely felt forced. Though I've been saying that California has plenty to compete with on the world front for driving roads. I've also disagreed that Stelvio was the best on account that a bunch of straights+ hairpins will get boring quickly. edit: How come you guys never once show the roads you're actually driving on? That was the point of the whole video wasn't it? edit2: Being from Norcal explains a lot __________________ Last edited by thedguy; January 26th, 2009 at 3:04 AM.

January 26th, 2009, 5:04 AM	#10
yeeha Joined: Jun 17th, 2008 Last Online: October 29th, 2009 Posts: 132 Rep Power: 9	Very well done. I've enjoyed it so far and will definitely watch the last couple parts when you post them. The quality is good, particularly considering the resources you had. Somewhat surprised at how much money you spent to make this (maybe I'm just poor) but it looks like it was a lot of fun so I'd say money well spent.

January 26th, 2009, 5:57 AM	#11
Blind_Io Dispenses buckshot medication for all undead patients. Joined: Apr 5th, 2006 Last Online: 8:38 AM Location: Murray, Utah, USA Age: 28 Posts: 10,829 Car: 2006 Nissan X-Terra - 2000 VFR800 Interceptor Rep Power: 247	Fucking QUICKTIME?! Can you please release these in another format or on another service? I fucking hate Quicktime, and I can't get it to play sound on my computer. __________________ War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength

January 26th, 2009, 7:17 AM	#12
MadCow809 Joined: Feb 23rd, 2006 Last Online: 2:04 PM Location: Durban, South Africa & Los Angeles, CA Age: 24 Posts: 4,877 Car: 2007 E87 BMW 130i & 2008 VW MKV GTI 2.0T DSG LFS Status: Rep Power: 65	Nice slops there : p __________________ Supporting : Kimi Räikkönen \| Jenson Button \| Robert Kubica \| Sebastian Vettel \| Petter Solberg \| Mikko Hirvonen \| Andy Priaulx \| Jason Plato \| Mat Jackson Nokia N95 8Gb Nokia N97 32Gb RM-505 Unlocked v11.0.21 -> v12.0.024 -> v20.0.019 09 VW MKV Golf GTI 2.0T DSG \| APR Stage 1 \| LHD 08 Honda Civic Coupé \| LHD 06 BMW 130i \| RHD ~~05 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS \| RHD~~ 05 Ford Bantam 1.3i \| RHD ~~95 Mercedes Benz E320 Sportline \| RHD~~

January 26th, 2009, 8:35 AM	#13
Blind_Io Dispenses buckshot medication for all undead patients. Joined: Apr 5th, 2006 Last Online: 8:38 AM Location: Murray, Utah, USA Age: 28 Posts: 10,829 Car: 2006 Nissan X-Terra - 2000 VFR800 Interceptor Rep Power: 247	Just finished watching everything that's up so far. Nicely done and excellent production! I really wish I had been a part of this, it looks like you guys had a blast! Could this be the start of something? FinalGear.com user-generated content? If everything is as good as this, we could do it. Think about it, all our members from all over the world on a quest to find the greatest driving road! It would be one of the most epic undertakings we have ever managed, eclipsing Hammond's helmet or even the 24 hours of LeMons races. I'm going back to Utah later this year and I know of a few excellent roads in the area. I can see about some cameras and I know a guy who would help with the editing (since I've never done it before). This could work... __________________ War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength

January 26th, 2009, 10:48 AM	#14
Luca Joined: Dec 12th, 2006 Last Online: 11:20 AM Posts: 149 Rep Power: 17	I enjoyed that. Needs more hard driving though. Not so sure on the bmw driver shirts or the fiats driver subaru hat.

January 26th, 2009, 11:02 AM	#15
Scott Previously known as ssnapier Joined: May 23rd, 2005 Last Online: November 5th, 2009 Location: Fort Detrick, Maryland Posts: 1,642 Car: RS2'd 95 Audi S-6 '06 Jetta TDI Rep Power: 36	If anyone gets a chance to put these on an FTP, I would be incredibly grateful! I can even provide the FTP if someone can upload them! __________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _ Move along, nothing to see here folks...

January 26th, 2009, 1:39 PM	#16
Dsemaj Previously Known As Jamesd Joined: May 3rd, 2006 Last Online: 12:01 AM Location: Adelaide, Australia. Age: 18 Posts: 2,657 Car: '95 BMW 530i, '85 Nissan Bluebird S3 GXE Rep Power: 40	I mean, you guys have made a great video and I love it (on part 4 so far), but you probably need to try and show the roads a bit better. Sometimes I find that when you talk about something, it would have been a lot better with a filler shot. Like, when the weird-3-wheeler car drove past the guys and went out of the shot, I was expecting you to cut to it moving around or something. But I guess that was probably limited by the fact you had only one exterior shot camera, yeah? That said, you only had one camera car too. Probably a bit harder to show without a helicopter too.. It's not perfect, but still a good load of fun. Voiceovers could feel a bit more natural. When you went to get brake fluid, the resulting voiceover feels a bit boring and/or sorta forced. I'd think a more colloquial statement like "After the Fiat's fluid was topped up again, we set back to the road" would flow a bit better with what really is a colloquial sorta thing But honestly, like I've said in the past, I'm really jealous of what you guys have done. Feels like a whole load of fun. __________________ 1995 BMW E34 530i V8 M60B30 218HP/163kW 5sp Auto 1985 Nissan 910 Bluebird I4 CA20S 105HP/78kW 3sp Auto Last edited by Dsemaj; January 26th, 2009 at 1:40 PM.

January 26th, 2009, 3:54 PM	#18
Akilles Joined: Mar 5th, 2007 Last Online: November 3rd, 2009 Location: Sweden! Posts: 26 Car: Working on a driving license Rep Power: 11	Why no torrent with the whole "movie"? =) __________________ Clarkson: James! Bad news, the Dacia Sandero... May: The what?

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