"A Californian Homage to Top Gear"

[svb]

Originally Posted by Alakdeus

the neon ACR was actually crashed on highway one by the owner (the guy who was in just some shots) because of hydroplaning. I'm not sure if it's totaled, but it's definitely messed up.

-rodoni

It's not as bad as it sounds. I grabbed a couple shots when I was there last:

[silver9811]

Pretty awesome job guys, given the budget you couldn't really ask for better. It's kind of a shame its so short though, there are so many good driving roads in CA you can't fit them all in to 60 minutes. If you do it again post up a suggestions thread, I'm sure people on here could suggest a few good drives.

[AarheadC]

looked like you guys had fun. Thanks for the vid

[svb]

Originally Posted by silver9811

Pretty awesome job guys, given the budget you couldn't really ask for better. It's kind of a shame its so short though, there are so many good driving roads in CA you can't fit them all in to 60 minutes. If you do it again post up a suggestions thread, I'm sure people on here could suggest a few good drives.

Thanks!! Really glad to hear all the positive feedback so far. As far as good roads go, the thing that I've found is that everyone is really quick to chime in with suggestions of other great roads or stuff we missed, etc. We could go on and on and on and not cover every great road in CA. There are tons. This is great because it completely proves our point about there being fantastic roads even in North America.

We started out figuring we'd try to show the best of CA roads and come to some sort of conclusion as to which was the very best -- and we sort of did. But once we got going, we really found our film was just about the three of us having a great time driving 3 somewhat sketchy cars all up and down CA in the middle of the summer. The San Francisco challenge was completely thrown together at the last minute but in my opinion ended up being the best part of the whole film. The rally sequence at the end was supposed to have more footage of the cars actually running the course but we ran out of daylight (and time in general).

We'd love to do more of these. This one was bankrolled entirely by my friends and I and I don't think we could do it that way again. If you guys like this and would like to see us do more, especially now that word has come that there will be no Top Gear US, the best thing you can do is to tell all your friends, and post the link on any other boards you may be on so that word can get out and we can get the maximum exposure on this project. We made this film just for fun and don't really expect anything to come from it, but if it ever did, we'd be ready.

[mountainman]

You hit the big time! You've been pirated!

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4725...ge_to_Top_Gear

[svb]

Originally Posted by mountainman

You hit the big time! You've been pirated!

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4725...ge_to_Top_Gear

I love the write-up!! This is great:

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!

[mountainman]

The Pirate Bay doesn't show the number of times a torrent file has been fetched but lots of people have been downloading this movie. My computer says I've been seeding the torrent for 20 days. During that time there's been a minimum of about five seeders and five leechers. Leechers seem to last for a just few hours so someone (not me) is seeding at a good rate. If five leechers download the movie in six hours then 20 download in 24 hours which means 400 may have downloaded the movie in 20 days.

[martyspain]

http://transmission.blogs.topgear.co.../15/tg-homage/

Just watching the show through, and really enjoying it. Top work.

[jo-jo-action]

You have been MOLED:
http://transmission.blogs.topgear.co.../15/tg-homage/

Gratulation!

[svb]

Originally Posted by martyspain

http://transmission.blogs.topgear.co.../15/tg-homage/

Just watching the show through, and really enjoying it. Top work.

AWESOME!!

[DanRoM]

I just watched the whole film, and I must say: Good work!

Of course some more exterior shots would have been better, but with a small budget and only one exterior camera you can't really ask for more. Also, in my opinion the dialogue didn't feel forced, to the contrary, you seemed very relaxed and natural. Do you guys have previous experience in front of a camera (or behind it, for that matter)?

[Copycat]

Well there's your next Top Gear American special right there. They need to find you guys and film a segment or possibly a whole episode together. A race track and the kind of cars they have access to...



Seriously. The least they could do is show a clip of this while doing the next series' news.

[Holiace]

I wonder, what was the song at 02:10+?

I just wonder how you could get such crappy cars for a budget of $5000. I guess just for comedic value (But then you should just have set a lower budget ). I love the movie so far though (10 minutes in). Funny and no sloppy camera work.

Thoughts on Neon: Not a favorite car but from what I know it handles well.
Thoughts on the 325i: I like the E36, the fastest of the three.
I really like the Fiat coz it's stylish. and it's a cabriolet =)



Afterthoughts: You should have done a 1/4 mile drag to see how fast your cars were. The rally was better though =)

GREAT movie! I'm really impressed (And so are probably the most other viewers).

[ladora]

Getting it from torrent as we speak. Will let you guys know what I think of it when I'm done watching it.

[svb]

Originally Posted by Holiace

I wonder, what was the song at 02:10+?

The Deadly Syndrome - I Release You

website here: http://thedeadlysyndrome.com/

They have a live version you can download or you can get their full album on iTunes, last I checked.

Originally Posted by Holiace

I just wonder how you could get such crappy cars for a budget of $5000. I guess just for comedic value (But then you should just have set a lower budget ).

The $5k "budget" was really a function of doing the whole film on a shoestring. Setting a lower budget, like $1k, would have been more interesting maybe but it actually would have cost us more since we'd actually have to buy cars for $1k or less. As it was, we had a few ~$5k cars within our group and so we just used those, which made the cars basically free.

In actuality, both the Neon ACR and the Fiat were originally purchased for a bit more than $5k and so both cars lost points there. The ACR was $6k when originally purchased; it was fully race-prepped -- had the 8-pt roll cage and everything, had been raced a couple times, and only had about 2000 miles on it. The previous owner had built it to compete in Oregon's SCCA class SSB and then suffered heart problems that prevented him from ever racing again.

The BMW was the only car to come in under the budget at a fairly low $3200. The BMW has been sold since then but the other two cars remain in the group. I ended up pretty much breaking even on the BMW, so that car really was effectively free. I had owned it for a few months before we did the film though.

Originally Posted by Holiace

GREAT movie! I'm really impressed (And so are probably the most other viewers).

Thanks!! It's great to hear. Almost all the comments on this site have been good ones. The comments on the topgear.com blog have been more critical but I think this is largely due to the fact that they're coming almost entirely from people in the UK, most of whom are quite attached to the original show and maybe don't understand that we're not actually trying to be JC, RH, and JM. We're just avid fans of the show who thought it looked like too much fun not to do it ourselves.

[svb]

Originally Posted by DanRoM

Do you guys have previous experience in front of a camera (or behind it, for that matter)?

Some of us have a little experience; we've made films before but never on this level of production. CJ, our cinematographer, is a recent grad but actually has a good deal of experience behind the camera for someone our age and has worked on several other projects. He was certainly the most experienced of all of us, which really helped the rest of us to not look like complete amateurs.

[Cobol74]

Great attempt chaps - loved it - Neon only looks a bit banged up!

The other vid that sticks in the mind is that one with the helicopter from Australia - can not quite remember whos it was. ...

[OSLer]

I like your movie, nicely done.
Some more shots of Cali would have been nice, especially from the coastline, the shot of the bridge crossing was really sweet.

[Holiace]

Originally Posted by svb

Thanks!! It's great to hear. Almost all the comments on this site have been good ones. The comments on the topgear.com blog have been more critical but I think this is largely due to the fact that they're coming almost entirely from people in the UK, most of whom are quite attached to the original show and maybe don't understand that we're not actually trying to be JC, RH, and JM. We're just avid fans of the show who thought it looked like too much fun not to do it ourselves.

http://transmission.blogs.topgear.co.../15/tg-homage/
Well those who said that your film makes fifth gear look good are just being rude or stupid (they probably are ). The film was way more entertaining than Fifth Gear. It's called "A Californian Homage to Top Gear" and that is what it is, a homage, a tribute. Really guys, it's a job well done!

I really enjoyed the show and I'll watch it again some day (very soon if it's available in even better quality than the Torrent. I'm downloading the HD videos of Youtube as I'm typing this.)

Also: What song at 05:04+?

[svb]

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

Check it out here: http://drivr.be/2009/03/19/video-cal...-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.

I think I'm getting the gist of this correct but if someone wants to correct me anywhere, feel free.