This was one of those legendary projects. Got a call from the boys at Conscious Minds to direct a series of videos for Levi's. Of the 7 on our film crew, 5 of us were friends from the APU film program. It makes such a difference working with a group of buddies. The project had the potential of being a complete nightmare, but in the end was loads of fun and our videos turned out great.
Our task was to document a team participating in the Race Across America, a 3,000 mile bike race from Oceanside California to Annapolis Maryland. Unlike the Tour de France, the riders never stop. It's billed as the hardest bicycle race on earth. Day and night - for 8 days - our team had someone on the road, pedaling through the country.
As a film crew, this meant minimal sleep and rest for us also. We were living/working out of our own RV, and had a follow car to film from. It was constant motion. Every time you pull off the road, you're falling behind the racers - even in the middle of the night. We had 2 editors working around the clock in our "mobile editing suite" and it was a lot of fun to come back from a long day of shooting and see what they had accomplished during the day. Speedy turnaround was essential because Levi's was releasing these videos DURING the race on their website and all over the internet. For more behind the scenes stuff, you can check out the photos posted on Benji's website.
Our task was to document a team participating in the Race Across America, a 3,000 mile bike race from Oceanside California to Annapolis Maryland. Unlike the Tour de France, the riders never stop. It's billed as the hardest bicycle race on earth. Day and night - for 8 days - our team had someone on the road, pedaling through the country.
As a film crew, this meant minimal sleep and rest for us also. We were living/working out of our own RV, and had a follow car to film from. It was constant motion. Every time you pull off the road, you're falling behind the racers - even in the middle of the night. We had 2 editors working around the clock in our "mobile editing suite" and it was a lot of fun to come back from a long day of shooting and see what they had accomplished during the day. Speedy turnaround was essential because Levi's was releasing these videos DURING the race on their website and all over the internet. For more behind the scenes stuff, you can check out the photos posted on Benji's website.
Here's the last video which recaps the whole story. To dive deeper, scroll down - I've posted the rest in order. My personal favorite is #3.
Video 1: Something Greater
Video 2: Rocky Start
Video 3: Pitching In
Props to our awesome crew. Trust me when I say this was a massive team effort:
Blake Heal (producer)
Pete Cote (director of photography)
Anders Lindwall (editor)
Benji Newell (editor/motion graphics/wet ducks)
Jason Richardson (logistics/driver)
Milton Campbell (photog/driver/steakouts)
Yours Truly (director/cinematographer/general weirdo)
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