Rats & Gassers Editing

Finally getting back into the swing of serious editing on my documentary film, Rats & Gassers, after a solid year of riding the very fucked up "Divorce Roller Coaster."

Hot Rod Comparison Bodies

Made several comparison bodies for a brief section in Rats & Gassers that shows the difference between a chopped body and non-chopped body, both for Sedans and 5 window style Hot Rods. These bodies will rotate on a motorized rotisserie showing all angles to the camera. 

Table Top Camera Dolly

So got a new table top dolly to do some intricate shots for Rats & Gassers today. I am going to use it to re-shoot footage from a flatscreen monitor with added motion. Hard to explain, but it should be worth the investment

New Poster Ideas

Working up some possible poster print ideas from outtakes of the shoot I did with Lisa Leopard for Ol' Skool Rodz (and my film Rats & Gassers).

Narration Backgrounds For Rats & Gassers

From yesterdays filming for Rats & Gassers. This is Everett WA from a waterfront park view. This is for the location narration. You know "Here in the Northwest..." Shot on a Canon HF-G10 

Rats & Gassers Editing

Two stills from last nights editing of Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. I have been using FinalCut Pro directly to adjust color and contrast rather than doing it in Photoshop and then importing to FCP. 

Photoshoot

We went over to Robb Newby's GodSpeed Fabrication yesterday to do a photoshoot with the lovely Kitty Mansfield. We scheduled in the morning because we knew it was gonna be crazy hot in the shop come afternoon. As always Kitty did a great job. We also tagged another episode of Go-Kustom TV (Kitty is the Hostess for the show). 

Photoshoot

Had a great (and very hot) day shooting Lisa Stanger with Big Tom and Carla McDonald's Gassers at Cassidy Lake in Snohomish, WA. I can't post lots of pics, because this is for publication, but here's one.

Rats & Gassers Editing

Been doing alot more editing on my feature documentary Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride the last few weeks. Lots of detail work like interview titles and graphics, color matching and/or black & white sectioning. Little by small.

New Shirts

Just took delivery of the first batch of new Rats & Gassers T Shirts yesterday. I decided to go with a blood red, black and white color scheme on dark grey (charcoal) colored shirts. As always these are available on our website
go-kustom.com

Tom Sanders Pick-Up

Been working the last few days on Tom Sanders interview section of Rats & Gassers. Cut down some of the GoPro sections and driving scenes, getting rid of the shaky camera stuff, bad angles, etc. I really dig Toms truck. Especially the commercial headlights, really set the front end off.

More Facebook Lovin'

My new documentary film series - Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride has been getting some serious lovin' the last week and a half. It started when I posted the new and updated trailer for the show. The trailer has a reach today of 48,848 people (views, shares, likes). Our page post reach is up by 952.7 percent !!!! This jump has also started reaching all our posts with even the more mundane being seen by thousands more people. 

Rats & Gassers Animations

Part of making this documentary has been making little word and graphic animations that illustrate a point in the narration. I just finished working on a short animation showing how Tom Sanders shortened and chopped his Sedan to make a 1929 Ford Extended Cab. I actually started this artwork as a side bar graphic that appeared in Ol' Skool Rodz magazine a few months back (for a feature  I did on Tom's truck). For the animation I used Photoshop with various parts in layers and exported as TIFFs, keeping the transparency background layer intact. The actual motion in the animation was done in Final Cut Pro 7. 

The Power of Facebook

The Rats & Gassers FB Page was on fire the last few days. Total reach was over 45,000 which is up  by 923%! That's due to people liking and sharing the updated Rats & Gassers trailer video. Obviously Social Media is one way to get the word out about a film project and it's amazing seeing it first hand on your own work.

Some Serious Rats & Gassers Lovin'!

Pleasantly surprised by all the "likes" and "shares" the revamped Rats & Gassers Trailer has gotten on Facebook. Over 43,000 views in two days! It is humbling. 

Rats & Gassers The Series

Got the pitch for The Series almost ready. Burning DVDs and getting artwork and screen shot set. Gonna mail out a little booklet too. Fingers crossed. This will be the best way to get this film out and onto networks. I may make less money in the long run, but this is all about the builders.. 

Rats & Gassers The Series?

After chipping away for months on the editing of Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride, I have become convinced that editing the 64 plus hours of this film down to a mere 1.5 hours is impossible. So are we talking DVD or TV Series? I decided to start shopping the R&G as a Series. I mean the content is incredible and why not? So 4-5 DVDs? 6-7 TV Episodes?

And More Rats & Gassers Photo Editing

Series of photos by my daughter of Trevor's flamethrowers.

Worked on the section about Trevor Robinson and his builds today. His '29 Truck is a centerpiece of the film. 

Rats & Gassers Photo Editing

Two days worth of tedious photo editing for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. Seriously I need a clone. 

Big T's Henry J Gasser With Jean Viva

I am going through the massive amounts of stills, pics and video footage for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. Came across these from last years shoot with Big T and Carla McDonald's Henry J Gasser (model Jean Viva), which is a great build. Big T has massive knowledge as a builder and put this bad boy together in a matter of months. When I interviewed him in late 2011 the Henry J was still in pieces (you can see it behind him during the interview) and by mid-2012 he was racing it!