Rats & Gassers Shirts

Designed these last night. We need new shirt designs for car show season and I really like Chuck Backman's '55 Chevy and Trevor Robinson's '29 Ford Pick-Up as potential t-shirt art. The process to turn video stills into shirt designs is an involved process using extensive filters and multiple layers in Photoshop. Worth the effort IMHO.

Billetproof Northwest 2013

Had a great time at the 2013 Billetproof Car Show in Chehalis, WA. We set up a vendor booth for Go-Kustom Rekords & Films and I did some filming for Go-Kustom TV and Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. Primarily I wanted to interview Alan Galbraith, who is the main force behind this series of shows and vintage drag race events. The weather was excellent with temperatures in the 80's and solid sunshine. This was truly amazing, given we had massive amounts of rain right up until Friday morning.

Rats & Gassers Photo Editing

Doing some serious detail work the last few days. Going through ALL the pictures I am using in Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Take A Ride and adjusting color, contrast and sharpness. This is so when I import the photos to the Final Cut pro 7 timeline, they will be the best they can be. I am using Apple's Preview for the preliminary adjustments, the Photoshop if need be. Tedious but necessary. 

My Edmonds News Interview

Did a little interview with My Edmonds News.com. Read it below...

By Janette Turner

A few years back, a video crew shooting in Edmonds alarmed locals with a too-realistic gun scene. The resulting movie, “Rat Rod Rockers!” was released and I recently checked in with director D.A. Sebasstian to find out more.

My Edmonds News: Could you please give us an update on “Rat Rod Rockers!”

D.A.S.: The film has done very well, especially through Amazon Instant Video. I was surprised at how many folks actually rent underground hot rod films through this mainstream channel, instead of just stealing my film on one of the Peer To Peer or Pirating sites. We have also sold bucket loads of the “Rat Rod Rockers!” DVDs at car shows and on our own website. and the film has received decent reviews in all the Hot Rod and car magazines. It’s funny, with my genre of film making I get much more attention from the “Car” magazines and websites than the “Movie” magazines and websites. The sales of “Rat Rod Rockers!” enabled me to finance my latest documentary film- “Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride.”

My Edmonds News: What are you shooting these days?

D.A.S.: Right now I am in post production with “Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Take A Ride.” I started shooting in 2011 and have accumulated over 60 hours of interviews and Hot Rod footage. This film is a tribute to the builders and fabricators who make Hot Rods in the Northwest. I went to various shops from Medford, Oregon, to Monroe, Washington, and interviewed the builders one on one about why they do what they do and why they have a passion for these cars. I really see these guys as artists more than just “hobbyists”. Besides the builders, I also interviewed Matt Sawdon of Sunken Ship Tattoo, Photographers Tina Tang and Susana Victoria Clark and Pinstriper Don Charbonneau. “Kustom Kulture” encompasses the cars and the lifestyle and everyone form the Pin-Ups who pose with the cars to the artists who paint and stripe the cars are involved. I am on track to have this in festivals by end of 2013. I am also making a companion book to go with the film. At each interview session I took my Canon 7D along to take pictures for the book. I am not the greatest photographer in the world -much better with a film camera- but several of my photo shoots have been published in national magazines, so maybe I’m mot as lame as I think I am!

My Edmonds News: Anything else that you want folks to know?

D.A.S.: We re-booted our TV show “Go-Kustom TV!” We were on SCAN (cable 29/77) for four seasons back in 2002-2005 and then I put the show on hold to make feature length movies. When I was out filming “Rats & Gassers,” I found some of the footage, especially about muscle cars or kustom cars, wouldn’t fit the documentary’s format. I started thinking, why not re-boot Go-Kustom TV? I talked to pin-up mega-model Kitty Mansfield about hosting the show; she agreed and now we are wrapping up Episode One of Season Five. We will shop the show to various distributors and plan on having 12-14 25 minute Episodes in Season 5. Most are centered around area car shows like the Hell On Wheels show at Darrell’s Tavern in Shoreline, and many more. Some of the footage from the TV show will also be in “Rats & Gassers.” In this way I was able to shoot two project simultaneously. I like to maximize my effort this way.

To follow “Go-Kustom TV” and “Rat Rod Rockers!” check out the website.

Website http://www.go-kustom.com/go-kustomtv.html

Go-Kustom TV Season 5

Went up to Craig VanSant's garage to film Kitty Mansfield's opening dialog for the first episode of Go-Kustom TV Season 5. I have started final editing on the new series. We have had some interest in the show from a European Motorsports Network so I need to get the pilot completed for screening. I also plan on shopping the show to American Networks once we have the pilot and promo materials ready. Kitty did an excellent job introducing the episode- more to come!

More Rats & Gassers Posters & Merch

Added quite a few more posters today on our Cafe Press pages. 

Even More File Conversions For Rats & Gassers

Still organizing files and converting into Final Cut Pro usable files. I did quite a bit of filming all summer at various events and car shows, and even though that footage was primarily for Go-Kustom TV some of it will end up in Rats & Gassers.

Also sold my Korg Electribe A - EA1 last night.  I have sold most of my outboard synth gear in the last few months. Good to get cash for things I am not using- especially when I am now working almost exclusively on Reason 6.5.

More Rats & Gassers File Conversions

More file conversions for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. Getting close to having all files maximized and ready for editing. I went back and reduced the GoPro footage from 1920x1080 to 1280x720 frame size. This saves tons of disc space and since even the HD version of this film will be 720p (1280x720) no need for the extra size. Opened up over 120 gigs of space! Now I can convert all Go-Kustom TV footage from MTS format to usable .mov files. This is important because I need to review the Go-Kustom TV footage for inclusion in the film and last week I had filed my 2TB drive! Now I am good to go. 

Rats & Gassers File Conversion

More file conversions for my documentary Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. So much to convert it is amazing how much footage I shot for this film! 

1/25th Scale Revell 1932 Ford Sedan

Just bought this 1/25th Scale Revell 1932 Ford Sedan model kit for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. Hard to explain just wait and see.

Rats & Gassers Screen Animations

Working on more animation for the narration of Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. the animation is mild, mostly just flyby type lettering. I haven't written the narration, but know what I roughly want to say and what will be needed to fill the screen while I'm talking. 

I have also been selling lots of gear the last few months, since our Arts School closed. Mostly to pay bills (since I am not working full time) and slim down my studio. After the last move, I realized how much gear I have that I never even turn on. Why keep it? I am really moving towards a full Reason 6.5 centric set-up, especially after demoing  the some of the new Rack Extensions for Reason.  I recently sold my Korg MicroKORG, Roland SH-32,  Boss GT-3, Fender 12 string guitar, Boss RC-3 Loop Station, Boss RE-20 Tape Echo, Digitech RV-7 Reverb, Roland GK-3B Bass Pick-Up and Behringer Xenyx 2442 Mixer.

Rats & Gassers Filming

Went up to Steve Leary's place to film his full fender '36 Ford for Rats & Gassers. We had been up to Steve's last year to do his initial interview about his HEMI Whippet build and saw the '36, but it was still getting rebuilt. Steve had saved the car from a would be Street Rodder and was slowly getting it back to a more original, stock appearance. We drove around getting shots of the Ford driving and parked. A very unique car by todays "fenderless" standard of Hot Rods, Rats Rods, etc. 

Rats & Gassers Filming

Went out to South Hill, Washington (down past Tacoma) to film Willie Rakes' 1937 Chrysler Gasser- a truly unique car. We shot stills of the Chrysler by an abandon school house, then off to an industrial side street to get some moving shots of the "Rat Killer" in action. Finally we went out to Willy's secluded home to film an interview about the build. Excellent day (and night) of filming for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. 

Rats & Gassers Filming

Had an amazing afternoon filming Tom Sanders Rat Truck, first by mounting GoPros on it while he drove around town, and then going out to the airport to film him making multiple passes by my HD camera. After that, we headed over a nearby gravel pit to film some additional B-Roll and to shoot pictures with the uber leggy pin-up model Shelbi Fahrney. This set was for an article I am writing about Tom's truck. I can't post pics, because this was for a national magazine. Needless to say- Shelbi rocked the set! Big thanks to Tom for setting up the gravel pit location and of course providing his bad ass truck. This was also my first stab at print magazine photography. Obviously it is a bit different than filming for a feature or documentary. Photography is capturing the world in a second, video is capturing the event and emotion over a period of time. Still framing subject, lighting effects, etc are similar. I am loving my new Canon 7D!

File Conversions

Going through all the tons of footage for the new Season 5 episodes of Go-Kustom TV converting files and looking for potential B-Roll for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. That's been the boon for rekindling Go-Kustom TV is getting multiple use footage for several projects. The file conversion is a long  process for the Canon HF-G10 Camera. The native format the Canon records in is MTS files which have to be run through three programs (in my work flow) to get them into my FCP 7 timelines. They look incredible when done- so it is worth the work. 

Rats & Gassers Filming

Went over to Chuck Backman's place to interview him for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride yesterday. The weather was overcast with sun breaks, but no rain- thank you very much! Did a nice little sit down interview with Chuck about his 1955 Chevy Gasser for my documentary, then model Kitty Mansfield and photographer Ralph Gayle came over to do a shoot with Chuck's '55 for a national car magazine (can't say which one yet). Kitty looked awesome paired up with the big green Chevy. I got a glimpse of a few pics on Ralph's camera and was blown away! Can't wait to see the full shoot on disc and in print! 

Seattle Shots

Shot this video still yesterday on Queen Anne Hill overlooking Seattle. Gorgeous day. These shots are for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. I needed a few ambient Seattle shots for the narration of the film. 

Interview With Photographer Susana Victoria Clark

Had an excellent interview with Susana Victoria Clark of Vestige
Photography about her style of Pin-Up and Hot Rod photography. This will be a nice addition to Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. Some very nice insight into her work and world. She was a complete sweetheart and looks like she could be a Pin-Up Model herself!

Brightened up my otherwise dreary day...more on the dreary day part in another post...