Closer than ever before

What do you do when you're an indy film maker (read: low budget) and you want to blow away any film that's been made about the Tour de France? You think better, work harder and find inventive solutions that the other guys missed while they were taking it easy. For Chasing Legends we planned and plotted ways to put the viewer closer than they have ever been. We've all seen gorgeous helicopter shots, long-lens finish line shots, even a few dash-cam team car shots. But you have never before been INSIDE the peloton, until now. (yes that's Lance, thanks Bernie for the shot!)

Even with our limited budget we figured out ways to connect the audience to the experience of the tour. For instance, who gets the best seat in the house for the action? The professional photographers. Of them, two names come to mind, Graham Watson and Tim deWaele (the Jean Claude Van Damme of photographers). Both are interviewed in Chasing Legends and Tim even let us mount cams on his helmet and his moto. Here are a few screen shots of how close we will take you. HUGE thanks Tim. (click on the image, they get bigger)
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Below: TIGHT SQUEEZE - Tim was yelling at his driver, not sure what (he speaks in a mix of French and Dutch). It was a close call either way...the spectator in the frog suit almost got clipped!


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Mark Cavendish drafting off Big George


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Notice there is no guardrail. No chance for mistakes or crashes - for rider, team car or Photographer moto...


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It defies physics how a centimeter of rubber can retain traction going 80k on wet pavement, downhill - into a tight corner.


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Lonely, cold and rainy. The less glamorous professional cycling.


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Again Big George - climbing into the clouds.


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And finally a self portrait by Tim, of Tim.

Obama haters - shut your pie holes.

After funding the rise of Saddam then starting a war with Iraq, pouring billions PER MONTH into it (and right into Cheney's pockets), raping our own banks & letting Wall Street get in on the action with LESS regulation, Bush and company put us into a vast economic hole. Those are facts.

Guess what, we are NOW slowly coming out of it. The recession has turned. I hope that is a fact. The Amurican people need to suck it up and get tough, slowly pay for the mistakes of Bush legacy and worry more about long term survival as a world power. If we can't learn from our mistakes, learn to be more efficient with our resources, stop giving China all our money in exchange for ridiculously cheap crap (honestly, a new couch should not cost $99 nor a coffee maker $10), learn to be leaner and stronger with less boom in the economy (ahem, the 90's) which only leads to a bust (good morning) - then we might as well just hand over our keys to China. And every idiot shopping at Walmart voting for uneducated but flashy leaders (Palin fits this bill) will deserve the fate they get. Me personally, I'd prefer to keep that from happening.

This isn't rocket science, more like dog psychology. This country is so caught up with glitz and glamor - our ancestors who worked hard and got by with very little would puke at the state of the country. Too bad the Dems can't figure out how to appeal to the mob since the uneducated US doesn't so much care about truth, only facade. Amurica misses their cowboy even tho he's akin to the Marlboro Man in many, many ways.

Ok I'm done with my Friday Rant. Get back to work.

STOKED

Ok, I've spent the last few days on and off and about 7 intense hours today searching franticly for video files amidst hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage. Some I'm not sure we ever had, but some I KNEW we had. Back in October we had a RAID totally fail on us. Don't ever order stuff from FireWire Direct. They not only offered to only erase the overpriced drive but wanted to charge us 15% restocking fee on their defective product. I lost files and about 2 weeks of time. ANYWAY, I digress...

I found one of the missing files tonight. Holy crap I'm stoked. The others might have never been filmed, so I can live with that. And finally we're about to launch the new CHASING LEGENDS website going from this temporary design (which was in place for way too long)

To this lovely, brilliant design sporting the official and final movie logo. Lot of work coming together. Big thanks to Ken and Curtis for hammering this out with me.

DC is trying

Sure they get a lot of things wrong but a few things they do pretty well. Take the smoking ban - DC led the tri-state area and now even my beloved Virginia is smoke free in bars and restaurants. Doubt it would be so w/o DC leading the charge. Now take the new plastic bag fee- 5¢ each for food items. Holy crap! Outstanding! When I told my buddy Martin, he had a brilliant comment,
"Sweet. I propose a 5 cent fee for every cigarette that you want a filter with. This will serve to eliminate many of the pesky butts that people so freely and recklessly toss out the window while driving. And unfiltered cig's = poison = less smokers (altho more in health care costs). Of course the .05 collected could go to healthcare, but in my proposal it would go to whitewater parks and beer.

Not sermon, just a thought..."

Clearly the man is a genius.

News & Views

while the world gasps at Walmart and Sams Club cutting jobs, I prefer to look on the brighter side of life. Since there isn't much good news going around I figured I'd share what made me smile today. Which of course is pure satire but I'll take it where I can get it. Click on the image, it'll get bigger. This one goes out to all the wealthy folks who plop McMansions where ever they please, often naming their new street after what was once there (oh the irony, right?)...

ALASKA

The Alaskan Wilderness League, a client of mine, cut together this short video using mostly footage I shot last summer. It's only a minute long, check it out & pass on the link. They are doing amazing work protecting the land and the culture (and jobs) of the locals. Very worth supporting these folks.

If you click on the video twice it will take you to the larger size version as this gets clipped on the side.

Just a cool shot

poached off Joel's Blog...

Many Long Days

I'm in it now. 12-15hrs a day hammering out this movie. With 5-7hrs of daily team car footage on top of 2-3 hours of daily action footage we shot on top of 3-4 hours of ASO and Versus footage daily, on top of 'at-Tour' and retrospective interviews from no less than 22 people there's a bit of footage to digest. And it all has to be scoured for the best comments, the best looks, the best moments. This is one of those moments - George drops back to chat to Brian and Rolf, yells "In that crash I had to jump over Vande Velde's bike! How crazy is that?"

News FLASH!

Quitting smoking, if you're just found out you have lung cancer, increases your survivability rate by 200%
This is news?

huh.

If you get lung cancer and continue to smoke, you don't deserve to live. Darwin will certainly get your dumbass.

Ok, sometimes

you just gotta laugh at politics.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mass Backwards
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

This is outstanding. Pretty much made my day.

Even when a ride goes wrong

like tonight, my fork blew a seal and leaked out it's important guts rendering it useless - and the trails were too muddy to ride (being responsible mountain bikers and all) - and I was looking forward to a solid 2 hours of leg-busting, lung-searing singletrack....

however if you're with friends, even when a ride goes wrong, it's still good.

Dogfish Head beers with those friends after the debacle - brings it up to great. Matt, Scuba, Alex - good stuff.

Drunk Driver turned Killer

This guy ran over a cyclist and kept going. Dragging the bike under his car for blocks. Driving with his windshield totally crushed. Trying to escape. We all make mistakes, sometimes they produce more bad decisions. But killing a man and running - well, I hope they fry this guy. Florida still hang people? That would be fitting. See what he looks like here.

Sarcasm Rules

Read this just now, felt compelled to post it. Made my morning!
link is here.

Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

Liquid Bliss

This is one of the best windsurfing photos I've seen in a long time. Maui rockstar 'Cisco Goya burning off his holiday calories. Hookipa, Maui. Rest of the photos are here. When this movie and the screening tour are done, I'm going to rent a place on Maui for the Winter of 2011. I miss sailing. In shorts. With World Champions.

I hope he means it

read this today - while I doubt there's much America can do to curb its insane greed, it would be nice to snatch back some stolen money from the Wall St. crooks...

"My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people...We want our money back, and we're going to get it."
-Obama

The real deal

no political rhetoric involved, Lance just stepped it up cuz he's the man.

HAITI DESERVES IT

Well, they do according to Right Wing nut-job Pat Robertson. I knew it wouldn't be long and here it is...
CLICK HERE.
Or HERE.
Or even here.
And there you have it. "Haiti made a pact with the Devil."
uhhhhh, ok. Riiiiiight.
He once said American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. Wow. Ok, to be fair he IS sending some relief but at what cost? Granted if I was in Haiti and someone offered relief I wouldn't care where it came from but in my meager opinion this guy is using the occasional good deed to mask the bigger picture.

Blame it on the 3rd cup of coffee this morning but I just had a flash of fear - a 'day-dream' nightmare if you will... Maybe he and Palin can make the next GOP presidential ticket? All they have to do is control the media (brilliant move by Mrs. Palin to work at Fox News) and slowly get the barbarian horde to believe them. Get everyone thinking those Haitian heathens are going to board ships to Miami and taint our shores with their voodoo. And in the mean time let's create a Federal Task Force to crack down on any current US-residing Haitians who practice the dark arts. Then we might as well jail and torture the scientists who disagree with the Bible's theory of evolution, I mean we did throw out the Geneva Convention during the last administration, who will care if we torture domestic trouble makers? We'll ban Santa! No more Easter Bunny, only Chocolate Crucifixes in them baskets! Then we can get to work on more important issues like getting Prayer back into schools. Just as long as it's CHRISTIAN PRAYER.

South Park, please take it from here...

Screen grab

from Stage 1 back in Monaco. Seems like years ago...

Sorry

been hyper busy lately, not much time to blog. Spent most of last week working on a new logo for Chasing Legends. It's always hard to say you've worked a long time on something because when you throw it out there for others to see, it's very easy for someone to say, "Huh, that sucks." So I try to fall back to words from a wise professor I had in art school who asked, "Do you know the difference between an artist and a designer?" Of course I didn't. "An artist is sincere, he works on a painting because he needs to. He simply has to and so he does. His decisions are his own and they are beyond reproach. You may say what you want about his work but that will only be your opinion. A designer works to get paid so if those who are paying for the work don't like what they see, the designer is in trouble and must change his work to please those who write the checks. Whatever you do in life, know which one you are."

Well here I am 20 years later wondering which I am. I am working my ass off on a movie because I love it and I'm passionate about it. Sounds like an artist. I don't get paid. Also sounds like an artist. But I hope to get paid. Lots. Maybe catch the attention of a Hollywood studio, get some really exciting jobs lined up, direct a big budget film. And then get paid more. Does that make me a designer of films? Or maybe, ... a "DIRECTOR" ??? Sure as it's cold outside tonight I have to please those who watch my film so I really have the worst of both worlds. All of the scrutiny but none of the pay. When the hell did I sign up for this? I think that jackass instructor did nothing but confuse me. No wonder it took me 5 years to get a 4 year degree. In ART.

So while I labor over my label take a look at my latest creation, which was not all mine but a collaborative effort from the Gripped Films family of designers which to me makes it even better. Keep in mind the criteria this was designed for - it had to reflect an array of very specific things:
Tour de France - it's passion, history, grit, countryside, villages, grandeur, ceremony, toughness, suffering, pain, glory - professional cycling at it's highest level, movement, speed and of course the feeling of LEGENDS

(click on it to see a larger version)

If you think it sucks, just keep it to yourself. If you like it by all means, let me know. That will be the closest thing to a paycheck I get this week!!!

Time to PAY THE PIPER

Today that !@#$!# Dr. in LA who assaulted 2 cyclists with his car gets sentenced. Let's all hope they throw out the regular rule book and give him the chair instead. Ok, fantasies aside he's likely to serve 8-10 years. Keep those fingers crossed!
You can follow the story here.

Warren Miller comes to DC

Check it out, tis the season to think SNOW!!!
Tickets at Arlington Draft House


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