In a continued effort to share some of the projects that we work on outside of the wedding world, we decided to share another Rockstar shoot with everyone out there. This one took place at Suzuki’s factory and involved Danielle, Miss Rockstar Energy AMA. It can be found on Rockstar’s website and we would be lying if we said it wasn’t any fun to put together. Enjoy 🙂

So just a few short weeks ago, the wife and I were in Europe. Yes, we know, rough life. But hey! What’s the point of living if you don’t live, right? So, one of many stops landed us in Lisbon, Portugal. Some of the friendliest people we have ever met that don’t speak English.

So go back to our first anniversary. Jackie (wife) and I took a quick flight up to San Francisco where we were first introduced to GoCars. Basically, you ride around looking like a tourist in a fun little neon yellow go-cart. There is a satellite guided tour that tells you what you are looking at as you drive by certain places. The nice thing is it also tells you where to turn next. The GoCar looks something like this:

Jump forward to a couple weeks ago. Turns out there is a GoCar in Lisbon! So, naturally, what better way to see a city when you only have a few hours than to jump in one of these fun little go-carts!

One fun thing about Europe is they don’t use Lysol. So. . . . . .when you put on their helmets, what do they do to sanitize them???? Make you wear fun blue little hair nets. They look like this:

Underneath the world’s coolest helmets, they look like this:

When driving the go-cart, they look like this (note the bridge in the background, NOT the Golden Gate Bridge! more on that in a minute):

here are some of the sights to be seen in Lisbon:

So then, we stumbled upon a peculiar bridge. Turns out the same company that built the San Fran-Oakland Bay Bridge (not the Golden Gate), constructed this bridge in Lisbon in 1966, some thirty years after the Golden Gate. It is considered the sister bridge to the American version and literally looks IDENTICAL. It is called the 25 de Abril Bridge to commemorate the date of the Carnation Revolution of 1974 in Portugal. Check it out!

Unfortunately, our time spent in Lisbon was short lived, but we certainly were able to make the most of it thanks to GoCar! Made some great friends with Patrick and Leonel (the GoCar guys!) and thank them very much for their hospitality in Lisbon!

The other day, we received an awesome email from one of our 2009 couples, Patty + Frank. If you didn’t have a chance to see their trailer, you can see it HERE. In any case, as they celebrated their one year anniversary, they decided to watch their film again and we received this email, which Patty gave me permission to share on the blog.

“Hi Steve,

Frank Chu and I got married nearly a year ago and you did the videography for our wedding. We decided to watch it since our one year anniversary is coming up. I cried like a baby! You did such a wonderful job. I had somehow forgotten what a magical day it was for us and even when you mailed us the finished product (which we watched the day it arrived!) it hadn’t completely hit me how incredible your footage and edits were. One year later, as Frank and I watched it, I started to feel all the emotions from that day and cried the happy tears that I didn’t cry on the actual wedding day because everything was happening so fast. It was well worth the money spent and more. We are so happy that you captured our wedding day. Thanks a million!

—
Yours Faithfully,
Patricia“

It just goes to show how important a good film is once the day has passed. . . – Steve

Twas’ a fall evening in the middle of twilight. The sun kissing the hillside and the dust particles dancing in the fresh light streaking through the high tree line (sound of soft violins whispering in the background). He came to us in a little white basket upon a river near the far village. Wrapped in white linen, his baby tears barely kissing the sides of his cheeks. We took him in as our own and and knew one day he would learn the way (stronger violins, no longer whispering, but speaking). Not the way to the market or the way to the bowling alley. No. A much deeper and longer path that involved struggle and passion (cue epic film music here). The way which most dare not travel. Where dragons and uber-beasts feast on the flesh of the weak. The way where the sun never is seen and darkness is a close friend. The way. . . . . . wait for it. . . . . . wait for it. . . . . of the . . . . . . CINE-WARRIOR (crescendo of epic film music, now calm and bring it back my violin friends).

Through his struggles of trial and tribulation, and billions and billions of hours filming and editing, he grew. From a cine-tadpole to a cine-lizard (violins getting louder). Further he scoured the land of composition and light, bearing his mistakes like weights upon his ankles. From cine-llama to cine-buffalo (louder violins, louder!). Through the valley of juxtaposition to the hills of storytelling. From cine-gorilla to cine-beast (louder violins, louder! Louder than you’ve ever been in your little violin lives!). And today, August 2nd, 2010, marks the end of his journey as a child baby cine-warrior to a full grown adult pure radness man cine-warrior (crash, crescendo, wow, emotion. . . and scene).

And what, you may ask, happens when this child baby cine-warrior reaches full grown adult pure radness man cine-warrior status???

We hire him full time. It is with great excitement and enthusiasm that we welcome Ben full time to the crew and can’t wait for his vision, creativity, and excitement for what we do to play out into our work over and over again.

Did he really think he could just walk in here without us putting up a formal introduction??? Welcome to the team buddy. World, say hello to Ben.

We recently attended a Canon Workshop series with the ever talented folks from Stillmotion. While we examined all sorts of technical aspects to filmmaking like lens choice, composition, lighting design, and work flow. . . . . we also had a fun little opportunity to produce a 30 second spot for Canon’s new Powershot with Smile Recognition. Cool little camera. Instead of a timer, you set it up and it won’t take the picture until the faces in the frame smile. Creepy. . .but cool. Check it out:

As the second part of this post. . . another tasteless, shameless, and yes absurd sighting of the crew in a photo booth with Tracie + John from last Saturday. Special thanks to the folks from Shutter Booth. I must say, I have become a fan of the over sized shades. Ben prefers the Kanye look, and Dave??? Well, he just likes to wear hot dog hats. Let’s just say this photo was the tip of the iceberg with Tracie + John. Easily a trailer that we can’t wait to cut. . . . stay tuned 🙂