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Holy freaking cow.... what a day. I arrived on site at about 9:15. All the students were parked on the road and the gate was locked. Had the combo and let everyone in. About 9:45 the prof shows up and we get underway walking the "course" and setting expectations for the day. The professor was Terrance Dollar and a very nice guy.
I had taken some radios, fire extinguishers and cones from the bus. Glad I did, made the course setup and communications flow so much better. To "protect" myself, I removed my license plate from the car.
I asked what the story line was. To start, professor Dollar wanted to do the top gear style film, this was something completely different from what they've done in the past. From there, the idea morphed more into a "love" story between a girl that was a fan of the race car driver, "Rob Taylor" and another guy. From here, each student gets to create a 30 film using the raw footage, editing as they like and then everyone will submit their entry. A final "winner" will be declared.
So my "job" was to drive drive the entire course about 3 times and then in sections. My first drive was sedate and just getting a feel for the course. After that it was mayhem.
I set the bullitt up completely backwards from what I normally do and the rearend would step out at the drop of a hat, glorious. Took the prof w/ me on the first few runs and then after that I had students ride along. I asked the prof if the students would be a problem. He said no, they would edit. The students did a great job filming and I dare say they had a great timing riding along. It was funny, of the 5 girls and 6 guys there, the girls were the ones that wanted to ride along.
So the day started out w/ the dry runs on the course. From there they set up the camera at different corners and caught me heading towards and driving past the camera. For the most part, I was in full drift in each corner. Managed to get out of control a few times, one resulting in a spin and 2 into the field. Almost took out some corn, but just missed it by 6". Kicked the dirt back and pressed on. On every run they had a HD GoPro somewhere on the car.
The next part of the filming was for me to follow the "camera truck". Nothing to risky here. I'd follow the truck thru the turns and then drive by.
Next was the "beauty" shots of the car. <insert cheap shots and funny jabs here> Distance and up close video of the car. I dare say that car has never seen that much attention.
Now it was time for the "race" start launches. I actually had to switch tires from front to back, the drifting on that surface took a serious toll on the rear tires, to the point where I took off of the top layer of rubber on one tire. With tires switched, it was time for some hard launches and standing burn outs. That pretty much turned rubber into smoke. They had the GoPro aimed at the rear tires. Can't wait to watch that one.
The final part of the day had the car under the canopy to switch tires and have the students run their acting lines w/ the bullitt in the background. It was funny to watch, off camera, the students nailed their lines. As soon as the camera rolled, it was stumble city.
We wrapped up around 2:30 w/ hours of footage of driving and acting scenes. The prof said that I would receive the finished product and the raw footage on DVD.
This was a great bunch of students to work with and all were very serious about this film. I think most of the guys had dreams of ESPN in their future.
So on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being a perfect day, this was an 11. I had an absolute blast.
_________________
Rodney
'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....
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