Close Topic Options

EDIT: Subs and CC now available!

Hey guys,

Hope you guys enjoy it!

oh and please watch previous episodes first if you haven't.

Old Eps Playlist!

This post has been edited by kkullar on Apr 14 2016, 05:03 PM

oh wow, welcome back i thought you bailed on it because life

Thanks, it was a difficult episode to make, I learned loads from this one though. I can come back faster, more efficient and much better because of this experience.

What did you think of the episode?

This post has been edited by kkullar on Apr 2 2016, 03:06 PM

I liked it, it was done well, though I think it lacked emotion a bit, both from spectators and drivers.

For the spectators, it was in the line delivery, it seemed mostly flat, there wasn't an enthusiasm for the race, who they wanted to win, etc.

For the drivers, it was a lack of visible emotion, facial expression, etc. I can be stone faced all day driving a car around town, or on an aggressive cruise, analyzing, thinking to myself, etc. But that doesn't happen on track, at an autox, etc. If you look through autox pics, including old ones of me from back when I wore open face helmets, you get all sorts of random and inexplicable facial expressions while driving a car at the limit of grip. That's a fact of it. Having these guys drive cars at ten tenths of the limit with flat expressions isn't the most realistic. Driving a car at the limit is an art, and with art comes emotion. It should be evocative, not just for the driver but for those watching.

I'm constantly having a conversation with myself as I race. I swear in my head when I brake too early, turn in to late, miss my apex, etc, and I guarantee my face contorts to match behind my full face helmet and reflective visor. I bet I looked like I was going to shit myself when I crested the "Deception" corner at NCM Raceway on an 11/10ths attack lap and realized I'd early apexed by about 20 degrees... I was going off and there was nothing I could do but hold onto the car and keep it under control as I crossed the outside curbing.

It's things like that where you'll find some good realism. Initial D actually does a really good job of these things, showing emotional changes even from corner entry to corner exit, let alone strong emotional tones for that section of road versus how the race is going. If you can capture the real emotion that comes along with racing a car, you'll really take these to the next level.

If you want a window into how emotional actual racing is? Here's a time attack lap at my last event last year. You can skip to around 1:15 if you want. The timer displayed what was at the time, and ended up standing as the fastest time of day. I'm generally not that outwardly emotional at the track, and I try to be as humble as I can, but this right here is a true glimpse into how deeply emotional racing can be.

Thanks man, I completely get what you mean about expressions/ emotion, I just find it really hard to do anything without it looking too crazy in front of camera. But I think next time I will have to get a more expression out of everyone. It's also hard because not many of us have much acting experience.

I never really considered the facial expressions that much because, I have only really been around track with my brother and he has a pretty solid face all the time lol. It might be a good idea for me to record my face in the real and then try and translate it into the series.

I know what you mean about shouting stuff inside your head though I get that all the time.

Thanks for the advice and for watching, definitely lots to improve next time.

This post has been edited by kkullar on Apr 3 2016, 01:00 PM

Just finished adding the Subs!

Well, it's a little late, but here's my thoughts on it too.

Like spaz, while I didn't dislike this ep, I too had mixed feelings regarding it. It felt like a step down from the heights reached by episode 3, to be honest.
Now the strengths of this episode are obvious. The camera work is once again superb for the constraints you have to work with and the audio recorded from the cars is as crisp and awesome as ever. And you guys definitely did a great job in capturing all that footage for the big race scene this whole episode is centered on. The brief 3DCG clips look a lot better this time around too.
But really, focusing so much on this race is also what ultimately ended up dragging it down somewhat. This was a bit of a new territory for the series, and it showed. The fundamentals were certainly there. You had driving footage, driver monologues, spectator chatter, actual strategies, and a clear sense that all of that footage was leading up to something as it went on. There was a definite feeling of progression from start line to finish line (and a little build up before the start line too). Structurally, this was entirely sound.
But in the end, there just wasn't any of that crucial sense of tension you'd get in an actual race.
Efforts were certainly made towards achieving that tension through the writing and how things were structured, but the one flaw that prevented that tension from being there is that none of the characters on screen actively displayed it. The drivers' monologues were spoken in a flat, matter-of-fact way, so they never really sounded like they were truly in the moment. The script itself was fine, but the delivery of the lines just didn't give you the feeling that they were actually in the middle of a race right now, focusing intently on their steering and footwork nearly every tenth-of-a-second. Instead they felt disconnected from what they were actually doing.
And as Spaz mentioned, the lack of emoting from the actors contributed to this too. Being as intense and moment-to-moment as it is, racing is something where you can just see the concentration in a driver's face at any given moment. It can be subtle eye shifts as the driver's gaze follows the road and locks onto apexes and track-out points, or it can be something as simple as furrowed brows, but it always gets that sheer focus across in an instant. In this case, the drivers just looked too relaxed in all the numerous close ups of their faces to be driving at high speeds and actively trying to get to the finish line before the other guy.
The dialogue from the spectators sounded slightly more suited to their situation, but it wasn't enough to draw you back into the moment after all that. Although the race took up so much of the episode, it ultimately didn't end up being truly exciting.

(It had a few moments though)

I mentioned the heights reached by episode 3 earlier, and that too had a driving scene near the end as its big moment. There was only ever one character monologuing in that one, and he wasn't even the driver. But nonetheless, his delivery did carry a basic sense of tension to it, and so the whole scene just worked. And it worked tremendously well. The editing in that one was smoother too, now that I think about it.
So yeah. that's basically all it'd have taken to make this race scene as exciting as it had all the makings to be: put a little more weight into the voices and a little into the more visual acting too (former more important than latter when you've got all these monologues). It wouldn't have even needed to be a performance so masterful and unparalleled as to be worthy of several big name awards either. Just a little more emotion would've gone a long way.

Hopefully I didn't sound too harsh in how I phrased all this. Good monologuing of this sort can be hard sometimes, especially since it's not as immediately natural as actually talking to another person on screen or talking to yourself while performing actual actions.

Anyway, this was just your first try at a scene like this. You'll get better as you keep going. I know getting a production of this scale perfect isn't easy either when you're not working with a big studio and have real life to deal with on top of that. And considering all the different hats you've been wearing in this production as opposed to being just the director, what you've gotten right so far is doubly impressive too.

As for the rest of the episode, I think the after-race scene would've had some pretty good atmosphere to it if the episode had stayed there longer instead of quickly going to having some cars drive off and then cutting to Ashley's big speech thing. This race was a big deal within the plot after all, so spending more time seeing people's reactions to how it turned out would've sold it even more and made it feel like even more of a big deal.
I also liked the scene with the EK9's mechanic afterward. Now that scene, that scene worked perfectly. And not only was it just a genuinely good scene, it was the best scene in the episode too.

Since the tone probably still sounds a bit harsh, I'll restate that I didn't dislike this episode. Even if it was a step down, I could still see signs of actual talent and effort in it.
So the episode might not have been perfect, but bring on ep 5. The series has been alright as a whole thus far (and ep 3 was still legitimately impressive), and despite the flaws, you're all clearly trying to make something good in the end, so this series should end up going to some good places as you guys naturally improve over the course of making it. Certainly not the first time I've seen that happen.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for the in-detail feedback too, this gives me a look to think about, hopefully next time I can hit it right on the mark in terms of what you said.

Great job man.

Thanks so much man! Thanks for sticking with me for this long.

Really like what you're doing. Keep it up!

Thanks for watching. Welcome to the forum also.