Final Bout - Special Stage West 2020

The last hurrah! At least for a while... On March 12, 2020 with the number of Covid-19 cases on the rise, Governor Newsom of California had just issued the first no large gatherings more than 250 people rule. But with drivers and media coming in from different parts of the Country and The Sexy Nights coming all the way from Japan, rescheduling the whole event was not an option. This meant the staff of Final Bout was forced to tell spectators to stay home just a few days before the event on March 15th and had setup a livestream instead. Selfishly, it was kind of a blessing to be able to shoot such a renowned drift event that usually brings in hundreds of thousands of spectators with only media and drivers. The vibe was far more relaxed and allowed for catching up with old friends and new alike. It was like ordering from the 3 item menu at In n Out rather than being overwhelmed with too many items to choose from at Taco Bell lol. Anyhow, just a couple days after arriving back home from the trip down to Horse Thief Mile, the "2 week" quarantine was put into effect and drifting was only but a memory for months after that. After coming back from Final Bout, I wasn't super happy with the footage I had captured. Having just upgraded from the Panasonic GH4 to the GH5, I had started testing out the V-Log Profile in 10bit color space which proved to be a nightmare to color grade and hindered my workflow more than it benefitted it. Not to mention the 10bit file also slowed down my editing processes on a Macbook Pro immensely. That paired with the amount of slow motion I had shot AND the fact that the slow motion footage was shot in Variable Bit Rate mode, meaning there was no audio, made me lose motivation almost completely. I felt like the footage I had come back with was let down to Final Bout, to the spectators who were no longer able to make the event, and to my personal standards of my own work. So then it sat on my hard drive. It sat until about 2 weeks ago (a theme apparently) when I had finally reset my iMac and set it up for editing which had me excited enough to start editing something, anything. And for the first time I had tried proxy files in Premiere Pro CC and wow, what a difference in workflow... At this point, with no one from the event expecting a video from me anymore, I managed to create something decent that I felt reflects my more recent relationship with drifting and my time during quarantine. Most of that is thanks to the music (Objects in the Mirror by Mac Miller) which also made a lot of sense to use considering Mac Miller's memorial was a little bit over a week ago. So with all that being said, I hope you all enjoy the video and the story behind it, Thanks for watching!

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