Motors TV - Friday 20th April 19:25!

[Brooksie]

ok im posting this on the basis that making progammes that appear on your telebox (BBC1) is my living .. i've been doing it for around 15 years now. Im no camera man it has to be said, i've produced, directed and now Production Manage. I've been following drifting since around 2000 and i've waited a long long time to see it on our televisions.

Firstly .. as i posted earlier i think its excellent that the EDC is getting air time, sure Motors TV is small but its a stepping stone and we should applaud Clash and the boys from EDC for getting the commission and getting it on the Television.

The Voice Over .. now in all fairness to Clash that sounded like it was added on after delivery of the programme, all MTV shows have this type of voice over (as does alot of Eurosport) .. though i've never worked with either channel i would think Clash would have been told to deliver the programme minus any VO and then MTV add it on afterwards. On a couple of occasions the VO actually clashed (excuse the pun) with an interview for example which sounded ridiculous.

Shooting style .. well the onboard footage was first class so a big thumbs up there, nice audio to go with the onboard stuff too .. gotta love the sound of Paz's car. Trackside camera placement was good too and each round was well covered save for the camera at the start line .. not good (where they drunk ? ) they didn't know what to do, set a style out and stick to it. Someone mentioned earlier about the footage looking "contrasty" .. no .. it was just overexposed, hopelessly over exposed. Any of the white cars just became a big blob of erm... white.

Interviews .. now i may sound harsh here but there you go. Your pit crew who shot and interviewed the drivers have absolutely no idea about any basics of programe making, im sorry but they don't. I sat there open mouthed at these sections of the show .. in every single interview (bar Brett and Phil) your camera operator was on the WRONG side of the interviewer ?!?!?!? .. your subject was looking away from the camera ? The camera should be right next to the head of the person conducting the interview .. The reason for this is so that the audience feel like they are involved ... all i saw was a bunch of blokes talking to someone out of shot, lets take Bladey's little intro ? ... all you saw was the side of his head !!!! And as for the 2nd side on funky camera .. drop it. A coupe of the interviews were out of focus as well.

Have a look at this pic .. this is how interviews should be filmed ..



Editing .. yeah it was ok .. not very sexy and could have been better but it was a quick turnaround time for sure.

Graphics ... well they were there .. thats about it.

Editorial .. Really difficult this ... it was a mess to be honest however trying to explain drifting in such a short space of time when you also had to show each round was difficult to say the least. It could have done with a seperate teaser show prior to the one aired tonight explaining everything .. shame on motors tv for not commissioning it !

The one piece of advice i can give you is you have to realise you are making a television programme, its not an internet video, not a dvd where both audiences are captive so you need to make the whole thing a little sexier, a little easier on the eye and its not all about how fantastic the race footage is. To sum up it looked like it was made by a group of media students however the more you do the better you get

Now you can tell me to fuck off if you like but all of the above is based on the fact that i pretty experienced and am deeply passionate about making television and equally as passionate about drifiting ..

Onwards and upwards .. just try and take some of my comments on board

Can't wait to see the next one

Steve

[SiKBoY]

Dam Virgin! No sign of this appearing on t'internet yet then.

[yeager]

Originally Posted by Brooksie

Onwards and upwards .. just try and take some of my comments on board

Can't wait to see the next one

Steve

Excellent response man... what a crying shame that once again the first venture into a new area in drifting is marred by a poor effort. Just as the actual organisation of the events starts coming together, the damn coverage is poor

[Matt_S]

See, Steve just said exactly what I meant in my earlier post!

Good comments Steve.

[surcalation]

Originally Posted by Brooksie

To sum up it looked like it was made by a group of media students however the more you do the better you get

I disagree

Media students would of made a better job of it.

Voice over must of been done whilst the commentator watched it for the first time. But how thick can you be with one head. The winner of the last four doesn't go through to the semi finals. Was he watching a different tape?

Hope this is sorted for the next round

[Dappastyle]

I know this is a drifto forum but was there anything of time attack or is that another show?

thanks.

[Brooksie]

Si .. hope you're keeping well pal. It was really nice to see the coverage, it just needs some work and somebody Exec Producing the output and it will improve for sure.

Surcalation, obviously you are entitled to your opinion but I posted up my thoughts for Clash to read so i don't want this to turn into a slanging match on the back of what i've posted, it was certainley not meant to come across that way. Glen, should he read this knows me and knows where im coming from .. also a reason why i critiqued the programme because i think (or hope ) he values my opinion simply because i care

as i said .. onwards and upwards ..

Steve

[CorollaRWD]

I agree with Brooksie, onwards and upwards and well done for actually getting a show on the TV, which is an amazing feat in itself considering how small and unknown drifting is in the real world.

[Spoonman]

I have to say no matter what the failings of this programme it WILL get more people interested in drifting. And the more drivers you have who drift, the more competative the sport gets, the more professional it gets... and standards go up, both on track and behind the camera.

[Eddie]

True, also I bet Motors TV viewers are far more likely to venture out to a Round of the EDC over the general BBC/ITV viewers, so its great in that respect.

[THICK SOUP]

I'd been waiting for this to come on since hearing that there where cameras shooting when we were there on the sunday. I'd told mates at work & anyone who'd showed a interest to watch, even me mum was watching, so I'll get to hear what people who know nothing about drifting thought.

Personaly I thought the footage was great, if a bit grainy & out of focus at times. But it was the commentary was terrible, the bloke did'nt have a clue what he was goin on about. I love dirfting but the commentary spoilt the programme. I felt it would've been better to have funny accent bloke doing links between the runs & letting Maz commenate the actual runs, he might need claiming down a bit though .

Hopefully the TV exposure can only be a good thing, shame it was'nt done a little better.

Does anyone know if there going to be cameras at round, if so I'll make sure to take the obligatory "HI MUM" banner so I can see myself on tv.

[John@TunerUK]

I'm pretty sure they're covering all the EDC rounds

[Dan Goodyer]

Originally Posted by Brooksie

Someone mentioned earlier about the footage looking "contrasty" .. no .. it was just overexposed, hopelessly over exposed. Any of the white cars just became a big blob of erm... white.

To be specific I was talking about the camera at the end of the run(s). The colours were suddenly way too vivid. No doubt due to that point of the track being in much stronger sunlight than the rest. I know what you mean about white blobs, adjusting the white balance correctly would have been a start. Either way it was what I call 'contrasty'

Totally agree with everything else you've said though.

Bottom line is its great the EDC team have managed to push drifting forward onto the tellybox. It just surprised me that after their comments about media coverage in mags, etc, they would be associated with the program that aired.

Likewise, I have to say most of the online Clash drift vids I've seen in the past have been pretty good - I guess tv is a different kettle of onions though. Maybe they need Brooksie to manage Production and me to contribute editorial for a brillion dorrars? hint, hint, etc, etc.

[driftpromotion]

I'm amazed at the amount of people who come on to the forum proclaiming to be fantastic webmasters, TV producers and media moguls.

I'm not slagging your work or ability, but this is really not the way to do it.

Most people want to be behind the wheel of a driftcar and not standing around in shitty weather trying to get some footage.

It's easy to criticise somebody elses efforts but this is not the place to do it. This is a drifting forum. If you really think you have something to contribute, please use e-mail or use the PM facilities here.

CLASH are one of the very few companies in Europe who have an understanding of drifting as a sport. This doesn't happen overnight.
As the owner of a media company myself, I have worked with them for a while and have seen the difficulties they face in order to come up with a DVD production at all. Believe me it's not easy.

Please give them a chance, and don't compare it to the OPTION DVD series, because given some time the material that CLASH produces will be far superior.

Considering the deadline I think they did well.

Interviews and voice-overs are something that can be improved over time.

A good example:

Go to Welcome To The DriftZone and look at their first podcasts and then compare them to the most recent ones...

[Dan Goodyer]

so we shouldn't give feedback unless we say positive things?

all feedback is useful


*bails out of thread before it 'turns'*

[driftpromotion]

All feedback is good but why not give it directly to Clash who you can also PM via the forum or e-mail in the conventional way instead of a very public criticism. The tendency is that you will scare off the very people you need to promote the sport.

[John@TunerUK]

I think as a participant in any media, you have to be able to accept criticism, and it's important to learn from it. But if all clash did was put together footage and hand it over to Motors TV for commentary to be added later, then the criticisms aimed towards their part have been very limited. Only really being criticised by Brooksie, who lets face it, is probably one of the best qualified to do so.

As an amateur photographer, I know that if all you ever get commenting are 'Yes men', then your scope for actual improvement based on the comments is very limited.

[driftpromotion]

I think you summed it up well there..

[Dan Goodyer]

edit - actually, who cares?

further edit - nice one John

[gary200]

balls i missed it any re runs planned anyone know??