With the HD revolution in full swing and given the the fact that my 6 year old Sony HandyCam is aging not-so-gracefully, I figured it was a fine time to expand the cache of weaponry. Yes, my Sony has operated with little complication and has served quite diligently over the years and while do not plan to retire it, the old standard def Digi-8mm is on light duty indefinitely. Added now to the arsenal is the Canon Vixia HV30 1080p Camcorder. It is a slight upgrade from the 2007 model HV20 which won awards as best HD consumer camcorder and still carries the title proudly. This sleek little device pack a lot of punch for consumer camera, utilizes full HD resolution, a 24p Cinema mode, HDMI output (cable included) and a 10X zoom with 200X digital zoom. It even sports a small - and a little loose - manual focus wheel, which in my opinion is better that none at all.
There a few planned upgrades for the new unit in the near future but I expect out of the box performance will be enough to sustain me in any venture for the time being. I am eager to get to work.
Welcome to our blog. Sad Panda Productions is Rion and Adam doing what they love: shooting things with some cameras and making online release videos of the footage.
This is our first outlet outside of Vimeo which has by default become the base of Sad Panda online operations. I may as well start here and post up everything we have been working on in 2008. We have a handful of videos so I will try and line them up in chronological order with a quick synopsis of each.
Sad Panda has its routes in stunt biking and has since become a full service video production house covering everything from Drifting to Dancing. What ever we want..we do. Done. Did... will do. We love to travel and we love to shoot what ever we see, so long as we have battery and enough DV.
We will start from the beginning. I figure keeping it linear, while slightly old fashioned, will help to see the progression in our business. September 20, 2008
'We ain't done' is our promo release from the SEDA Nashville event at Nashville Super Speedway as well as our first video venture that lead to sad panda forming as a video production team. Rion was at the time working in local event coverage for a private business, shooting mainly weddings and parties while I was strictly an amateur videographer who enjoyed playing with my cameras and Adobe Premiere. The event was shot mainly by Rion who took the riskiest spots of the day.
I tried to get a few shots between driving groups but was honestly tied up with my car most of the day, so my contribution came in the editing room.
Shortly after, we finished a longer version covering the event in chronological order. We called it K Rails < Fences, just as a shot to our local drift night held once a month. The venue features a small open lot with k rails on all four sides really causing you to really think twice about pushing to your limit.
Longer cut, editing could have been better but I think it was ok, overall..
Next in line are just some random compilations from a botched night of back-roading. These two were shot and edited by Rion as his first attempt in doing a solo run. They are pretty humorous.
Midnight Madness is held one Friday a month from April to November. Running from 8pm to 3am it is the more action than you can by at the best gentlemans clubs this side of the muddy Miss. No whore house can compare, not even the famed 22 Acacia Avenue is potent enough to keep you up for this long. Fifteen quid is all she asks for.
So $20 to drift or drag as much as you can till 3am. Show cars, endors, live music, stunt bikes, hookers, teenie boppers and track rats. Beer and balls fast cars. What more could you need? Or if you don't feel like breaking your car or you just don't have one worthy to put on display for the easy ridicule of the entire city, $10 is all you need to get in the gate.
Drifting at MM is the best deal in the world out side of street drifting, and we don't have to pay tickets. Only $20 to drift in a legal, sanctioned manner with a crowd cheering you on...or booing depending on your performance.
Yes, it is a parking lot with cones, but in comparison to many events, it can not be beat. Not every event is on a road course. We usually draw a crowd of 35+ drivers which is on par with any majorly produced event having entry fee's of well over $100 per driver! There are photographers attending, an MC (that's me!) and over 5000 spectators waiting to be impressed.
Sad Panda was hired to do an easy shoot for The Flowers of Araby Dance Co and Chuvani, two local Belly Dance companies in the St.Louis area. We had a fun day hanging around with these gorgeous girls and getting some cool shots. It was a fairly standard gig, so nothing too fancy. But it turned out nicely.
Thanks to the girls and guys of Chuvani and the Flowers of Araby! Hire them now! lol
Once gain we are hired to film some girls! This time is a little more...dirty. We where invited to shoot a burlesque show at a local lounge and sessy time did happen on the pole. This was a two camera set-up and was a bit of an editing challenge. Low lighting and two different video formats combined to make this very long, slightly awkward yet entertaining video. We had fun.
The day of infamy. The road course is any motorsports fanatics' drug of choice. The flow of the track, the pavement, the green grass. Cement winds over and around the rolls and undulations of the earth. This is where you want to be.
The much anticipated track day here in St.Louis was cold and unforgiving but was worth it to those who payed their entry fee and loaded up on sticky tires. A number of videos came out of the footage gathered here, a few of which were picked up and became our first piece of national recognition. Wrecked Magazine, well known for its Formula D and D1 drifting coverage, as well as its grass roots section contacted Sad Panda in hopes of displaying our work on their web site. We were very thrilled.
With DriftSTL.com being our local online meeting point for all that gets sideways in the area, we find our selves with this never ending addiction to slapping our sticker on what ever we want. So we did...and taped it.
And here is where that clip came from. Andy Seehausen is a hell of a driver, a great mechanic, industrial machinery guru, pro BMX rider and a good friend of mine. Myself and Panda #2 hung out with him at the local skatepark one night while he just played around on his bike.
Now he wants to make a video where he actually does something cool. We were impressed as it was.
So you are now up to date on Sad Panda and its works. It was only a matter of a few months from conception to national recognition and we haven't even gone HD yet! Being the first day of a new year, we can again start fresh. There is only more good to come from here and we are anxious for the drift season to start back up so we can get to work. Stay alive for whats to come. It should be awesome.
