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I'm thinking about making a short movie.

Kern Dog

Life is full of turns. Build your car to handle.
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It has been an interest of mine for over 35+ years.
Back in the late 80s, early 90s, I was friends with some guys that were into improved handling in their cars and trucks. We has lowered suspensions and wide tires. We'd sometimes take caravan drives on curvy roads at night to rip around the curves at speeds that most people wouldn't do. I wanted to make a short movie back then about that stuff but video cameras were expensive. We spent our money on the cars and bills so the idea never went anywhere.
In the late 90s, I was making better money and I fell into some good luck here and there so I made a VHS movie with some car stunts and wrecks. I made a second movie a year later, it was a sequel to the first. Both movies ran nearly 2 hours and included actual plotlines, bad acting, stunts-wrecks-car JUMPS and even rollovers. I had family members and friends help out with the stunts and playing roles in both movies. It was a great time and I have fond memories of that time. Several family members from the movies have passed on so the movies are special to me.
In short, in the first movie, a favored car of mine is stolen, I go through a sad spell then snap out of it and through a series of events, get the car back in the end. The second movie shows me seeing the thief of my car on a Wanted poster so I play an amateur bounty hunter to get the guy and exact some revenge. What it all really was in truth was some really thin plots to justify some silly car stunts that I wanted to do.
I have no illusions about the quality of the movie or the acting. It was ALL amateurs, nobody in these movies is at risk of being handed an academy award. This was barely above a High School Play in terms of acting and such but it was a lot of fun.
As far as stunts, I jumped several cars, wrecked a few in various ways, We sideswiped a few stunt cars, rolled two over, popped numerous tires, bent numerous control arms and ball joints, One broken vertebra, some cuts and scratches. I found open fields, deserted paved roads and dead end roads to shoot all the stunts. I made jump ramps with lumber from the job. I made fragile fences to crash through. The VHS cameras of the 90s were still the size of a shoe box but I made mounts to attach the camera to the sides of cars and to my truck to get angles like you'd see in real movies.
The movies were crudely edited with multiple tapes using 3 VCRs wired together. This is an extremely slow and imprecise method. For years, I have wanted to transfer all of the tapes to DVD to REdo the two movies while editing from a computer. I just haven't made the leap to do that yet.
Here it is, 2024 and I have more free time than ever. I may want to do another movie.
 
Drone Shots.. Not to be confused with Tequila Shots... Or Beaver Shots... Oh Yeah BTW Granite Bay Drift doesn't have the right vibe.....
 
Since I finished my second movie, things have changed dramatically.
The whole YouTube sensation really took off. Digital cameras, phones with cameras, editing software and Go-Pro cameras have made it so much easier to put together video features to show a wide range of people.
I want to make another movie but I am just in the early stages of how I want to do it. I would welcome suggestions but I do have a rough outline of what I am thinking thus far:
There will be some stunts recycled from my earlier movies and some new stunts as well. Mopars will be featured and a few will be wrecked.
I do not wreck valuable cars, just turds that are beyond restoration or of no real value. In the second movie, I bought a totaled 74 Dart Sport and used it as a jump car/stand in for this car:

G L 2 99 2 (2).jpg


G L 2 99 1.jpg


I had a fake roll bar that looked real to most people. It was made from ABS plastic pipe from the construction site.

IMG_20151214_0177.jpg


Through the window you can see the lookalike stunt car on the other side of the street.
 
Drone Shots.... Oh Yeah BTW Granite Bay Drift doesn't have the right vibe.....
See, the whole thing with Drone cameras really makes a difference too. Before, I had to rely on a bunch of friends to shoot video before because every camera angle required a person holding the camera and the cameras were bulky. It was always a hassle trying to get people to commit to help.
I have to get this out there...THIS won't be a huge production. The second movie ran 2 hours. Some of it ran too long and could benefit from shortening some scenes to keep the flow moving but it was a 2 year project to do it. I don't plan to make this movie run as long.
 
sort of a cross between Dukes and Jackass :thumbsup:
You are closer than you think!
The second movie was a cross between The Dukes of Hazzard and The Fall Guy.
I did all the stunts from jumps, wrecks, off and on road drifting, fights, surfing atop a moving car and more.
I want to use this car as a stunt car:

76 D Rat 1.jpg


It will be crudely refinished to appear like this one:

0188.JPG


In the movie it may be crashed into and rolled over several times.
The white car is a 76 Dart Sport with no title, engine, interior or anything of value.
 
Here's an idea (I have wanted to make proper movies much the same way you have done. So far I have not been able to get more than about 10 minutes on film.

You could deploy that tried & true method used in later series of the Dukes of Hazzard - where scale models of the cars were used for jump scenes.

And to inject humour, you could also use some crude (obviously crude) animation scenes. It would break up the film and I believe add to the fun of the end product.
 
Fake jumps?
That is great. I did consider the scale model idea back when I did the other movies but NOW being older and not quite as quick to heal as before, there will be no new jumps.
Just like the other movies, I want to film some stunts but I need to come up with some sort of plot to tie it all together.
I could just wreck junker cars but I want to make it seem justified in doing so.

ONE "raw" plotline involves a road rage perpetrator that is on a revenge type scheme. He is out searching for Mopars to attack because his girlfriend left him for a Dodge guy. She was sick of being in his slow Ford and either losing races to guys in Mopars or tired of the car breaking down and having to be towed home.

Another plotline has the same road rage guy but he is a whacked out anti-classic car guy that stole a classic truck to use to attack classic cars when he sees them.

All of this is in the early stages and will be developed over time.
 
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Just like the other movies, I want to film some stunts but I need to come up with some sort of plot to tie it all together.
How about - Your uncle 'Jasper' needs a new water heater. So you and your cousin 'Luther' ride into town to pick one up. One your return, a sheriff spots your left hand brake light is out. Instead of pulling over, you try and outrun the police car.
The ensuing car chase ends with you launching across a farmyard fence and into a barn full of chickens.

Luckily all ends well when the local County 'Assessor' comes out and says "It's OK boys.....your probation is revoked".

Everyone cheers, and you all sit down to a hot-dog eating contest with lots of homemade lemonade. :p
 
Hot dogs?
How ironic....Tonight I was the weenie wizard at the car club meeting, cooking the franks for the club!
 
speaking of hotdogs, will there be a Daisy character? ...... or is this thing a sausage fest?
 
I thought of fixing this Dart Sport to look like the Duster....

IMG_20151214_0171.jpg


IMG_20151214_0173.jpg


I could get the Dart Sport looking like the car and shoot some scenes with it and insert old footage of the other one for jumps and wrecks.
This would allow me to use current video of me looking how I look now instead of trying to recycle video of me when I was 34 and expect to pass that off as current! You can't see the drivers very well in stunt scenes.
 
speaking of hotdogs, will there be a Daisy character? ...... or is this thing a sausage fest?
That will take some work. I don't know any young and sexy women.
Hey....the girlfriend of the road rager could be a sexy girl right? She dumps the Ford guy and jumps in a hot Mopar?

More possible ideas...
I hear at a car club meeting or through some friends about them getting ran into by some crazy guy in an old truck. I decide to act as bait to catch the guy but am conflicted about what car to use since I don't want to put any decent car into harms way.
 
speaking of hotdogs, will there be a Daisy character? ...... or is this thing a sausage fest?
Hey ...keep your white hots in ya pants.....lol

Cousin Deirdre will be in the mix also. :p She'll be at the local bar "The Cow's Udder" from 6 till closing each night.
 
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