[00:00:00] Welcome and Introduction --- [00:00:00] Brian: Hey, what's up everybody? And welcome to what is going to be a special episode of Very Vehicular. Uh, today I got Will Roegge on and we're gonna talk Gymkhana. That's right. Would you think we weren't gonna do a special on Gymkhana? Anyway, without further ado, here it is. All right. Here we are. This is episode bonus. You get a second episode that we ever put out on YouTube and we're already delivering you a special because last week. Hoonigan dropped Gymkhana, which both Will and I worked on. So we figured we'd do a little special to really kind of get into the weeds on some of the stuff, uh, behind the scenes of Gymkhana. I'll start by saying that Hoonigan has a, a really good piece coming out that, uh, both Will and I were a part of, which Travis Pastrana talking about a lot of the details behind making the newest film with him, uh, in Australia. And, and that's where we get into a lot of the stuff from the driving side and the actual tricks and, and all of that. This one, we're gonna get more into the technical side of the filmmaking, the production side of it and, and all of it. [00:01:22] Sponsors: Vyper Industrial, Toyo Tires, Heat Wave --- [00:01:22] Brian: So you probably know these guys best for their killer shop stools. I'm sitting on one right now, but Vyper Industrial also makes an amazing shop cart. You're thinking right now, how amazing of a shop cart do I need? You need one this amazing. It holds over 1200 pounds. I've seen people rebuild engines on them. It has fantastic wheels, just like their stools. They're massive eight inch casters. It's got this smart modular system. They make holders for everything from hammers to polishers. You can set it up for a bunch of different things from detailing to wrenching or running your podcast, which is exactly what we're gonna do with it here on very vehicular. Anyway, I've said it before. I love these guys. They run a great company made here in the USA, so go support them. After all, they do support us at SEMA This year I hit up the Toyo Tread Pass, which is the best collection of builds at the show period. And while I went there initially to see the cars. I was really stoked to see that they'll be releasing a brand new tire that I know is gonna make you track rats happy. It's the Proxes Sport R new extreme performance track day tire, and it checks that 200 tread wear box. Those of you who actually race your cars know why that matters. This super grippy tire is set to drop next year, coming in over 50 sizes, covering 13 to 21 inch wheels. That's right. Whether you drive a mark one rabbit or a GT3 RS , the Sport R will fit the bill. And as you know, I've rocked Toyos forever. I got 'em on all my cars and trucks. Okay. In the first episode I mentioned that I only wanna work with partners that are enjoyable to work with. Heatwave is one of those partners. Why? 'cause they want to do and support cool things. They support this show and partner with the new Gymkhana. But most importantly, they support creativity in the new film. They gave us the freedom to a really cool integration. If like most people, you haven't jumped a Subaru 150 feet through the air, you may have difficulty understanding the weightlessness associated with automotive, aeronautics, enter heatwave sunglasses and super slowmo riding shotgun with Travis Pastrana, advertising, entertainment, a little bit of AP physics, all served up at 120 frames per second problem solved. Thanks again, heatwave for being rad and letting us be rad too. What's up will? [00:03:36] Will: How you doing? What up? Yeah, good, man. I'm just, uh, happy that it's all finished and I know it feels like it's been years in the making 'cause it has been, [00:03:43] Brian: it has actually been used in the making. So let's rewind all the way. [00:03:47] The Location Scouting Saga --- [00:03:47] Brian: Do you remember the first Scout for this? [00:03:50] Will: The first scout that we did? I'm trying to remember if that was 'cause what there's been four different potential locations. Yeah, locations. And then. Australia was the last Yeah. And that actually came together really quick, [00:04:01] Brian: oddly, and one we never thought would actually happen. Yeah. So the first thing we ever scouted was Puerto Rico. Um, and explain that real quick. Like why Puerto Rico? So Travis' dad is part Puerto Rican, so he's always had this connection with Puerto Rico. Um, Travis at one point raced under team Puerto Rico in motocross. Um, and he's actually been, and he doesn't I think, talk about that much, but he is actually been very charitable to, you know, a lot of the different situations, hurricanes, stuff that hit Puerto Rico. So there's always this piece of Puerto Rico that works, you know, that's sort of is, is a part of him. And when we were looking at a location, quite frankly, a lot of the stuff Travis wants to do is really hard to do in the us Yeah. So when we did the second one, you know, we looked at, um, Florida because we thought, what's the loosest state in America like, like what's the state that's gonna let you get away with the wildest stuff? Right. Like, what's the one, what state has no supervision? [00:04:58] Will: Yeah. [00:04:59] Brian: And we thought it's gotta be Florida. And boy were, we surprised how hard it was to get a lot of stuff done in Florida. The hardest thing was jumping over the helicopter. That was, it just took so much work. It was like six months of back and forth with Yeah. With, you know, having way [00:05:12] Will: more process for how much screen time it ended up being fly [00:05:15] Brian: down just to go have meetings with city council and, and all these things to try to get it approved. So after that film, I said, I'm never shooting in, you know, in the US again. No, technically Puerto Rico is, is us erritory US territories. Yeah. But it, it sort of operates under a slightly different liability system. Um, and you know, we learned this on the recoil films when we went and shot in Mexico, it was awesome than in Recoil three. We shot in Tacoma and it was still cool, but there was just certain things that were just hard to kind of make work. [00:05:47] Defining Travis Pastrana's Style --- [00:05:47] Brian: And when we realized that, you know, if you look and I, I think it's actually a really interesting conversation, is like, I. The Ken Block, Gymkhana, which is the archetype, is one particular style film. But the Travis Gymkhana is kind of Gymkhana and BJ Baldwin's recoil in a blender. [00:06:09] Will: Yeah. It's, it's, it's much closer to recoil than it is to Ken's. And it's not [00:06:13] Brian: just 'cause of the jumps. Yeah. It's the, the driving style has a more wildness to it. Like everything feels sort of really, really on the edge. And those locations are things that, you know, you, it's hard to shoot something that where you wanna jump something that's abandoned in a city that doesn't have abandoned things. Yeah, right. So we started looking at Puerto Rico. Um, we thought one, there was a really good story there. Two, we thought that one visually would look different. We didn't want to go back to Mexico. No, because we had just, we had shot the pre, we had shot Ken's electric, Onna two down there. Mm-hmm. So we were looking saying, oh, Puerto Rico would be a good, you know, a good version. Um, we went to Puerto Rico, found some really cool stuff, some really cool things. I don't like, do we want, I don't know if we wanna give it away 'cause I don't want anyone else to shoot it, but we found something. A and it goes back to like Ken's original for Ken Jonna was taking rally maneuvers and putting them in either urban settings or putting them in unexpected settings, um, or campy settings like the Segway. Um, and, and using car control in a way that, you know, most people hadn't seen. And I think that we, I, I don't wanna give it away, but it's, it is a very popular maneuver in drifting that we have actually never seen in the Gymkhana film, especially not on tarmac. Yeah. And we found such an amazing location, such a unique kind of cool location. So we really excited to shoot there. We had a bunch of other like crazy boat jumps and, you know, standard kind of Travis stuff. But, uh, went there. I scouted it once and then you came back. We, so we did, we did a double scout. Yeah. And like for us, part of the process, we almost always double scout a location. Usually I'll go first, we call it a feasibility scout, which is like, is it even possible? And, you know, there's a lot of locations we've been to, they don't pass the feasibility scout Chicago didn't pass the feasibility scout. Um, Atlanta didn't pass the feasibility scout, right? Like it's just, there's just not enough. Um, but usually the second scout is when you're like, okay, this is getting real. We'll start actually working with, you know, the city starting to kind of figure out what we can do. So we were really in a real place for Puerto Rico, thought it was going to happen and then a lot changed. Hmm. Um, one of the issues that really held us up was that the de the car. Delivery had shifted. Yeah. So it meant that the car was now going to be delivered in summer and the hurricane season was just way too much of a, of a risk. Yeah. So we ended up skipping on that and saying, okay, we need to go to another location. Um, you know, we, we need to go look up for backups. And we went and we went digging and you could probably walk through the next piece. 'cause honestly, this to me is probably one of the better locations that we have found in the past six to seven years of like searching. And I've been all over Monte Carlo. I mean, there's so many places we've searched that we never made films. Right. Got, [00:09:05] Will: and I also think you, you and I can't shut off that part of our brain that like, it's like when you skate Yeah. And you're walking around and you see a good stair set, or a good handrail. Or a good ledge. Yep. It stays with you forever. And I think when you film cars in this way, which you have for almost 20 years at this point, and I have since Gymkhana seven and even kind of before that Yeah. Is high action things like you are always looking for, always a spot that is a natural spot that lends itself towards Yeah. This bag of things that both you and I know we wanna do with cars that we haven't seen done yet. Yeah. And applying that to somewhere. So the next spot that we went to, which is again, like, it's, it's pretty cool. With Travis that it's like, Hey, we tried to stay to Puerto Rico. We did Annapolis. Mm-hmm. We did Florida. Because I feel like Travis is an honoree. Florida man. 100%. And like then San Diego is a part that played an important role in his life too. 'cause it's pretty much the only other place that he's lived. [00:09:56] San Diego and the Unmade Drift Jump Homage --- [00:09:56] Speaker 3: Yeah. [00:09:56] Will: So we were like, oh, San Diego could be great. San Diego has great topography. Yeah, it has. That's [00:10:02] Brian: where his wife's from. It's where his wife's from. Background [00:10:04] Will: too. There's also water. There's ported access. There's like good scenery. Yeah. You know, there's good hills, which is something that we've been wanting to do. I the hills [00:10:12] Brian: I think is the part that is most sort of standout. Yeah. I mean it is the closest location we found. That looks and feels like San Francisco for sure. I mean, we found a corner. We found two corners. Right Two corners that were both usable, that both had the exact same feel as the drift jump in in San Francisco. Perfect. Which to me is maybe one of the greatest moments in any Gymkhana film. Yeah, I, I would say in its time it was the greatest moment. Obviously things have shifted from there, but we've never had a moment like that again. There's never been a drift jump of that size, I don't think by anyone. I mean, maybe like on a rally stage, kind of on a, you know, unplanned. But I don't think anyone in drifting or any other sport has pulled off a drift jump like that, including us. Like we have not been able to replicate that. And I know that that was one of the things that Travis really, really kind of wanted to do. And we started looking at San Francisco as real, I mean, sorry, San Diego as a bit of an homage play for a lot of Ken films. So when we started looking at locations, like we, we said it as, we kind of said it almost as a, wouldn't it be cool to do this? And every location we walked to it was like, wait, we could make Gym six here. We could, this is, this feels gym fivey. Yeah. Like, ooh, there's a gym three kind of moment here. Or you know, or, oh, this feels real Gym seven and, and I, and it was sort of cool. It all just started coming together and we really, really liked it. And we did, I did the initial scout, we then did a follow up scout and um, it was looking really good. And then. [00:11:48] The Takeover Problem and US Location Limits --- [00:11:48] Will: And then it just didn't happen. You know, I think like the, the interesting thing is that it's like the things that happen behind the scenes right, is you feel like you have an in with one with a tourism board Yeah. And something like that. And then it's, you know, it's the same thing you kind of ran into in Vegas initially or in Australia, is that there's a sentiment against things that appear on the street. [00:12:07] Speaker 3: Yeah. [00:12:07] Will: And little did we know sort of in the background too, separately, right? Is the NASCAR race is happening on the base, like after that. And that's like it's own thing, right? They didn't announce [00:12:15] Brian: that till they had already shut us down. Yeah. They came out like three weeks later [00:12:18] Will: and, and still that's actually not in San Diego, that's how it's on the base military property. So Yeah. I, I get it from a city perspective, it's, it's tough and yeah, I, [00:12:26] Brian: I think, I think shooting anything in the US right now with the takeover problem is really difficult. Yeah. And, and I, I gotta say five or six years ago I would push back really hard like we did in Las Vegas, but it's, it's gotten to the point where like, I fully understand it. Right. I mean, the takeover stuff is so outta control. And if you are a city councilman or any kind of politician, how do you justify allowing something to happen that to the uninitiated looks like the same thing. Yeah. Like, obviously what we do is so different than that. Ours requires skill and has like police shutdowns and all of that. And it's not just idiots doing donuts and parking in, you know, in, in intersections, but, um. It. I get it. Like I, and you know, and unfortunately that didn't work. [00:13:13] Australia's Unexpected "Yes" --- [00:13:13] Brian: And then in the craziest, ironic turn of events Australia, which had told us nine years ago, absolutely no way we have anti Hoon laws, the police shut the whole thing down. And that too had made it to Scout two, like we were, it was the last day of the Scout. And I'm sitting there, we're looking at the, you know, at the calendar saying, okay, I guess we'll be back in, you know, two and a half months to start filming and start putting it together. And then they shut us down. And then that completely flipped. Like Australia all of a sudden had a sort of change of heart and they had just done the movie Fall Guy, which was something that, you know, they were really, really kind of, I think it changed their perspective on doing big stunts. 'cause they not only said no to us, they said no to Fast and Furious. Yeah. Right after. So they were just anti anything happening on the streets. So I get it, it's like, it's unfortunate, but [00:14:01] Will: I think it, it worked out in the end because I think if you would've checked off Australia with Ken, would you ever have gone back there, you know, to do something else. And I think serendipitously, I think the brat, I can't even imagine it anywhere else now. [00:14:13] Why the Subaru Brat Was the Perfect Car --- [00:14:13] Will: No. Like it fits so well visually and I can't even really imagine without a different livery and a different look like that. Yeah. Like I think that it ended up being the perfect location for it. [00:14:23] Brian: It's interesting because I'll admit this now. When I first saw The Brat, I wasn't the biggest fan, you know this. Neither was [00:14:27] Will: I, [00:14:28] Brian: and. I, I, it just seemed out of place. The shape of it was sort of gangly. [00:14:34] Will: I'm not the biggest fan of the brat kind of period. And I think that Right. Like, it, it's not like I [00:14:39] Brian: was never like an El Camino person to begin with. No. It's just like, I like my, [00:14:42] Will: I like my trucks being trucks. I like my trucks [00:14:43] Brian: to be trucks. I like my cars to be cars. Yeah. But it's cool, you know, like, but to some people it just is not my thing. And I mean, look, I'm a Volkswagen guy and I still don't really like Volkswagen Rabbit pickup trucks because like they look cool, but they can't do much. Right. Like, I feel like a truck needs to be able to do things. Yeah. Um, but I can't imagine a better car for the Australia film. I actually, in a weird way, the car for me inspired a lot. I don't know if we would've done as much on the dirt No. If we were in the wagon. No. Like a lot of that felt right. Yeah. Like it just felt right to go and, you know, jump a canyon. Yep. And all these things. And, and in a weird way it's where it became even more of that recoil crossover. Sure. It's like a mini pickup truck, but it For sure. But it moves like a Jim K car. And [00:15:32] Will: I think, and I think there's a great thing in the Hoonigan episode that I hope that they've left in there is Travis talking about how it's not a rally car. Yeah. That it is really a tarmac car and just putting it on a different set of tires and expecting it to grip or look like a rally car. It's still really loose. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And visually, I mean like, I mean, kudos to you for even wanting to, you know, 'cause I think we could talk about that too is it's like when you first went there, I think you were like, Hey, we need to do something in the Outback. And like I think if you were to look at a single film other than 10 obviously, which is five different locations in five different cars, this is stretching the limits of Oh yeah. Where we've ever been in a single Gymkhana. Whereas people came up to you, you know, and said, oh, and Gym five, how did you shut down all of San Francisco for him to drive through for this one? It would've been a 13 hour transit for him to get to the Outback, to back to Sydney or something. [00:16:20] Transition Challenges & The 96 Doors Problem --- [00:16:20] Brian: Yeah. And I'll admit that I struggled with that a bit because as you know, um, I'm a big transition person. Like I care sometimes more about the transitions than like the actual. Not, not that I care more, but I think they're equally important. And it's usually my biggest critique of a lot of other people's work is they're like, here's really cool action. Here's more really cool action. Here's more really cool action. There's never this feeling of how you got there. [00:16:44] Will: No. [00:16:44] Brian: And to me, those in-between story pieces are, are really important. And it was like, how do you, you make them blend And uh, there is, there's a couple that I kind of wish were different and it just, it is what it is. Like we were originally supposed to have more city spots and that, um, that changed really just from, from sort of a, you know, what was, what was possible. We had this location that was 96 doors. It might've been even [00:17:11] Will: more. Yeah. And they [00:17:12] Brian: told us that we had to have a, like a pa a production safety officer standing or safety officer standing at every single door. Yeah. I'm like, wait, so you mean I have 96 people in my shot? I have to paint out. Yeah. Like that becomes a really, really, you imagine just [00:17:24] Will: coordinating that. And that run was really long and it would've really long, would've been epic, but [00:17:29] Brian: it would've helped with the transition into Sydney and shown a little bit more of the, of Sydney. It went past like, I think like the oldest pub in town Nelson or something, Nelson Pub. And like that would've been really cool and it would've added more time. But this is the longest. Gymkhana film we've ever made outside of maybe 10, but 10 was five films. [00:17:48] Will: Yeah. [00:17:48] Brian: This is, which is called 11 Minutes or something, which is good. And I think it [00:17:52] Will: doesn't feel it all. No, it goes by really quickly, you know, I think, and that's a, a tribute to it all being interesting and yeah. Not really having any moment that's sort of down at all. Right. Yeah. But I think, I think that's what's kind of cool is I think for you and I, I feel like we're coming to this as, uh, being the most aware and most thoughtful of our process Yeah. As filmmakers. And like, I can leave that to you as to like, why do you feel like we came to this one better prepared? Because I think both you and I were just coming off of another project where we were just working and then we also took all the learnings that we had and probably applied it, you know, in the most professional sense of like, how can we up this Yep. To be really thoughtful about the process as filmmakers. Yeah. So why is that? [00:18:34] Brian: I, I think I need to rewind even further back on that because, so I'm gonna give you credit for this because I think if it wasn't for you, I don't know if this film would've happened, right? Because you probably remember this phone call. Um, to me, I thought the film, I didn't think the film was gonna happen, right? We, we were, you know, working on the film. A lot of things happened. Um, you know, the initial working on the film Ken passed, and then we said, you know, we're still gonna try to make this Puerto Rico then didn't work out. Um, and then a lot of things changed. I left the company and it kind of just went quiet for a really long time. And I, I, I wasn't really in communication with Travis. I wasn't really in communication with, with Hoonigan about it. And there was kind of these starts and stops, right? They brought me in to go look at, at, um, Chicago as a potential location. And we did that and it didn't really kind of, it didn't really pan out. And, um, and it just felt like there was this, like, it felt like the film didn't want to be made right? Like everything we tried to do, even when I found something I liked, it felt like maybe the partners weren't as interested in it anymore or Travis just wasn't available. Um, and I'm not one of those people, like, I'm not one of those, like, the universe didn't want it to happen, but it just was like, man, this is really feeling like it's, it's, it's pulling teeth to get this done. And to be quite honest, I, I was sort of in this weird place where like I'd spent, you know, 13, 14 years at Hoonigan. Um, you know, building that brand, getting to make these films was probably one of the most important things in my professional career. But I was, I was very much on like, what's the next chapter? And, you know, I, to me getting another, you know, IMDB credit as director of a film series that I am synonymous with. Didn't really mean that much. And I was really focused on like, what else is there to do? Do I really want to get caught in this? And it's a massive undertaking. I mean, mean it eats months and months of your time. I mean, I started, you know, we scouted San Diego in what May Yeah. [00:20:38] Will: At least it might have been earlier. Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:40] Brian: And then when that didn't work out, we switched. We switched, we, I was in Australia in July. Yeah. And then what? Puerto Rico is 2024. Then we took a break to do. Yeah, we took a break to do, um, drifter film with Sung Kang, and we'll get into that. But, and then we ended up, you know, and then it's basically been on, so it's like, it, it really prevents you from doing other things. It prevents you from having other meetings. It prevents you from launching your podcast. Um, [00:21:08] Returning to Gymkhana After Hoonigan --- [00:21:08] Brian: there's a lot of things that I felt at the time were more important to me, and I told, you know, and I told Will, like, Hey, I, I just don't know if I'm going to, if I wanna do it, they've offered me to come back and do it. I don't know if I'm gonna do it. And you said like three things to me. And the first one was. Um, like, and you know, and, and I'll, I'll just say it like there was definitely a complicated relationship with Hoonigan and me. Absolutely. Like, I refer to it as, I refer to it as the divorce, which by the way, my wife and I are great. I mentioned it on, on something with Vinny and everyone was like, oh man, so sorry to hear. I'm like, no, no, no. I meant the company and, and I say it because there's a, with Hoonigan, the how everything sort of ended, um, you know, it had this feeling of like a divorce between people who have kids where it's like, Hey, we may not be together anymore, but like, we, we helped make this thing together and because of that, for good or bad, we are, we are bonded together for the rest of our life. And like, Hoonigan is, is such that piece for me. It was, you know, and, and I, and I, but I wanted, I needed to take a break from it. Like, I definitely had this moment where I was like, I just wanna go do something else. I left the industry, went and worked at Super Plastic for a year, and then came back and still really wasn't wanting to go do more of it. And you said to me, um, you said one, you said, I don't think there's a lot of other people spending this kind of money to make these kind of films for, you know, for the internet. So I, this isn't like, if you wanna do another one. You should do this one because I don't know if there'll be another one out there. And then the second thing you said was, you love working with Travis, which was true. And I had, you know, I had made a deal with Travis that we were gonna make three films together, and that was a deal. I sat down, me, him and Ken sat down and I was like, okay, I definitely owe that to Travis. And then the third one you said was, it would be really good to get the crew back together and work with our team on this. And, and you kind of match that in with, you're also launching like your own production company. Go do something you know how to do Right. And go make something you know how to do. So of course we completely complicated the situation and we made the film completely different than we ever made it before. And I couldn't be happier that we did. I think the output's the same. Yeah. Right. The output is the same thing, but the process getting there was, was so different. So I, I'm gonna flip the ask you a question. [00:23:23] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. [00:23:25] Brian: You've worked with me on a lot of productions now. Right. Um, we've worked on small things mm-hmm. For Hoonigan, we've worked on everything as small as, uh, the first episode of Daily Transmission. I mean, you were there when we concepted the prototype for Circle Jerks. Yep. Um, you and I have worked on, uh, commercials. We've worked on obviously Gymkhana films. Um, we've had, we've co-directed things before. You've been a cam op, you've been a dp. Um. How, be honest, how bad was it working with me in the past? Because this feel, this felt like such a different operation that I think getting to, getting to watch on Drifter a crew that was not familiar with what we do, try to understand what we do. Mm-hmm. I re, I realized the need for better communication and that's kind of what I tried to do. So anyway. What, like, for your opinion, how did that shift? [00:24:20] Will: Well, I think even just to say publicly, like I had said to you at one point on either Annapolis or in Florida right. That it's like, Hey, I would love to do one of these films with you when you don't have all the responsibilities of Hoonigan. Yeah. Because I knew that in the, it's, you know, I don't think people understand that is that most directors that I work with are on other projects. The main thing is the main thing. Right. That's it. Right. There's no other focus besides that immediate thing. And for you, I knew you were getting pulled in a million different directions. Oh, I'd be on [00:24:51] Brian: conference calls in between takes because there was stuff that Businesswise had to happen. Right. Especially when the company was like in the process of selling [00:24:58] Will: and stuff, which was the whole time. Like that was, that was the crazy thing is that it's when I made the, because you know, I, I Dpd Terrakhana. Mm-hmm. But then, you know, I was Happy camera. I thought you codirected [00:25:10] Brian: Terrakhana. I [00:25:11] Will: don't think so. I think that was Oh, no, you [00:25:12] Brian: co-directed Battle Royale with me. [00:25:14] Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's, and I, I enjoy our creative working relationship, right? Like, I like being in on the process early and I like the idea ideation of it, and I like collaborating with you on that. So that's always cool for me because not every job's like that. [00:25:28] Brian: Mm-hmm. [00:25:29] Will: You know, but for, these are really special. And it's, I think I also come to it as someone that really just appreciates the franchise and the history of it. Mm-hmm. And its importance. And I want to do my part in helping to elevate it or continue it, or bring a new perspective to it. And, um, yeah. I, I think that was the dream for me was to always have you on one that's kind of, this is your undivided focus and this is the only thing you need to be worried about right now. [00:25:52] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. [00:25:52] Will: And we never got that opportunity until Drifter. Right. And Drifter felt like it was the first one. And I think for you and I, it was, it was great because I can let you tell it, but it's like, I knew for you that was you falling in love with narrative filmmaking. Mm-hmm. But then also really understanding like, oh, if I'm completely present in this and this is the job and nothing else, with no other distractions and no other things pulling you in another way. How awesome creatively that is. Right? And it was like, you can just lose yourself in the one thing versus being like, Hey, Scotto, we need to have this quarterly meeting. Hey, can you look at these graphics? Can you review these episodes? Can you give notes on this? Right. This needs your attention. Like it was, it was, you know, almost sinking the ship anytime you were to walk away from Hoonigan to make Jim Kaif for two weeks because they needed you there, you know? [00:26:44] Brian: Yeah, no, and I, it was, so, I I, on all of these things, I, I had this like moment where I didn't wanna make the Gymkhana films anymore. And it became a big conversational internally and the conversation from, you know, some CEOs that we hired and, and you know, no knock on those guys. I think they were looking out for what they thought was best for me and best for the company was every time I would go do a Gymkhana, I would come back and just be, you know, absolutely destroyed from it. And, you know, felt burnt out. And then I'd get into the edit process and they were like, you need to bring another, another, another director in to take this over. And you and I had the conversation. I said, Hey, would you mind, would you wanna take over the Gymkhana films? Because the feeling was that I just couldn't do it all. And it was making everything suffer. Like, I think Gymkhanas, not that they were, I, I, I don't wanna say that Jim Kanes could have been better. I mean, everything can always be better. I, I, there's nothing I make that I fully, like everything can be better, but I. If anyone tells you that what they make is awesome, they suck at making things. Um, I'm just saying that now. Um, but I had mistakenly thought that the other part of the business is what I wanted to do. Hmm. Right. Like I enjoyed the brand building and, and you're good at it. Thank you. [00:28:02] Will: Yeah. [00:28:03] Brian: But I, and you know, I, I think, and this is something that I kid you not, it's something like I've kind of have pushed through in therapy this year of, of like, um, I left Hoonigan. I, I ran to go do something that was the exact opposite of what I was doing. So I went and worked in more brand building stuff, but in the animation world, way heavier in narrative, which was fun. 'cause I got to experiment and play a bit in narrative and write narrative and, and direct voiceover and, and which, you know, technically are characters. Um, and that was really fun. It was cool to do that. But I look back at it now and it's like, I was just running from like, not wanting to deal with the situation and, you know, not to get too heady on it, but like, you know, I, I hadn't dealt with Ken's death. I hadn't dealt with, I hadn't dealt with the death of, of Hoonigan for me. Not saying that Hoonigan died, but Hoonigan died for me when I left. Right. Like it had changed and I was unwilling to kind of process all of that. And I look back at it now and it's like, I ran from all of that. And then when I got, when I had this moment where I woke up one day and I'm like, I don't wanna do this anymore. I wanna go back to working in automotive. Um. And, you know, did that. But then I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I say this like as humbly as I can. The one thing about, one thing about Hoonigan was it made me good at a lot of different things because I had to do, you know, I had to do, is that a necessity? I had to do brand development. I did social media, I did the, I did the Gymkhana films, but I also worked on the, the YouTube content, like daily transmission, all of that. I also helped on the apparel design, especially early on. I mean, early on most of the stuff was, was straight outta my brain. Um, I was super involved in all of Ken's program, livery Designs. I mean, I did a bit of everything and that left me with this master toolkit. And the problem was, was the first couple things I did when I got back in, which is not, so that made me happy. It was stuff that made money and it paid the, it paid the mortgage, which was really important. And, and I am thankful for that. But I definitely felt myself feeling like this is missing. And then we went and did Drifter, and I think Drifter was, I mean, drifter was, we can have a whole other, we'll do a whole other podcast on that when it comes closer to it. But Drifter was, um. Brutal. I mean, it was like 16 hour days and it went, it just felt like it never ended. And when it did end, we were on a plane to go do it again. And, um, it was hot and it was, you know, it was low budget. So we had to make the best of everything work. I mean, lower budget than the Gymkhana films was way less access to stuff. And, uh, the worst part about it all was that, um, I fucking loved every moment of it. Like it. And, and I love that I was able to be in a place where I got to really focus on that. And, uh, I look back at it and I realized that like that was one of the biggest mistakes of Hoonigan was that I wouldn't focus on the Gymkhanas because I couldn't give myself the time to do it. And it made me start to hate the Gymkhana films because I couldn't make them the way I wanted to make them. And I always felt like I was either coming up short on how I wanted it to happen or everything felt as if I was being reactionary and making the decision in the moment, which I'm lucky to have the ability to do that. But then I felt that I was. In post trying to fix the problem always right? So like it gets into the edit and I'm spending all this time to make up for the fact that I had to go walk away and make a phone call for 15 minutes and something didn't happen the way I wanted it to, or something like that. And, uh, that drifter was definitely not only that moment for me that I realized, um, one, I really, this is what I wanna do in life. Like all the other stuff's cool, but this is the stuff that makes me really excited and like really motivates me to just be a better human. Like, it just, it just brings that, that neurodivergence together and I'm like, okay, this f this scratches that itch. It fulfills all of it. And I'll, I'll try to bring this to a landing here. I realize I've been circling the plane for a minute. Try, try a barrel roll first. But, um, then I feel like, uh, you know, it was also an eye-opener. To What really makes a good production is being fully present when you're there and being very prepared. And I over prepared for drifter because I have imposter syndrome. [00:32:20] Will: Dude, that's, yeah. [00:32:21] Brian: And I was afraid that I was gonna show up and not be good. So I did my homework because I was, I was, I knew how to make Gymkhanas. I could literally show up half prepared and we'd still get it done. Yeah, right. But with Drifter, I was really afraid that we were gonna show up and we just weren't gonna be as good as everyone else. And I think that that gave me this confidence boost of like, we showed up, we, we did the work. I think we did a very good job, what we did and our team second unit, I think killed it. Um, and it made me realize how valuable it was to be prepared. It's funny that it took, you know, 20 years to get there, but Yeah. [00:32:56] Will: But I mean, I think the biggest thing that I sort of realized on Drifter is that, you know, with the same sort of thing, like I've only done second unit as a camera operator, and that was on Art of Racing in the Rain, which was a much bigger movie. [00:33:10] Speaker 3: Oh yeah. [00:33:11] Will: And it was, Hey, you're just gonna go shoot the track action stuff, which is actually pretty similar to what we did. It was like, Hey, there's a real EMSA race happening. We're gonna put out this Turner car that's not part of the field and you're gonna shoot it during practice. Mm-hmm. To make it look like race footage. And then they're gonna cover it in a million other kind of ways and it's just gonna cut in and it's small, small pieces, you know, of something that's much, much larger. Right. Um, but I was. Like, okay, um, I gotta be on this union job. I'm not in the union. Mm-hmm. I gotta work with, you know, a first and two seconds and a camera assist and on this big setup. And I'm working with a DP that's done a lot of real things and he's on set for five minutes and kind of talking you through some things and very real, very good first acs that have done a lot of work. [00:33:56] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. [00:33:57] Will: And, uh, it was with Jeff, you know, and Jeremy Robinson and, um, John Stabile and Tanner Foust and the rest was all Canadian crew. Mm-hmm. So it was intimidating. And I got through that and I was kind of like, I felt like I was kind of cracking the whip and moving things faster. Yeah. Yeah. Because I kind of knew what I wanted and I had an expectation and it didn't really fit with how they were used to working. Mm-hmm. You know, but still, I didn't know what to expect with Sung and with this movie at all, especially with more responsibility with being the dp. But I think the day that really kind of solidified it for me and your value obviously also was the traffic light scene. Mm-hmm. And really just looking at it from an outside perspective, it's like there's no way those guys would've made that day if you didn't bring a real pragmatic how we're gonna do this sense. Mm-hmm. To a crewe that was. Straight up floundering in a week and a half of being in it. Yeah. And switching between nights and days. [00:34:54] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. And really just [00:34:56] Will: not knowing how to make something really happen in a very real sense. And you came in and kind of took over that day and I, I don't know if that was for you, like, I think something I noticed, you know, with other people too is it's like it's hard to identify a moment where you're like, oh, things changed for me here. Yeah. But for me, being on set and watching you deal with that scenario of the traffic lights stay, which was a huge day, had big narrative elements, big second unit elements all combined in one, you know, and we made the day because you kind of quarterbacked the entire thing and said, no, there's a way we can do this and this is how. And I, everybody trusted you in doing that, right? Because I don't think anyone else really saw a possible way of to get through that. [00:35:39] Sponsor: FCP Euro --- [00:35:39] Will: In last week's [00:35:39] Brian: episode, Ron told the somewhat embarrassing story of how my rabbit left me stranded and the two of us had to push it home. This is the first time that that's really ever happened. Really? Not that common. This has never happened before. Okay. Yeah. So this is like a pretty standard thing, and it kind of happens once every two, three to maybe four weeks. You see, the thing about owning a really, really rare car is that the parts are really rare, which means that when things break. They're sometimes pretty hard to find. Luckily, FCP stocks, even some of the rare stuff, I probably drive this car more than anything else. And that wouldn't be possible. If FCP didn't have a warehouse in Connecticut and won in Arizona, honestly if they didn't have the shipping system that they had, my car would be off the road more. I've actually been thinking about pitching FCP on this new idea, which is side of the road delivery. Think about it. Broken down, sleep out, sleep in your car. Day later, boom. They show up, they hand you your part, you fix it, you drive home. You're a hero. You never had to even push it or tow it or whatever. They can get me stuff no matter where I am. 'cause remember I also own ship boxes on the East coast. Yeah. Forgot about that, didn't you? If I was pragmatic, I would just go ahead and fix all the broken things, but instead I kind of enjoy this escape room on wheels that I own. Never know where it's gonna lead me. Never know what tools I'm gonna have. I'm gonna be honest. It broke again on the weekend, ordered more parts from FCP, kept it going, but there's something I just enjoy about keeping this little shit box alive and without FCP probably couldn't make that happen. So anyway, thanks FCP for helping support the problems I have with cars and, and I'll tell you, 'cause you know, you had gone home for, you were, I think down a day and I was still there. I was by myself and I was hanging out on set watching some of the narrative stuff. But to be quite honest, like if cars aren't doing a hundred miles an hour sideways, I just get bored. Especially if I'm not the one directing. So I decided to go to that scene and walk it. Because I knew it was gonna be difficult because I have done that kind of stuff before and I knew that the coordination and the choreography of all these people and working with like the city, this is, that is my comfort zone. Yeah. Right. My comfort zone is oddly that chaotic side of it. And I was, I was like, this just needs a little bit, like, I gotta walk through this. I, I know. So I spent like half a day walking it. And I don't think I, I, I think initially to me, I thought it was gonna be more of a, of a, um, main unit thing that I just assisted on. And I think at a certain point it became clear for song and Bruce, I was like, yeah, I've got this. Right. And I guess that was that kind of, that moment. 'cause I, I definitely moved into, I, I think there's this moment for me where I start to become an ad where, 'cause I just see the way to finish it, right? So I, instead of sitting there behind the screens, I'm like out there yelling at PAs, not yelling, but instructing PAs like, do this, do this. Let's move this. Why are we doing this? You know? Like, 'cause we were chasing light. Yeah. And like, chasing high light is one of the most stressful things in the business. Mm-hmm. So it, it's funny though, 'cause um. Right, like right now, like I, I, I sure hope we can go back and listen to this podcast one day and be like, man, this was a changing moment for us. And we went to go do the things we wanna do and direct films, um, not just as second unit, but go make our own films and write our own films and do all that. Like, I really, really love this and I, and it'll always be something that I look to, to Sung Kang for giving us that opportunity to go and experience it on a different level than we we've been used to. And to actually, I think give us that confidence to go do it. Because like if anything you have to look at for Sung, I know we're here to talk about Gymkhana, but if there's anything to look at is that Sung gave us the confidence to go do it in, in some of the ways I wanna draw parallel that Ken used to, 'cause Ken was the guy who would just expect that you could do it. Right. There was just the expectation that you could do it. Where with Sung, there was the trust that we could do it, right? I mean, sung would be on set while we were filming sometimes 'cause main unit would be down or we'd be sharing, we'd be sharing resources and he just let me do my thing. He wasn't over my shoulder. He'd maybe helped me a little bit with, with some narrative stuff with talent. And I want that because it's, it's not my space. But when it came to the action stuff, like obviously the first two days when we did that, you know, the opening scene, um, they trusted you. He just, they trusted me. Yeah. And that was this amazing confidence to have that I don't think I would've gotten as a second unit on a job that wasn't as familiar with my work and, you know, and, and everything that like you and I have done. Yeah. So I think it was great that, that they, that they gave us that. But when I think about this, and I just wanna add this one 'cause it was something that there, this is a moment I, I hold onto Bryce who runs, um, our, our vid VTR video village, right? So when directors are, are watching the cameras, right? That's the setup for that. Um, so we were sitting, you know, we sit in his van and there's five screens in there, usually five or six screens playing all the cameras. And I kind of, we were just chatting, we were like waiting, you spend a lot of time talking. Your VTR guy is your therapist. If, if you have a good VTR person because you spend a lot of time waiting for the car because they had to change something or the driver had to go do this or whatever in our, in our business. Or there's a, the drone always needs a new battery or something, or there's a new le lens change or something. So you spend a lot of time just kind of chatting and I mentioned. I was asking Bryce about other stuff he works on, he worked on a lot of features. He worked on like a lot of like bigger, big directors. Like I, at that time, like I had a hard time even calling myself a director. 'cause I was just like, I make internet videos, I make YouTube videos. And Bryce looked at me and he said, you know, you can do what they do, right. You know that they have like one camera they watch and you watch six and you're making notes on all six cameras and talking to a driver, which is actually the job of the stunt coordinator. But you treat them like talent. So you talk to them as a director and you're also giving notes to art department and everything else. And a lot of times overstepping your ad, like you do like six or seven jobs and you probably could only do two and still be okay. And on top of that, I was doing all the other stuff, which is the business side of Hoonigan at the same time. And he's like, you can do this. He's like, trust me, you, you, I sit there and I watch, he's like, most directors have no idea what they're doing. He's like, you'd be surprised. He's like, it's just about making decisions. And it really gave me this confidence that like, yeah, we should go chase this. We should, we should go do it. So, and, and I want to, so bring this back to, to Gymkhana. Like what do you think is the most important thing that we learned on Drifter? Because to me making this Gymkhana is the. Least stressful experience I've ever had and I think we've made a fantastic film. Like it's something I'm very proud of. I think that cinematically, I think it's a step up from what we've done. Um, thank you for doing all the work on color 'cause it looks really good. Um, I think that there was real decisions made instead of just making something work sometimes. Right. And it's some things that maybe the fans don't see that like sometimes you gotta just work with what you have, but there were decisions and we made them. Um, I think they, everything feels a lot more deliberate here. The tempo and all of that's good. Obviously there's still things I would change. There's things I would've, I wish we could, could done differently. There's this and that, that didn't happen but whatever. Um, but we got through the edit process in, I wanna say there's small changes but pretty much five revisions. Like, which [00:42:57] Will: is pretty unreal. 'cause How many versions are you We used to, [00:42:59] Brian: we used to deliver around 25 to version 28 to 27. So like that. So you're like a quarter of the Yeah. Yeah, there was just way more way, and it was because, yeah, we just, we weren't as prepared. We didn't really, the, the decisions weren't being made on set that then were being carried back into the edit suite. Right. [00:43:19] Will: Yeah. I, I think that's the, the thing that we sort of learned is it's, you know, going into drifter, I think you and I had a pretty shared vision of how something would come together. [00:43:29] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. [00:43:29] Will: If it did or it didn't, you know, at least you and I were aligned it. [00:43:33] Speaker 3: Yeah. [00:43:33] Will: Hey, this drone shot goes into this shot, goes into this shot, goes into this shot, and this sequence works like that. And I think we're pretty good with that on Gymkhana as well too. But I think we like to add cameras because you're doing something once. Yeah. Maybe twice. And there's a lot of risk and there's a lot of money involved in it. Yeah. It's not a stock 86 that's doing it. It's a million plus dollar race car that takes a lot of time and people to go do. So you cover it a bit more verte documentary style. Mm-hmm. And I think that, you know, the learnings that we had on Drifter is, hey, if we can be really organized in this, and nothing against anyone on drifter, but we aren't working with action editors that you've worked with for 10 films now. Mm-hmm. Or eight films. Mm-hmm. You know, it's not someone like Volkert that's coming into it that understands your aesthetic. Mm-hmm. That understands cutting within this world, and there's established language within it. It's, Hey, we're giving everything to someone that has never looked at this footage before and doesn't understand how we edit or how we're piecing it together, and we're just expecting them to get it [00:44:39] Brian: right. [00:44:40] Will: And I think that is where we really embraced or tried to embrace more of the standard cinema practices Yeah. And filmmaking practices. [00:44:49] The First Ever Gymkhana Script --- [00:44:49] Brian: Well, when, so we finish this, and I even finished, and even before the Gymkhana was finished, I send Volkert the script. Right. So we had never written a script for Gymkhana in the history of Gymkhana. We had written beats, we had written like bullet points. We had maybe scripted out the opening scenes like the Walkups and stuff. 'cause, but even those were not written in script format. It was Helvetica in, in bold on a page. And we got so used to working out of a script. And I didn't realize how much Hollywood uses the script. Right? You're talking about what scenes you're on. I mean, I had never worked on anything that was script based. Everything I worked on was creative, um, was a creative brief base. Right? Here's what we're gonna go do. We have storyboards? Mm-hmm. But I had never written some, I had never worked on something where it's like, okay, this is scene 23. This is 23 a. Right? And these are the, these are all the people who are in it. This is everything that needs to be done. And it was such the, it was the one thing that made me feel unprepared on Drifter was I would be asking what we're shooting today. And I, I'd be. I would be explaining the moment, like, oh, it's the, you know, the blank scene, right. I don't wanna give away, but like, it was this scene and, and Chris Jennings, who's, you know, also was also our ad in, uh, on Gymkhana, um, would say, oh, we're doing scene 22 and scene 71 today as well as, you know, we're doing pickups for this thing. Like, okay. And like, that's how everyone talked. And I was like, I'm, I need to be more aware of the script and more tied to it and read my sides and, and all of that. So I said, you know what, as a test, let's try doing, let's try writing a script for Jim O Kana. And at first it felt weird to even write some of the stuff out. It almost felt that I was doing it for theater. Like perform, like it was like it was performative, right? Yeah. Like, we are not gonna use this. Yeah. But, and I was doing it as a, I want to be a real movie guy. I don't wanna be a big boy movie director. So I better start figuring out how to write a script. And by the time I got the first 10 tricks down, I was like, wow. I, I, I feel this, like the vision on this comes together a little bit better for me. I wanted to be, I, I wanted to just work, you know, do the part just 'cause I thought it would be good to do. And it ended up being. So crucial. [00:47:11] Will: Yeah, so crucial. Yeah. But I think the cool thing was that it's like you have this vision of what the film is in your head, right? So you reverse engineered a script. Right. Because we had already established what the action was and what the flow of the edit was gonna be and the solves of like how I was gonna piece together. 'cause you and I are pretty thoughtful about trying to do that. And our process before was note carding everything. Yeah. And then moving things around and then coming up with the transitions for it. But to someone that isn't used to working in that way and to someone that's constructing it all in an edit, what did a script supervisor, some of the producers and stuff on in Australia kind of said, oh, I, I get it now. [00:47:46] Brian: Well that, that was one of the biggest feedbacks. They, everyone thought that this was gonna be such a different project for them. And then they got there, they were given a script, like they were, you know, there was a script supervisor and it all just felt like a regular production for them. And that was, I think the thing was like there's a reason why there is a standard operating procedure on set. Yeah. And I didn't go to football school. I took a couple film classes, um, but I didn't go to film school. I, I didn't come up in the ranks. I didn't work as a pa, I didn't work as a camera op. I came in laterally. I came in as a creative director slash like, editor in chief who slid into the director position. And that meant that I didn't learn it the same way. Um, and I did, I tried to learn as much as I could, but I was only learning off of my sets. So I'd go talk to the grips and be like, what's that? That's a Cari. What's that? Like? You know, I, I care about everyone's department and trying to understand how it all works. You know, I've had really great conversations with guys like, kt, it's amazing sound recorders because I wanna understand how to do it better. And I think that understanding everyone, but I never got access to other sets. And it was getting access to another set with a different director on the set to just see how different things work and how other people on other teams work. And you're like, oh, yeah, okay. This is why it makes sense. And now it's like, I would never shoot anything ever again. Yeah. Without a script. Uh, boards are nice if you have the ability, and we boarded out really important scenes, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, we boarded out the whole opener. Yep. Right? So we boarded out like the goggle shot and, and I think like if you look at the boards, those are pretty exact, right? I mean, it's exactly what we, we had planned to do. We went there and we got it. Um, and I, I think one of the things that, uh, I've always suffered from I, and I was like 35 when I realized that not everyone thought like me. I was having this conversation with Ashley, and she just looked at me and she's like, you know, people don't think that way. I'm like, what do you mean? So I was like, I was getting annoyed at, in an employee at Hoonigan who remain nameless. You guys can probably guess. And she's like, you don't understand. Like, that's just not like, like you think differently. I'm like, what do you mean I think differently? She's like, you think differently? It's just different. I'm like, what? What do you mean? Like, like we're all people, we're all about the same. She's like, no, no, no. Trust me. That's not how most people think. She's like, she stopped me and she said, have you ever thought about nothing? I'm like, whatcha are you talking about? She's like, how many ideas are in your head right now? I'm like, I don't know, six or seven at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's, again, that's not normal. And then eventually I learned that that's called Neurodivergence in a DHD, but it's a superpower and a curse all at the same time. But then that made me realize, and I read a book called, uh, I'm tangent a bit, but hey, you're here for the, you're here for the, uh, you're here for in the Weeds. Um, I read a book called On the Back of a Napkin. Mm-hmm. And what it said was that, you know, 90% of society learns visually, not audibly. I learn a lot audibly, like I can listen and visualize it in my head. So I'm learning visually, but I, I can make my own visualization of what people are saying. I don't need to see it to understand it. And then I realize, oh, I'm only 10% of the population that thinks that way. So I had spent my entire career at zero to 60 and at Hoonigan to this point, telling people to do things. And on the back of the Napkin was a book on how to draw simple things to explain things to people. And I changed the way that we would do things at Hoonigan. And there's this like famous moment that actually, uh, just, just had a conversation with Zac about how I was explaining this trip to Mexico and I did this horrible drawing of Baja and then basically drew a line and we're like, we're gonna go from here to here. And it ended up in the video because Vinny was like filming it from his crotch and like without me noticing it. And it ended up in the main video. 'cause everyone thought it was so funny that I like put out this really big plan. Then I drew this like, really simple thing and, and it was there. But it's weird 'cause it stuck with everyone where there's so many conversations we had about things we were gonna do that didn't stick. So I, for me, and I, I'm bouncing around, but I think for me, I had a hard time realizing that not everyone saw it as vividly as I did. And I think the script was that. Passover where everybody, not just the tight group. 'cause I think you would get it, I think most of our camera operators got it. But that was it. Like we were the, we were the in the know club and everybody else was out of the know. And there just felt like there was way less static with all the teams. Everybody from art department to the producers, everyone who read the script knew what we were doing and also knew how it fit into the rest of the film. Versus understanding it in the morning and saying, you know, okay, this is what we're doing today. And, and like, this sounds really simple, but I've worked on a lot of jobs and then, and even, you know, there were days on Drifter where I was like, there was a script, but it was hefty. Had anyone read it? You know, like, where are you? I I think it's a lot for people to, um, understand the big picture of what you're doing when there's so much focus on getting the light right for that day, you know, or doing [00:52:47] Will: this. There's so many levels of that. 'cause I do think it is really profound what you were just saying. 'cause I think I'm embarrassingly late in life also and realizing that my lived perspective isn't the same as everyone else's. Yeah, yeah. Right. Is that I just assumed like, oh, everybody else is seeing things and understanding things the same way that I am. Yeah, yeah. You know, and you're like, no, it couldn't be further from the truth. And that honestly, that's what directing is, right? Is that it is [00:53:11] Brian: a lens. [00:53:12] Will: Is is a lens, but then it's also. Telling 125 people what you're doing, but making sure everyone understands it and realizing that not everybody learns or understands things in the same way that you do. [00:53:24] Brian: Telling 125 people the same thing. 125 different ways. A hundred percent. Which is what it really is. Yeah. Because there's different, people need different levels. Right. And I think you, you said something, someone had complimented us on Drifter about how well, as a team we work together and you said something to the effect of like, we have a shorthand. Yeah. It's like we've worked together for so long and that shorthand is two things. One, we literally have our own language. Yep. Right. We can say things that everyone understands that I say like, Hey, we're setting up here. You know, for a Lafayette. Yeah. Everyone knows what we're talking about on our team. No one else has any idea what a Lafayette is. A Lafayette for you listening at home is a backwards entry slide named after Lafayette Coney Island hotdog, which was a scene from Gymkhana 10, which is a particular way that we cover that particular thing to our group. It's a Lafayette, so it's like everyone knows it. They've all been there. See time, we know it. But then there's also a shorthand that I think with most of our crew, not all of them, some of 'em need kid gloves, but I think most of our crew, you could be blunt and critique someone and there doesn't need to be that. Pleasantry. Not to say that you're being mean, but sometimes there's no time for pleasantry. Yeah. And you could just tell someone to fix their shot, to do this, to do that. Because everyone understands in the moment we don't have time to soften the blow. Yeah. And there's like something really nice about that. 'cause then you all walk out of it and everyone, like, no one has hard feelings on it. Everyone's like, yeah, this is, this is the way forward where when you work with a new crew, it's really hard to do that. Hey, would you, would you think about maybe doing this? Or have you thought about this? Do you remember when [00:54:57] Will: we were missing some kind of key people on drifter? We don't even need to say kind of who or in what roles or whatever. And do you really feel the difference of not having someone there? Right. And I think that's the, the luxury of what we got to do. Because I think, like I had said to you, and this is really what I meant by not these opportunities don't necessarily exist in, in the world as we've gotten used to, is it's having four or five operators as a luxury. Yeah. Yeah. Having four or five people that understand car action as a mega luxury. Yeah. And then having people that you've worked with for a decade, you know, that like. You know, I was hobos best man, like, you know. Yeah. Him and I lived out of Volkswagen fan for six months. Yeah. He's my brother. You [00:55:39] Brian: were, you were in my wedding. I know. Yeah. So it, it's, and this is a tight group of people. It's a tight group. People Coddle was at my birthday party. Right. Like everybody's, yeah. [00:55:45] Will: So it's like to be able to, a, work with people that you wanna spend time with, but that you also admire their craft and their abilities mm-hmm. And their skillset. And that they've also been sharpening that knife. Of course. That's the biggest one. Just in that lane only, you know? Yeah. They're not, and, and this is actually something that's really tough too, is that it's like, I think we have to make those decisions of, as like, well, who has the sharpest knife right now? Who is getting the reps in? And stuff like that. And I think, you know, for you and I, it was, it was hard because we wanna include everybody. We knew that these things don't exist in this format. Yeah. And we had to make really hard decisions, you know, about who we wanted to include and what the vision was going forward. Right. Being and that was, that was tough. [00:56:29] Elevating the Craft & Mentorship --- [00:56:29] Brian: Yeah. I, I think something that's actually really came out of it that I've enjoyed is. Was meeting Josh Coté. Right. So he, I'd never worked with him before. Um, I think I'd met him in passing somewhere, but I'd never worked with him before. And I, I will admit, and I feel so different about this now, up until then, I didn't really understand what ACS did. I was never a camera operator. I was a still photographer who could make a five D mark two work for video. Right. Like I nev and I wouldn't even calling myself a still photographer is a stretch. I was a writer who occasionally had to take photos and then was there when the move to video went. And I had the opportunity to shoot a lot of cool stuff with Ken, which happened to be cool 'cause the subject was amazing. Maybe not the camera work. So I knew my way around a camera, but, and did do have a actual camera credit. 'cause I had to film something myself on drifter with no acs. But what with no acs? Yeah. And I had the editor, uh, slate for me. But, um, there, it made me understand. Um, one, the importance of a really good ac, that they weren't just there to carry cameras. That, that they actually have an entirely separate skillset than a camera operator and that they are obviously, they are the right side of the camera. And in that way, just like the left and right side of the brain do different things. The left and right side of the camera do different things. And listening to him talk and listening to him talk to the other acs, like um, Brandon mm-hmm. Was, you know, AC on main unit. Like Yep. Just how much they care, but also how much they really enjoy being an ac. And I think that in my mind before that, an AC was a stepping stone to be a camera operator and I realized that some of the best acs, that's what they want to be. Yeah. Because they want to be the right side of the brain for that moment. Right? Yeah. And that's what they're really good at. And then that's when it made me realize like a really good crew is people who really, really want to, as you said, sharpen the knife in the lane they're in and getting the best production designer who's there, but also getting a really good art, you know, art director and getting a really good prop master. Not a prop master who wants to be a production designer, but a prop master who's really excited about this thing that they do. Right. And I think that's interesting. 'cause I think in my mind previously it was like all acs wanna be camera operators. And all camera operators want to be dps. And the more I've gotten to work with people who are real professionals, they carve out a space there that they want to become. The best at, and that's how you build a crew that makes magic. Yeah. Like that's, that's really that thing. And I think that really changed the way that I looked at just what teams look like and how people put this together and you know, the people who are, like you said, you know, practicing their craft and imp improving it every time. 'cause I really want to be the best director I can be now. Absolutely. And I wasn't early on because I had a thousand other things, but now it's like you clear the path. Like this is just what I'm gonna do now. This is what I'm gonna focus on. [00:59:23] Will: And the thing, the thing I love about Cote is like for a Travis Gymkhana legacy thing is Cote is Lance Mokma MA's protege. [00:59:33] Brian: Yeah. [00:59:34] Will: So to have Annapolis be with Lance, who was the only AC on the job and Lance is was one of my favorite humans. Yeah. Lance is amazing and like an absolute killer and like put everything on his back and like, I don't even think. You know, at that time I really, and that always wouldn't have [00:59:49] Brian: happened without Lance. No. And, and you know, again, I, I had less of an understanding of kind of what the job was because to me, ACS were what Lance was at Right. For that job. But I realized he was way more than that. But that job needed it, which was, Hey, you have to build all these cameras overnight and there's a bunch of issues and there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't talk to each other. And you have to figure that out for everybody. Yeah. You gotta get everybody right. And he was [01:00:09] Will: pulling for Justin, you know, so he was the key first, but he was the only first. Yep. You know, so he was doing the long lens zoom. Yep. And then he was also making sure every other single camera was prepped and ready to go for the next day. So like his lift was insane. But that's really what I took from Lance. Is that a good first, especially if you're an operator. Mm-hmm. Or if you're a DP and you're working relationship with them, is that he always wanted to elevate my craft. Yeah. So it's like his encouragement of like, Hey, you need to go test lenses. Hey, you need to just do the technical side and really have a really strongly formed opinion so when the opportunity comes, you know exactly what works for it. Yep. And those kind of really special acs, like I feel really lucky 'cause I've worked with a lot of great acs, but you know, Brandon Kado, you know, filled a void when Lance passed away. That was great. But. I that's never been Brandon's. Right. You know, want to do that. He's just incredibly talented and can do that. [01:01:08] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. [01:01:08] Will: You know, so it's like, you know, it's, I think empowering him, especially on Drifter and him saying, Hey, I wanna operate on this, I think was, was phenomenal. Mm-hmm. Because there is an economic side of it too, where it's like Brandon could have, could have, probably could have gotten more days as a ac but at the end of the day, you know, he proved his, his mic being the, a camera operator on Drifter second unit and was like, well that would've been foolish to put him in that role. But it's exactly like you said, I don't, it, I, I feel for Kado because it's like the opportunity exists to work with me and work with you in that capacity. And he's worn a lot of hats in our relationship. Mm-hmm. We've known him since he's been 15 years old. I mean, you realize he was like the, the meme [01:01:51] Brian: editor [01:01:51] Will: Yeah. At Hoonigan early. He developed the editing style. Yeah. He created the, [01:01:54] Brian: the, the daily transmission style. Right. I would say he finessed it. Yeah. Like, you know, he, he wasn't there initially right at the beginning, but he sort of brought that over the top meme culture. Yeah. He brought that humor. Yeah. And then became in, in front of camera, it was Y 2K. 'cause he was this young kid in our group. And I have to say that I had a little moment the other day. Um, where I was just thinking like, man, I'm really proud of this kid. Like from where he went, like it was, it was a huge risk when he left Hoonigan. Yeah. And I think at first you could argue that he left Hoonigan while Hoonigan was still very much on the rise. Absolutely. So it's like you are leaving this place that is fully rocket shipping. Yeah. And you're getting off the rocket right now. Yeah. Like really. And he went to go chase something he cared more about and now like he is, you know, now all of us left Touni again and I'm more than stoked to see Kado come with us on the rest of this journey. Whether, whether he does or not, you know, he may decide to, to go do and direct and go DP his own stuff. He could direct, [01:02:54] Will: he could dp, he could do whatever he want, but Yeah. [01:02:56] Brian: And maybe he gets the second unit for us in the future, who knows. Yeah. But like he is, you know, that kid has definitely opened a door on that one. Yeah. So, yeah. But [01:03:03] Will: that was a super long-winded way of saying like, Hey, Coté is, you know, this guy from the Midwest, this guy from Michigan that has all of this, you know, knowledge that was passed down from Lance. Yeah. Who is like the spiritual successor to Lance, you know, to come into it. It felt, it felt right. Yeah. And we've had, you know, electric Hana, we had the huge camera department on that. Mm-hmm. And we had more properly staffed with first and second and especially [01:03:26] Brian: for the night stuff. [01:03:27] Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did and it, and it made sense. And so it was, it was tough. 'cause you know, we miss people like Harrison and people that were key parts of, you know, were key ACS on other projects. So to go to, you know, Australia foreign country and be dependent on. All the locals there. Yeah. And then just Cote, you know, it was, it was a big undertaking. [01:03:46] Brian: Oh yeah. I mean, it always is working with local groups. I, I've gotta say though, I, I generally really enjoyed the Australia group. I've had definitely problems with, I won't name names, but we've been in other countries where the local was sort of the biggest, like [01:04:00] Will: hold [01:04:00] Brian: up of, hold up for everyone and or just did it, couldn't get on page with what we were doing. I felt like the group down there kind of got on it pretty quickly. And yeah, I'd be stoked to work with almost all of them. All of 'em again. So it was, it was, it was certainly great. Um, okay. Couple questions I want to ask you. 'cause you wanna do rapid fire, what? You gotta do some little quick old rapid fires? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, what do you think was the most difficult part of filming Gymkhana Australia? Like, whether it was like a scene or a particular thing. Like what was, what was the hardest thing for us from a production side? [01:04:36] Will: Well, besides the flies, like, the flies were just brutal for sure. In the outback. I think that was like just sanity. [01:04:42] Brian: Yeah. Questioning. Um, it's one of those things that if you don't get to experience it, it's hard to understand how flies could drive you mad. Mm-hmm. But yeah, [01:04:50] Will: it was bad. Um, I don't know. I think. I think, like you said, I think a lot of it even in production went really smooth and like, you know, I wanna give credit to, to Matthew Holt for really problem solving and making a lot of physical things happen that really worked really well. [01:05:10] Brian: Yeah, Matthew Holt, by the way, production designer who sort of steps into the world of sort of helping with the stunt stuff as well. 'cause like he built the rail slide that you see in the opening credit scene, which is like the rail jump or what we called like a rail jam. Right. Or a pole jam. Um, and then built the billboard. And honestly it was his really kind of, his idea that planted the seed that became that billboard. He had a different concept for a billboard, but that sort of did that and that billboard was fantastic. And he also helped sort of manage some of the jump stuff, even though Absolutely. Even though, even though, um, Jenko Jenko. Yeah. Big shout out to Jenko. Jenko Good Dirt is a, is just a dirt man. He just moves dirt in Australia. He is a fantastic human being and always was a lot of fun and is a real master, uh, of his craft. I think you'll, I think you'll hear Travis speak very kindly of him as well. Um, but you know, he worked a lot with Matthew to make sure like all of that stuff came together. So that was really good. And I gotta say, I think this was, I think this was one of the best jobs that Matthew's done for us. [01:06:14] Will: I think the White Bay Gymkhana six. I know we wanted to talk about that. Yeah. Is, uh, a great homage. And I think that stuff turned out. Beautiful visually and really matched that aesthetic perfectly. [01:06:26] Brian: Yeah, I mean, so I want, like, I wonder how many people noticed it in the film? You know, it'd be interesting. There's actually a four and a three hidden in there. 'cause they're like on the containers, they're not next to each other. I kind of wanted to keep it just a, it's an homage if you get it. It's like a if you know, you know, type situation. Um, but I think he did a really good job of putting that together and tying it back into, uh, a whole new trick. Right? Because if you think about it, it was, I don't wanna say it was a throwaway, but the moments like Travis wasn't. This was purposeful. I didn't want Travis to try to one up what Ken had done. I think that, um, I think Ken's slide through the backhoe. First of all, it was a figure eights, it was different. I think it was better. Um, I think that the ball tap was, it's, it's, it is what it is, but it, it wasn't the same concept. It was a, it was a little love letter to Ken as then he went to the wheel thing, which is the competition between him and Ken. Mm-hmm. Like that was this back and forth, right. Of, you know, Ken did it first in Buffalo and he put the tire on the edge and then Travis dropped the tire and then Ken said, that's cute, but the water doesn't look that deep. Would you even have, would the car even have sank? So of course we had to go find a 10 foot drop with, you know, shark infested waters to really elevate that. Um, and that was something I felt like it was okay for Travis to go and try to one up, 'cause this was this ongoing sort of, you know, competition between the two of them. Um, but the rest of it was sort of, you just placed there. And then the other one obviously, you know, uh, was the end. And this is, uh, Travis's last film. Um, who knows might be our last film. I don't, we don't really know what's gonna happen. No one knows. Yeah. With the series. Um, as has been said multiple times before, it's Lia's for the taking if she wants to do it, but it's not our job to force her. So if it's something she decides, I'm, I'm sure it's there. Uh, that's not really my say entirely anymore, but from all sounds, it's, it's, it's there for her. [01:08:24] Will: Um, and I think it's something that, you know, we read the comments, we look at things. I think that's what people wanna see. Yeah. 100%. [01:08:31] Brian: 100%. But at the same time, you know, and she's said this, you know, I think publicly she's, you know, obviously said it to me. It's like, when the time is right, it makes sense for her, you know, and, and she has a lot to do before. She's definitely on the level of, you know, Ken or Travis. And it's a, it's huge shoes to walk into. And I, I think she wants to be prepared for that. So it'll be interesting where it goes. But anyway, to get to it, you know, this kind of looking at this as, you know, the last film, it was like, okay, how does it end? What if there isn't ever like another one? So, you know, what, what was your thought on the end? 'cause I know that that was something that I wrote while we were in Australia. Mm-hmm. Like, we had already written the script. We'd already sort of gotten the script approved by Hoonigan and I added that while we were there as like an alternate for the out, um. What was your thoughts on that? Like, did, did it make sense to you? It's very subtle and like if you don't know, you don't know. But you know, me, I, I like, I like that kind of thing. Yeah. Nuances, nuance is special. The nuance is [01:09:32] Will: great because I mean the handoff on Gymkhana 10 10, the last Gymkhana that technically 10 ever did ten's [01:09:39] Brian: last gymkhana. 'cause everything else was a electric con, was electronic climb, conna, things like that. Yeah. [01:09:44] Will: And you know, to have the Travis kind of cameo with riding up on the dirt bike, putting the dirt bike on the hay bale. Yep. And then getting in the Huna truck and driving away, you know, sets up, well maybe he's next, maybe he's doing something with this. Right. Right. And then it did pay off. Yep. Um, this one being just the exact reverse of it. Right. Where he's bringing the car back, getting on the dirt bike and wheeling off. Yeah. Yeah. Back to all things Travis. You know, [01:10:08] Brian: it's funny 'cause this is like a little Mandela effect, but I could have sworn we shot an option with the door open. 'cause in my head I was like, it'd be cool to leave the door open 'cause it has this like. You know, symbolism of like the doors left open for, for where this goes. But we never shot it. No, I, I, I remember shooting the alternate, like, it's in my notes. Do you remember like, shoot, alternate leave door open? [01:10:31] Will: Yeah. Do you remember? He still had his comms plugged in on the one, so we had to re-shoot it. So it's like he's still tethered the cars. Yeah, I remember that shot. Oh, trust [01:10:38] Brian: me. I remember because [01:10:39] Will: you looked through it. Because [01:10:40] Brian: I looked through it all. I, like, I looked through every shot. I was like, is there a still photo of it? Like, like these guys are lying to me. They hid the footage. Someone doesn't want this to happen. Disney. This is a conspiracy. Yeah. Like I, I remember shooting it, but I guess not. Yeah. So it was early morning and there the flies were there. The flies. Flies were there. I think it was a fever fly dream. Yeah. That I remember. I remember doing that. Yeah. Yeah. [01:11:01] Will: No, I, I loved it. I think those kind of things are great. And obviously you and I had discussed a lot of different endings and where it should end at, and if this was a post credit sequence or if this was gonna happen at the end Yeah. And we had other people's cameos it potentially, depending on schedule, we're gonna be there and not be there. So, yeah. It's, [01:11:19] Brian: yeah. And we get into some of that with Travis on the Hoonigan video of the people who didn't show up, right? Yeah. Like Casey Stoner and, uh, the big one, Chris Hemsworth. Yeah. Um, and if it wasn't for Chris Hemsworth, the water skip wouldn't have happened. It's true. And I'll let, I'll let, uh, I'll let Travis tell that story. Yeah. But, um, yeah, there's, uh, there's a bunch of those other pieces that would've been cool, but I, I'm really, I mean, overall, you know. How, how do you feel like it's done, dusted now? Uh, there's always the moments where you're like, I wish this could be different. Mm-hmm. But like general, you liken it. [01:11:49] Will: Yeah. 'cause I, like I said, at kind of the beginning of this, like, I don't know if I was ever sold on the brat. I wasn't sure how that was gonna be. Um, wasn't sure how Australia was gonna be. Uh, I wasn't sure how some kind of dirt, I mean when you had sent me the initial scout photos and you're like, Hey, this is this cutting. I'm like, what is that? That, um, [01:12:10] Brian: here's a hole in the ground. Yeah, yeah. We're gonna do cool stuff. Here it [01:12:13] Will: is this manmade ditch that was, oh it isn't. Might have been fuso also. And it's a good homage. I was like, oh, okay. What we gotta do here? It's dirt. Like, I don't know. Yeah. That's not Gymkhana. And then it's hard to imagine those scenes kind of being any better or more epic than I think they were. And I hope people appreciate those. 'cause it is, yeah, it is different. [01:12:31] Mad Max Influence & Easter Eggs --- [01:12:31] Brian: Well, there's a bunch of like, I mean there's a lot of, I I really, sorry I'm pouncing all here, but like I realized I really enjoy the Easter egg and the nuance and the like hiding things. It's something that I think I'll really enjoy in making, um, you know, feature films one day. 'cause you can hide a lot of stuff in a lot of sort of little notes to other people. So. We shot a bunch of stuff at the opening scene for Mad Max Road Warrior. Yeah. And I was a young boy the first time I saw that movie and I loved it. Like that movie was so cool to me. That was shot right there at that like lift spot. And then they, they, they repeat that scene I think in, I don't think in Australia because of what happened. Mm-hmm. But in, and um, they repeat that scene, uh, in the beginning of Fury Road where he's like standing by the car in the opening scene. Right. Um, but that was shot right there at that Monday Mundy sign, um, which is like kind of super cool. And it's funny 'cause we went to all the effort to shoot in the same location as Mad Max. And then there's like a throwaway moment where you see the interceptor for like two seconds. You see the blower and then it's gone. Mm-hmm. And I, I, I know that because I think this was a critique from both you and Brandon is that like, I moved past stuff really fast. Like my mighty Karma mods are in it, but you like barely see them and um, there's just a lot of things just move, you know, move past and I don't know. Um, I like it 'cause I like it to be you, you have to catch it versus it being really blatant. Yeah. I like, I like the subtlety of it. So Yeah. [01:14:05] Will: You have the Crocodile, Dundee, cam Crocodile and D Yeah. Jim York. Yeah. And then, yeah, the interceptor from Mad Max. Yeah. Uh, obviously the kangaroo's bit told on Yeah, it's on the nose. Matt Huey's are in there. Yep. Yeah. And Car. Yep. [01:14:19] Brian: Toby Price. Toby Price. Yep. Yeah. So, um, yeah, and I think it's something that's fun with the Travis films is he does enjoy the cameos. Yeah. Like he enjoys stuffing it full of people and, and doing all that. Um, did you actually, did we actually nail what the hardest part of the shoot was or did you just kind of say it all? Was was this an easy shoot? It didn't feel easy. No. But it also didn't feel hard. [01:14:44] Will: No. I mean the days felt really full on like I was toast when I was back at the end of the Yeah. Always are day. And like I think that's something funny is that I forget what we were going through and you had sent me the super eight and 16 mils stuff that I shot on Gymkhana 10. 'cause I was camera operating on that and I was like, I just can't even imagine what it's like to have like two free brain cells or five extra minutes to shoot something the shoot something else. Because it is full on, you know, for you and I from the moment that we are up in the morning to the minute we go to bed, like our mind is only occupied with. Yeah, nothing. [01:15:19] Brian: I brought my um, G nine, my old vintage digital G nine point and shoot with me. And I think I took a couple of photos. I took a couple photos in Scout and then I may have taken a few photos in the first couple of days and then I just like never pulled the camera out again. And I, I'm jealous of other people on set who like take cool film stuff and all that. 'cause like, I want those memories. I wanna be able to go make those and shoot those. But it's just, it's just too much. But I wouldn't trade it. No, I wouldn't trade it. I enjoy the, no, I, I enjoy the full on element of filmmaking. It's, it's, uh, it's been, it's been really fun. So, yeah. I dunno. [01:15:57] Plans with Ken Block --- [01:15:57] Brian: Um, it'd be weird if this is the last one. I, I was ready for the last one to, I actually, I can't say I was ready for the last one last. No. 'cause no one told me that the last one was gonna be the last one. No. That sucked. Right? Like no one Yeah. Like it wasn't like, Hey this is, this is it. I mean, you know, Ken and I had planned to do one more Ana, so we had planned to do Electrica three and we were going to make that into more of a mini film. Right. Where it was like it was gonna be a short film. Yeah. I think we were talking about maybe trying to get like Iris Elba involved and some things like that. 'cause Ken had done that project [01:16:29] Will: with him. Um, which is cool 'cause maybe that would've scratched the Oh, more narrative itch for sure. But I also know that you were dealing with a lot in the company and even in the working relationship with the Ken because like Ken was, you know, in, in Mexico. Wasn't having the best time No. Ever driving that car and the conversations that we were all having on set, he wasn't talk, he wasn't even totally present with that kind of stuff. Yeah. He was like, Hey, for the third one or for Terrana two, can we do this? And you and I are just kinda like, Hey buddy, we need, still need to shoot the opposing, we need to get this moment right now. Done. Like let's, [01:17:05] Brian: let's get this done. Yeah. Yeah. I um, I, yeah, it's interesting 'cause that was supposed to happen in the other one. Um, that we were supposed to do. I, I was, we wanted to do a film with Ken and Lia. Mm-hmm. Right. That and we had started to kind of plan that and it was a concept with Unior and something else and it was gonna be like a small, very like simple back to basics kind of thing. Um, but then I think after that it was gonna be done for Ken. I mean I think Ken was gonna finish out the electric KANA stuff and that was over, we had talked about maybe doing another climb Kana. Um, but we liked the idea of moving more into maybe doing film, doing something different. Um, he had talked about, you know, working with like, doing like something completely different and working like maybe, hey, maybe go work with a director. 'cause I think at that point, like I was invested in doing the stuff with Travis. Yeah. And that was had become sort of, hey, this is where the future's gonna go. Um, yeah. And then obviously, you know, just tragedy struck and you know, I think we all just had this moment of, alright, is this all over? Or are we gonna do this again? And I'm happy that the time that happened happened. Um, I think if we were able to make Puerto Rico work that year, it would've all been bad because it would've, I probably would've still left, and it would've been this weird sort of moment. I needed the two years away, go do my own thing, deal with my own stuff, like process everything that had happened and then come back to it. And I think, honestly, I think not just for, I, I think even for the audience, I think maybe like the, it was still too new, you know, it was like still too new for, for us to go make something. And I, I'll, I'll be the first to admit, when I first, when we first announced this film, I was a little concerned that there was gonna be a fan base that felt like, oh, just let it be. Mm-hmm. Like, don't make it anymore. And it was the exact opposite. I mean, I think that that 99% of the sentiment, I actually really don't think I've seen much negative, but 99% of the sentiment was like, it's super cool to see you guys carry this on. But it definitely needed that little bit of like, thawing moment to kind of get past it, to like, want to go do it again. Because I, it was just too, and there was even a couple moments, and I don't want to get too heady, but, or too heavy I should say. There was, there was a couple moments on set where. There was like a weird deja vu of it all. And I was like, this is, but you know, I don't know if it's like in a bad way. Like I, I've, I'm, I'm come around to the point of like, it's, it's, I want nothing more right now to be able to go shoot a mediocre han that both of us wish we were in a different setup for. Right. And I, you know, and look, ev was a thing that at the time made a lot of sense. I, it, I think that entire ship has passed. I mean, Audi's no longer not making gas cars. Like everyone has turned, you know, a 180 on that and we'd probably be in a different place now. I wish we could have gone and made a video in a badass R six or something, but, or an original sport Quattro. Um, but, you know, I, I would give anything to Bell do that again. But I will say, um, I don't know if I'll ever, I, I think this is kind of like a nice thing, right? It's a nice thing that I don't think I can go shoot something and not think about Ken and everything he taught me. And he was the guy that gave me that original confidence. You know, I'll never forget, I will never forget, we came home from Gymkhana four and he, I think it was Gymkhana four, maybe it was Gymkhana five, and I was still creative director and he said, you know, hey, real nice job creative directing. And then he paused and he said, actually, nice job directing. He's like, you, you know, you're, you're, you're like a director now. And that was all he said. And that was enough for me to be like me. A director now. Hmm. And then immediately started having conversations with Ben Conrad of like, do you think I could do this? And he's like, you are already doing it. And he was the director, right? Yeah. I mean, Ben Conrad was the director for four through eight. Right? Yeah. And, um, but he, you know, and I, I don't thank Ben enough, Ben. Like, I have to thank Ben for having so little ego Yeah. That he let me just sort of do my thing. Yeah. Right. I think a lot of other directors would've been like, Nope, that's my place. Yeah. And Ben was super happy to do the stuff he was very good at. Um, and then let me do the stuff that I wanted to try to do and just like, support me there and, and have so little ego about it all. Well, I mean, I, I can't imagine if there was anyone else who was on that position would've allowed me to step into that role. Yeah. Like, he completely vacated. I mean, he was, I, I kind of stood behind him in four and helped with pieces in five. I really took the reins and like helped, I mean, and developed a lot of the tricks and did the scouting and all of that. And then in, you know, in six it was, I was like, I was very much involved in, in all of what was happening and putting it together in the art direction and designed the course and all of that. And then by the time we got to seven, it was like I was, I was. Co-directing with him entirely. Right. And, and in some moments really just directing. And then eight was kind of whatever in Dubai. No, but it was still, I mean, you were on eight. It was like, it was an interesting film because of the, of everything that kind of, and how it restricted we were to operate there. But it was really amazing to look back and, and realize now how much he just let me do it. [01:22:36] Will: But I, but I also think you're, and it gave me the confidence. A hundred percent. I also think you're not giving yourself kind of credit for it, because I think, uh, you know, like I, I feel the same sort of way, you know, kind of working with you on that is it's, it's your thing and you're directing it, but like, when I feel like I can contribute something Right, and you don't take offense at like, hey, like, are you ask me like soundboard or check something with, you're like, do you think this is good on this? You know, it's like that's the greatest kind of compliment that you can kind of give someone. Mm-hmm. Is like understanding that you're not a threat to him and doing it. He brings his own sort of strengths and understanding to it. And he understood that you were plus upping what he was doing because you understood what the car was gonna do better than he did. And that's not a dig on him because there's things that we've never matched No. With the Ben films that we just couldn't, because we don't have the conceptual mind of like, how you can integrate this into your production and really add value to it in a graphical way and in a stylistic way. You know, that I think, I think the [01:23:31] Brian: biggest difference is, is that. I'm a creative in Benson artist. Yeah. I, I'm not an artist. Yeah. I, I don't have that piece in me. Like, everything for me has to have a, has to have a why or a marketing attachment to it, or a story. Everything I do is narratively driven by story. Mm-hmm. And he's driven by visual art in a way that I'm not Yeah. Is, yeah. I mean, I loved working with him. I mean, I hope, I would love to work with Ben again on something. 'cause I, he was, you know, he was, and I, I I feel like he doesn't get his flowers often. No. And I feel bad sometimes 'cause I know that I've sort of, I've really taken over as like, oh, he's the guy who did Gymkhana and he helped for a long period in that and really gave me the like, you can do this. [01:24:13] Will: Yeah. You [01:24:13] Brian: know, [01:24:14] Will: and that's, and that's like when you and I talk about the films and what things we really enjoy. Like, I love Gymkhana four. Yeah. 'cause I think it is such from start to end such a high concept film. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like the attention to detail on it and, you know, it might not be our favorite one from driving moments mm-hmm. Or like big moments, but it, there's still some really good driving moments. Yeah. It's, it certainly has a level of thoughtfulness that Yeah. None of the other ones have on a certain concept level. You know, who really likes [01:24:42] Brian: that? Who. Hudson, my son. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's playful. Yeah. He enjoys like the ladder with the Sasquatch takeout. Um, there's a lot of stuff for him that just really serves. He's watched that more. He's watched a bunch of 'em since, you know, he, it started because, I mean, this is a, when he was first born, you know, I did two Gymkhanas back to back. Right. Gymkhana and Electrikhana one and two. And he sat on my lap as a baby and watched it, you know, when I was working on it and then, you know, as a toddler, but now he's old enough to understand it. Right. You know, being almost six. And he, um, he really, out of all of 'em, really enjoys that one because I think it's fun and it gets a bad rap. It's like low, it's like lowest on the level when you rank the films with like the core group of people. Like we did a ranking and it always sort of ends in either ninth or 10th place Right. Or whatever, out of the group. And, you know, it's, it's interesting because it wasn't what. The film needed to be, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't good. It just like, the film was better, more raw and less of that. And it was supposed to be a poke at Hollywood. And I think in somewhere there it became a little too Hollywood in its own moments. But it was, I mean, it was the first big set I'd ever been on in my life. And I still don't think I've ever been on a set that delivered me a parfait in the middle of the day. I mean, crafty was next level. [01:26:12] Will: So, but I think too, that the revisionist history that we make with all of the Gymkhana films is that we don't remember the cool kids part of Gymkhana 2, [01:26:22] Brian: which still did like 6 million views. Right. Which most people would beg for that level. Right, right. [01:26:27] Will: But it's, it's an interesting thing because like, uh, you know, you and I, I think could write the Bible of like what we think it is at this point. Right. And have pretty ironclad [01:26:37] Brian: Yeah, yeah. [01:26:38] Will: Between the both of us. Like this is what a Gymkhana film and this isn't, but like, if you look at one and two and three, and four and five, it's really figuring out the identity. Oh, for [01:26:47] Brian: sure. You know, I've only watched two, like, three or four times really in my whole life. Yeah. It never really clicked for me. I, I mean, I watched, okay. When I say I watched it when it was in production because I helped on the creative side of it, but once it came out [01:27:02] Speaker 3: mm-hmm. [01:27:03] Brian: I don't remember going back and watching it that much. I, I, it's just one of those ones like, I like the idea of the Mega Marshall and four was the repeat of that. Yeah. It was like the Hollywood Mega Marshall, um. And I as a, I think Ken really liked those films early on because at the end of the day, while Ken and I think were very similar in many ways, Ken was a marketer and I was a reckon tour. Like for me, it's about storytelling. Mm-hmm. Like that's all I wanna do is tell, that's why I fucking talk on podcast for hours. I love telling a story. Yeah. Even if I bounce around subjects a lot. But I enjoy that. And it was why I became a writer and, and all of that. And for Ken it was more important that we landed the, like, landed the marketing than it was anything else. So those really landed the marketing, I mean, you watch the opening of five. Oh yeah. And it's an, it's an ad. [01:27:52] Will: Yeah. I mean it's brilliant. Yeah. If you think about it like, well, two two is the same way. Yeah. Two is a DC commercial. Yeah. That has kind of the broken glass and Yeah. It's, it's, it was super smart. It's, it's cool. High concept. Artistic, creative commercial film wouldn't work [01:28:06] Brian: today. [01:28:07] Will: No. [01:28:07] Brian: I think today there's too much of a nose turnup to that, but that was early when no one was doing [01:28:13] Will: anything about it. But could you make those into. Nine by 16 Cool. Supplemental things we crush today. Absolutely. Hundred percent. [01:28:20] Brian: The ken, like the, the mirror breaking. Yeah. It's so cool. Moment. The car reveal. Yeah. The hitting the hat out of the hand of Yep. I forget what they called [01:28:29] Will: test Timmy Test. [01:28:30] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Test Timmy, test testy Timmy Testy or something like that. Yeah. Um, yeah, those, you know, all of those things I think, uh, would be great. Um, as just single IG clips. But [01:28:40] Will: that's like, you know, like, I think for me, like I would probably put out there that I think I'm one of the biggest Gymkhana students around. Like, I've re-watched all of 'em and I've taken notes on like what tricks show up and which ones Yeah. And which ones I think, and like you and I have very different rankings in terms of what we think are great films. Yeah. Which is why I like working with you. Right. But it's, um, they've been so influential in my life because, you know, when Jim Kano one came out, you know, I was working at Rice Boy tv mm-hmm. And all of us were just like, what is this? Yeah. We're like, this is unreal. And that, that was like the, that was the high watermark of like, if I can be involved in this in any sort of way mm-hmm. This is what I want to do. So it's like been a total life sort of fulfillment thing to be here and to be doing this with you. And you know, it's like neither one of us were involved in that level. Yeah. On the first ones, you know, that was Josh and Matt and Ken, yeah. Yeah. Milan and a different crew. [01:29:32] The Aesthetic Development of the Gymkhana Films --- [01:29:32] Brian: I was there as the soundboard. I wasn't on set for the first one. Um, I was there obviously for the original concept and then Ken would send me basically the dailies. 'cause they filmed that over like a month and a half or something. 'cause they would go, they'd film a piece. Ken would send me something, make you think this is good. I'll go back and refilm it. Or you think it'd be better if we did it this way. And, um, you know, that was really those two, like, that was them working with, you know, with Josh and, you know, and um, Matt on that and, you know, and that was this great combination. And again, like, I don't, you know, I, I, I think that those guys got a lot of credit early on, but maybe don't get as much anymore. And I'm happy to give it to them because they took Ken's skateboard. Aesthetic and like made the, and like put the cameras in a lot of the right positions for the car stuff. 'cause they knew that from off-road racing. Yep. So like that was that original blend that I think, and the rawness that it had, I think came from both of 'em, right? Mm-hmm. Like off-road had a raw feeling to it and I, I knew those guys from like, doing stuff with, I wanna say BF Goodrich or something early on. Um, so I, I had met them before, uh, before I think I'd even met Ken and um, you know, and then obviously two was sort of two, I think Ken really came in and was like, this is a marketing play and I forget if. I think Nate Morley was there. I think at that point he was, you know, he was one of the creative directors at, at DC Shoe Company. And then three is the, was the first one that I was like heavily involved on set dealing with all of it. But like one and two, I would just get sense up. So, I mean, I got to see it for everyone. I got to make some notes. I got to be part of the reason why there was a segue instead of a, instead of a motorized bar stool. That was one of the other concepts. Um, and the reason I remember Ken was like, what do you think? Like, like, I wanna do donuts around something moving, like what's a good object? And the whole thing was, was make it a segue. 'cause like honestly, people want to see you hit the scene. The guy on the, yeah, because like, I worked across the street from Madison Square Park on 25th and Broadway, and they started doing the Segway tours, and all I wanted was to see people get knocked off of Segways. So I was like, it'd be kind of cool if you hit the guy on the Segway. Like, that was the initial motivation for that violence. Yeah. But yeah, no. Um, so I, you know, it's interesting one, because I don't think you, and you and I talked so much, uh, period, but you and I talk so much about, you know, the current stuff we do. But I, I guess I never really talked to you about, you know, your perspective of the films sort of early on. It's kind of interesting to hear that take, because I think, like, I know the, the films are celebrated by a lot of people, but I also feel, and this is no knock, but I feel like the Drift world looked at the Gymkhana films a little differently. Absolutely. 'cause everybody was also making something similar. Mm-hmm. Right. Um. To give him his credit. You know, Ryan Tuerk had, uh, off seasons. Yeah. Andy Lapa. Right. With Andy Lapa. And that came out, I think the same time as Jim Ka. It was after [01:32:33] Will: potentially. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I, it was [01:32:35] Brian: close. It was very good. Yeah. You know, and I, I think it kind of came out of its own place. Mm-hmm. And there was this skateboard part vibe that was happening in the world of, um, of drifting that was happening. And I think that there was like this different, I just always got the vibe that where most of the critique was coming was from Drift, filmers. 'cause I think they all kind of felt like they could do the same thing. [01:32:58] Will: I, I think this is a bit of that punk rock sort of thing too, that like Drift was small enough at that time, and it still is, to be honest. Like that, um, people didn't wanna like it because you would see a list on a comment or something, it'd be like, who's is the best drifters in the world? And it'd be like, oh, Ken Block is number one. And you're like, well, he is actually not drifting. [01:33:18] Brian: Yeah. [01:33:19] Will: But [01:33:19] Brian: it's funny 'cause I think Vaughn once said something to me where he was like, you know, that's not drifting. Yeah. And I was like, and it's like, and I, and I looked at him and I said, no, it's better. [01:33:29] Speaker 3: Yeah. [01:33:31] Brian: 'cause it's faster. Yeah. He did not like that. Yeah. [01:33:34] Will: No, and I think that's like, if you really get to that really core kind of thing of like, well, what is drifting? It's, it's sliding, it's sliding power. Sliding. Sliding. Yeah. And then there's drifting. [01:33:42] Brian: Yeah. It's, it's nuance. [01:33:44] Will: It's super nuanced and every, but I don't [01:33:45] Brian: call what Ken does drifting. No, no. Like I did Drift. [01:33:48] Will: Did drift jump? Is a thing, but that's just a term for it because it, but that's [01:33:52] Brian: because it was inspired by esu. Yeah. And like that was, I mean, that was the inspiration. Yeah. 100%. Um, you probably remember the driver's name Yeah. In the GTR, right? Was was it? No. Was it, [01:34:06] Will: Daigo was really famous for a couple of, it might have been the Daigo one. Kubota red car was red. I wanna say like, um, there's a few, I mean like, 'cause there was a g around there, there was one that was [01:34:15] Brian: famous and it was probably shot in like two 40. Yeah. Yeah. It's like old. It was in the first video Hoonigan ever uploaded to YouTube was called Thank You for Hoing Volume one and it's in there. Yeah. Like that was the shot that was like, we need to do something like this. Yeah. This is cool. So, um, yeah, no it's interesting. I mean it was, you know, magic was the first non, um, sort of Hollywood Yeah. Cinematographer or you know, or camera operator, I mean, to show up on set. [01:34:45] Speaker 3: Yeah. [01:34:45] Brian: Because I was really, you know, it was the conversation I had with Ben and that was on six was like, Hey, I really think we need to bring in some other guys. Yeah. 'cause there was just this mentality of we had to work with, you know, a after four, I mean, 'cause obviously the one, two and three was Mad media. But then we moved to, you know, all guys who had IMDB pages for sure. Right. And moved into the Hollywood thing and, and actually it, there were some people who were, Steve Blackman was a fantastic dp and you know, another person who's unfortunately no longer with us, but, um. You know, there were some really great people there, but they were all trying to do car commercial stuff. [01:35:21] Speaker 3: Yeah. [01:35:21] Brian: Right. Or, or movie stuff. And I, we had to get rid of all of that. And it's kind of funny, the cycle we go in, right? Mm-hmm. Because we, we cleared house [01:35:30] Speaker 3: mm-hmm. [01:35:31] Brian: Of all of our camera operators who were two Hollywood and now we have a bunch of, not Hollywood, no. We have a bunch of non Hollywood camera operators all trying to get in Hollywood. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Yeah. So, yeah, maybe they were right. Maybe, maybe. So. No, I look, I think it's a good time to, to go do that and disrupt it, but yeah. Yeah. Oh, you got any questions on the film? By the way? We did say this was gonna be a short 45 minutes and we've doubled that time, but let's keep going. Yeah. I haven't really eaten or digest anything today, but Yeah. Yeah. I, [01:36:06] Will: I think there's, there's like a back to the Ken sort of one, which I think is interesting. Like, I don't know if I had, I think I've told you this before, but like for me, Ken, I really admired and knew of Ken from DC Right. And from agents of change. And like, if you'd go and talk to my parents or like, it was funny 'cause I was taking my girlfriend Kelly to meet my parents and like, just to kind of giving her the too long didn't read of like, my whole life of mm-hmm. Growing up and things like that is, it's like, I don't think there was anyone that was kind of more influential in that space that I could put a name to. Mm. You know, because I was like, oh, like I, I want to be, you know, similar to you. Like, I love brand identity. I love, I loved making fake companies. Like, I made like roadie skate company, like growing up made a catalog and like designed all those products for things I never even made and like, made t-shirts and did all that. And like, I think growing up as a, as a rollerblader, a skateboarder as a snowboarder, like that was such a core part of it mm-hmm. Was like, I want to have a brand, I wanna have a grassroots brand. Mm-hmm. I wanna like be part of promoting and making something. Yeah. Yeah. That's like identity to it. So I think getting to like, you know, when Ken started racing, my admiration for him was as a marketer first. Mm-hmm. Because I knew of him from that, you know. And like, you know, I think I found a copy of Agents of Change, you know, at like, uh, at a bookstore and I was like, this is sweet. Just seeing all this advertising mm-hmm. In one thing and understanding how someone did this. So I think, you know, just getting to be around Ken and, and the respect that I had for what he did already. Mm-hmm. And then seeing his kind of third act, second act at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Was was pretty cool. Yeah. You know, agents and I know that's like a really long call back to something that we're already talking about, but [01:37:45] Brian: For sure. And, you know, agents of Change was required reading in the early Hoonigan years, right. Because I think it was this different way of looking at things and you know, I don't know, like if you go, I don't think you can find it anymore. I think it's like out of print, but, um, I don't know if you went and read it today, if it would land the same because it may not feel as revolutionary. No. But back then, because a lot of people have disrupted and changed the way that you tell the stories and do all of that. But, you know, for me, I, I'll be honest, I didn't know, I really didn't know who Ken Block was. I knew about DC Shoe, I knew about DC Shoe Company. Um, I actually knew more about Damon Way. Yeah. Because he was Danny's brother. Um, and I didn't really know who Ken was 'cause I was sort of out of skate at that point. And, um. I, I really met him on the gumball rally with the first time I met him. 'cause we were trying to do something with Rob Ick, right? Mm-hmm. And that was interest. Interestingly, went to go do something with Rob and then ended up building a company, a career and a life with, with Ken out of it. Um, [01:38:51] Will: but that makes total sense because Rob was right. The person that, you know, Ken kind of Yeah. Put into the spotlight and gave the opportunities to. For sure. For [01:39:00] Brian: sure. I was seeing more of the talent I wasn't seeing behind the scenes. Yeah. Yeah. But I think the commonplace that Ken and I found an inspiration was Steve Rocco, because for me, I skateboarded during the World Industries era and then I moved into snow. So I was actually more familiar, even though I knew DC Shoe Company, I was more familiar with Drawers, which is a snowboard brand. Um, dub Dub. Yep. Atlantis Snowboards. I used to ride in Atlantis. [01:39:27] Speaker 3: Yeah. [01:39:27] Brian: And also, um, blunt Magazine. Yeah. Blunt Magazine was super influential for me 'cause it was one of those like counterculture snowboard mags for sure. I mean, it was the big brother of Yeah. Of snowboarding. Yeah. Um, and was so much edgier than snowboarder Trans World or anything else that was out at the time. Um, but Steve Rocco was that guy who would frame his cease and desist letters. Mm-hmm. And like that was just so punk rock to me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and I think that was something that early on when I first started talking to Ken, we saw this common, like we liked a lot of the same brands that inspired us. And even though he was, you know, 10 years older than me, um, 12 years older than me, um, we had this sort of like similar inspiration. And, and I think to the point that you made it, and honestly I'm not gonna go into this 'cause this, we should put a pin in this is its own podcast. Mm-hmm. Is the things you're into when you're young. Yep. Give you the. Um, permission mm-hmm. To do it yourself. Yeah. I think if I grew up listening to pop music, watching nothing but mainstream television and being into football, I don't know if I would've done any of the things I did today. Now, granted, I might be an amazing quarterback 'cause I'm six foot eight. Yeah. And it could have been a may, I could have a completely better life. Right. I, I could have changed the trajectory of the New York jets. Yeah. So, who knows, I could be completely squandering my opportunity. Six, the CT could be [01:40:56] Will: very real about. Yeah. [01:40:58] Brian: Yeah. That is true. That is true. But instead I went this other route and, and again, I wanna pin it, but I think that if, to your point, I loved things that felt like startup brands, everything was DIY and that was like, you weren't afraid to try things yourself, you know? [01:41:12] Will: But I think the cool thing that you brought up about the World Industries one is that it's like DC became a mainstream brand. Oh yeah. Like DC transcended skate and snow and just became cool to people that didn't do either of those things. Right. Yeah. So like DC was the Nike of the skate and snow industry, whereas like you're talking about world, which was like still pretty core. Yeah. Like people, like the characters and the things that they invented, but like, but felt [01:41:38] Brian: big [01:41:39] Will: Yeah. As a kid. [01:41:40] Brian: But they were like, they were like the big brand. Yeah. But they were, they were good at. They became big. And this is, I think what was super valuable. They became big and probably were bigger than Powell, Peralto than all of them, but they still felt like the punk rock brand. Yeah. So they ended up becoming probably the brand that was the corporate company in the space. Yeah. But kept this like, non-corporate feel. Yeah. So it's like, I think that's a, I mean, having been through a company that became corporatized in levels, I I, it's really difficult to maintain that. Yeah. It's, you gotta have a real control over your, your narrative, but also your ability to tell people to go fuck themselves. [01:42:17] Will: And, and honestly, that's the coolest thing that I got to see from yourself, you know, with Hoonigan and then also with Ken too, is that anytime I would get with Ken and talk to him about things like, especially on the DC sort of exit or whatever, like his take on where mm-hmm. Things were kind of going, you know, is it's 'cause that part of his brain could never be shut off. And like, that's the thing that you dealt with Hoonigan as well too, is like seeing a company continue on out that you had built that you're no longer with. Yeah. You know, and still feeling like, eh, you know, this is, [01:42:45] Brian: it's difficult. [01:42:46] Will: Yeah. [01:42:47] Brian: I remember. Um, I remember there was this moment, it was like early on I had, I sent like Ken this random note about how I thought, like I had just gone to the DC store and I was pretty bummed with the T-shirts. Yeah. And I don't know why at this point I thought I had the level to be like, yeah, John do T-shirts are like kind of interesting, you know? And he's like, yeah, I know. And he was, then he started bitching to me and I flipped it back to him like, you are the brand director. Yeah. And he's like, you don't understand. Yeah. He's like, eventually the machine becomes so profitable that you can't get in the way anymore. Like if it's selling, then you can't say no because there's other people who are like, you don't want that to sell. You wanna go make stuff that doesn't sell anymore? Well now you gotta fire a bunch of people. Mm-hmm. And like that is a weird reality of like, oh, you wanna go back to just making daily transmission and just doing this? That's cool. Go out, go walk into the room and tell and tell 10 of those people that Yeah, you'll call a friend. [01:43:52] Will: Yeah. [01:43:53] Brian: To go fuck off. Yeah. And that they don't have a job here anymore. Yeah. Like those are the changes you have to make. Yeah. And it was this like, and I remember hearing it being like, oh yeah, whatever. And then all of a sudden I was there. Yeah. You know, like, oh yeah, this is, this is how that works. Mm-hmm. So it was definitely, you know, I, I'll always say this, uh, working with Ken, uh, in getting to build Hoonigan, which for a lot of parts he was very, very hands off on. Mm-hmm. I mean, he gave me so much room to, you know, enough rope to hang myself type situation. Um, and also gave me that same space on the Gymkhanas. Right. Um, and, you know, really kind of gave me that he, he was a handoff Right. Early on he was very involved and once he had that trust, he just kind of like, let me run with it. But man, it was a masterclass and I didn't really realize until it was over. I think during it, I spent all the time being annoyed about things. But now I look back at it, I'm like, man, the amount of seat time I got, 'cause I was doing so much for 15 years that, you know, now it's like, now I'm excited because I'm like, okay, cool. I know all these things. Let's go like, put them to you somewhere else. Yeah. Which is sort of the fun next piece. [01:44:55] Will: But I also think that that's like the greatest, you know. A compliment that you can give to a good leader and a good manager and someone that really understands things is, um, having a vision and then just surrounding yourself with the best possible people to Yeah. Make that vision happen. Right. And then not trying to hold onto things mm-hmm. Too tightly, but empowering people to go make the things and trusting them to do that. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, like you said, you could have been, you know, could have been the starting quarterback for the New York Jets. Cogan could have been done year two or year three, and never taken off the ground or done the things that it did, you know? [01:45:30] Brian: Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, it was quite, quite the run. It was quite the run and, you know, and, and, uh, it, it was, it was fun to go back. I mean, it was obviously weird, a little bit to be like, oh, and also weird to be back and like on set for Hoonigan Project wearing my new company. Mm-hmm. Like, okay, we're here at 321 Action Action. And, uh, you know, and, and doing it as that, and like kind of building that new comradery around that. And there's something I realized there, um, which went missing at Hoonigan, and this is my fault. It's, it's not like I, I wanna be careful to make, this isn't anyone's fault on my own, but, um, I, I think you, I. I, I hope you you see it. 'cause I hope it's real. But I feel like I care a lot about my team and I have made a lot of choices in my career that have been at my own jeopardy to support my team. Right. At the magazine I did, I, there's a lot of things I did giving up salary to keep people, to keep our paper quality. Like I was always like willing to die for the crew, you know? And the re the response on that was I expected the loyalty back. Right. Which is like, if I'm willing to be the first to battle, just I wanna make sure that when I look back, you're behind me kind of thing. Right. And we built this sort of loyalty and look, it wasn't always great Hoonigan. There were definitely times that were, were rough, but that ability to protect and control and be out there for people vanished when I wasn't in control of the company anymore. And I missed that. I missed the, like, sometimes it's really hard for me to get up out of bed in the morning and do something for myself, but if I have a crew waiting for me, I wake up the first time the alarm rings. Mm-hmm. You know, and like that sort of disappeared when there wasn't this small team. Now I'm doing it for this big company with shareholders. And again, that's not their fault. It's just how I was motivated was like that team of like, go build it for that. And it was fun because I, at first I was in this mentality of, you know. Going and making the film. And at first I was just gonna direct it and Hoonigan was gonna, was gonna produce it. And I, I realized I didn't really wanna do that. It wasn't where I wanted to put my effort. Um, and doing 3, 2, 1, which is like, you know, I shouldn't say this publicly, but like 3, 2, 1 right now is kind of a shell of a company. It's, it's me and then all the people that I bring in when I need to go do a job. But, but I needed that. I needed this partially. [01:47:59] Will: That's every production company. [01:48:01] Brian: It's true. But like, but I needed this brand and this thing. And it is funny 'cause you were saying this before and I'm way tangent right now, but let's keep going. It's late at night. Um. [01:48:13] Crew Loyalty and Building the New Production Team --- [01:48:13] Brian: I needed this brand to be this thing that we could all circle around and, and you guys may not circle around as much. I mean, you're wearing the hat, and I think everyone feels like, and I wanna figure out a way that everyone feels like they're, they're more a piece of the pie. Um, but it was like, it came together, that feeling came together on drifter. Like I had a lot of, I felt like second unit had this like really strong bond together. And the people who came to spend time with us on second unit left with feeling like they were a part of that bond. And there were randos, like the guy who ran VTR for us in, in New Jersey, who went to my mom and said that like, he, he was gonna quit the business, but after working with us for two days, and he was like in his like late fifties, it was like they, they re like reenergized me that there could, like, there's good people in the business, you know? And that was such a great compliment to the team and the people that we, we create, um, and putting that all together. But there was something about putting a brand on it and making it a logo that it was like this thing to be like rah rah about and to be like, oh, let's go do this. And I realized, and I had this random thought when you were talking before, like the DIY thing. Um, I, I wrote graffiti as a kid and you know, when you wrote graffiti in New York City, you had to be down with a crew because otherwise your stuff would get gone over by other people. Right. But it was also like, it was a friend group. I mean, like, yeah, there was like a gang element to it for sure. But, and there was a lot of fighting and stuff that came out of it. But you ran with a crew and like, there was some crews in the neighborhood that I was down with. And then like, I think like at some point, like a few of my friends were like. You know, we could start our own crew. Like we could just be our own crew. And we did start our own crew and one of the guys in the crew eventually like, became really prolific and made us feel a little bit bigger than there was the other kid in the crew who was a pretty good fighter. And all of a sudden, like we got enough of those pieces together that like we were by no means feared or anything, but we were like respected as like, oh yeah, these guys do the thing. And then we were friends with other crews and you kind of have like that, that back and forth. And it, it's funny to go back and reference that 'cause it was like a shitty city kid to be like a graffiti artist who like got into fights over weird turf war shit. But like, I mean, turf war with spaces. Um, but it definitely taught me this thing of like, I could just make my own thing, make my own brand, create this thing, create a look for it, create an aesthetic, create a rule book of like how we're gonna do things and then like live by it and then, and then everyone becomes really loyal in it, right? Like everyone's part of this crew. And I realized the other day, like, nothing's changed 'cause I treated Hoonigan like a crew. Like, I mean, we were, there was, it was more than a company for a lot of us. I don't know about for everybody, but for a lot of us it was way more than that. And now it's like getting to build a new thing and whether it's always called  321 Action Action. . 'cause it's a fucking mouthful. It's just 321, or it's another, we could become something else. Um, like I, that part of it was fun and I realized that, uh, in the end of all of this, like. Going back and having to go shoot something and, and do this with both the drifter team and you know, the team that went out to go do Gymkhana. It's like, man, that team part of it is like, what motivates me? Like that's the part that motivates, motivates me. It's, it's hard for me to go do these podcasts. I mean, I've got producer Nick, but like, it's really like a lot by myself. Like putting it together. It's so much more fun when it's like a whole crew of you going to do it. And I think it's one of the reasons why I always didn't enjoy doing build content by myself. Like it just didn't energize me the same way I enjoyed it when I delivered it. 'cause it was cool to make something and do that. But the, the team aspect of it and like, I think we've got, you know, a really good team on this. And I, I, I think that, and I'll try to kind of bring this to a wrap 'cause we're now well over what we thought this small little special was gonna be. Um, I just can't talk for less than two hours. Um, is, you know, I, I think the reason why I, I think that writing the script, I think that getting all that work there, you know, and, and, and being ready for it was one, I think having, being present in the room was super important, but at the end of the day it's, you know, it's, and I'm not just saying this 'cause it's the right thing to say. It's like, I think we've built a crew and a team that not only are the, is the team really good, but it brings out the best in new team members too. Right. And I think that's one of the reason that the Australian team blended so well was like, you're walking into something where it's like the right vibe. It's, it's good communication now. And I don't think it was like, I think these are things that I certainly improved on and like, I'll, I'll tell you like a huge bummer. I'm bummed Ken never got to see this part of it. Yes. Because I think the number one complaint he had was that I wasn't more prepared, even though I was doing a thousand things and he gave me grace. Mm-hmm. Because he knew that I was doing all these things. But Ken was very prepared, Ken was extremely prepared. He never, and, and why we worked well together was I could live by the seat of my pants and he didn't. Mm-hmm. Ken had to think about it for two days. I could be in the room and be like, here's the idea, let's go make it. But I think he wanted more of that preparedness. I just didn't have it at the time. So it's like, it's funny, you know, you find it later in life. I always said the difference between the reason why Ken was super successful and, and, you know, and, and wealthy, um, and, and I wasn't, was because Ken was creative and organized and I was only creative. And it takes being creative and organized to make money. Yeah. If you're just creative, it's like you're just a, you, you're, you're kind of just, you know, a chaos goblin. So, all right, let's wrap this out. What was you got? So you got any lasting remarks? Did we, did we hit all our notes? I [01:53:40] Will: think we hit all of 'em. Yeah. I feel like if you haven't watched the Travis Hoonigan one, well, Travis, and again, one's [01:53:46] Brian: coming out on, uh, December 22nd. Okay. Nice little, nice little Christmas or holiday special. Yeah. And then we have a special guest episode of, uh, very vehicular on the 23rd, no, 24th. So on Christmas Eve, you know, you've gotta escape the in-laws. And then, uh, they've got that coming out on the 22nd. They also have a build piece which goes into the build of the brat. That's really good. Um, yeah. And then I think Travis is working on his own sort of BTS you wanna do on channel 1 99, which is cool. They're doing really good with that channel. And [01:54:20] Will: then launch control should have something, I think launch control. All right. [01:54:22] Brian: Launch control for Subaru, they've put together probably what it would be, will be the most. Um, complete BTS from this. Yeah. Yeah. So, 'cause we didn't shoot a real BTS, we shot some BTS moments, but, but that's there. Yeah. [01:54:37] Will: So hopefully you get to see Scott and I during the cutting jump, just like really stressed, just really not talking, just looking at the monitor, thinking if we've made the right choices in life. [01:54:48] Brian: No one, I, I felt like the amount of conversation that happened in the hour leading up to that jump was I, I would say maybe there was like six words uttered. Everyone was just so quiet and so stressed. [01:55:00] Will: I was, I was more confident going into my appendix surgery than I was, like, they're asking me if I have any religious affiliations or I will and stuff like that. I'm about like, hate will whatcha talking about, I'm about to watch this man jump over at Canyon and there's like kicking bushes out of the way and he is doing a speed check and I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I feel about this. [01:55:21] Brian: Let ask you guys, because you've, you've directed stuff as well. Do you feel like you're responsible in that moment as a director? [01:55:31] Will: Yeah. I mean, like, I, I still think maybe some of the reason like why, you know, certain people that we love working with maybe don't work with us a hundred percent anymore is like the moment when Travis hit the ground base jumping, I felt really responsible for it because. I found that building. Yeah. And I suggested to you, Hey, you should base jump into this. Mm-hmm. And I was like, this is just too real right now. Like, I know that, that that risk exists with everything that we do every single day. Yeah. And that we're trusting someone to be responsible for their own life and their own wellbeing. But yeah, I walked back to the hotel after that and I cried a bunch. I was like, this sucks. Yeah. Like, this sucks so much. [01:56:16] Brian: I, you and I sat at the airport and you told me you didn't think you would want to do another film. Yeah. That you were like, I think this, I think we're done. [01:56:22] Will: Just too gnarly in that, in that moment. And like, I remember even looking at some of the operators and just being like, I feel bad for making you witness this. I felt bad for Jeremy Robinson for everybody, you know, in that moment. Because it was just a lot to deal with, with the uncertainty of like, is this guy okay? Yeah. You know, like, is this worth it to make these kind of videos where this is the, this is the thing that we expect or that we're pushing towards, you know? Yeah. So, um, yeah, I needed a moment to like get through all that and process all that. For sure. But yeah, I didn't have any doubt, you know, after that if I wanted to keep doing this. Yeah. It was like, yeah, I definitely wanna keep doing these. That one [01:57:01] Brian: was a slightly interesting one for me because I, I felt slightly detached from it because, because it was so outside of my experience. Mm-hmm. I completely trusted in other people. [01:57:13] Speaker 3: Yeah. [01:57:14] Brian: Right. And I think that the lesson learned there is that maybe I need like a second opinion on that kind of stuff. Um, or I need like a different adult in the room because, and look, we brought in the best [01:57:27] Speaker 3: Yeah. [01:57:28] Brian: The best base jump guy, right? Like, miles is that guy, right? Like he's had more jumps, he's got world records for the most amount of jumps in a day. You know, it, it was, Travis will admit it was a little decision making on his side, um, that got us there. But like, it didn't even occur to me that something was gonna, could go wrong. [01:57:44] Speaker 3: Yeah. [01:57:44] Brian: But I have that thought in, you know, that lead up to the jump of like, if something goes wrong, like I am the one who just called action. This was my idea that I did a most of the work on. Like, it was, you know, Travis came out and said, okay, I'll do it, but. Unlike Ken Travis doesn't really say no. Right, right. Where Ken would be like, I ain't doing that. Yeah. Right. Like Ken had his own, where I think Travis very much wants to deliver and wants to prove to you that, you know, he, he, he wants to be like, yeah, okay, you think I can do this? And I, I think in a weird way, and I just realized this for the first time, a little, little eureka moment of, in the same way that Ken would expect that you could do it. I think in some ways when I tell Travis, he's like, well, if Scotto thinks I can do it, I can do it. Yeah. It's like, I gotta be, I gotta double check like my math. I gotta make sure he can do it. And the only time that I was really, really worried was the fast jump in. Um, and we touched on it a little bit, but I, I'm always cautious about this kind of stuff. When I talk to drivers directly and Travis just looks at life differently. We talked about it a little bit, I think in the, in the Hoonigan film and, we'll, we'll see if that comes out. But when we did that fast jump, uh, in Annapolis, I almost shut down the whole production. Mm-hmm. I started to have a full blown panic attack and I had like, walked through the paces of, he hits that oak tree lights out and. I'm the only one who knows his wife. So like, I'm having that conversation and I was like, I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm done. I don't wanna do this anymore. Like I, I, I was two seconds and then I, I got him on the radio and I'm like, I need you to hit it at half speed. And he was like, no, no, no, no. I'm like, Travis, this is not an option. I, and I just made it up. I was like, Subaru said, you have to hit it at half speed. You have to hit this at half speed from there, we'll go. And then he hit it at half speed. And I was like, all right, it's fine. He's got, let's go and we'll ramp back up again. But I, there was this moment, and I remember like, as he was approaching the ramp, I remember just thinking to myself like, if this goes bad, I will never be able to do this again. Like, I will never be able to come back to this again. And it's like a, it's still something that I think about. It makes me think like, all right, how do you do it? And, and I, I think in the end, you'd walk through it and you'd say, okay, these are mo mutual decisions. We, we made these together and so on. But like, man's, that's a tough one. And it's, it's weird 'cause like you're just making, you just making YouTube [02:00:13] Will: film at car movies for the internet. [02:00:16] Brian: Yeah. Nobody should get hurt over this, let alone die. Right. [02:00:19] Will: You know, I, I feel like I saw a comment on that on, on YouTube actually like recently, which like, just killed me. It was like, it's like, who, who thought that him jumping out of a building is a good idea for the beginning of this video? Like, I don't even want to see that. And I was like, oh [02:00:37] Brian: yeah, no, it's, it's true. And it becomes the, it becomes the. I think this is a problem with action sports in general is like the one-upmanship of like, well, you gotta be better than the last time. Mm-hmm. You gotta be bigger than the last time. I, and like, that's why, in a weird way, and, and we're gonna end it on this in a weird way. I'm happy it's over. Yeah. For Travis. Yeah. Because I think we, we flirt, flirted. We, we, we, we flirted got too close to the sun. Yeah. We got really close to the sun. It was like we full, we dropped two wheels into the sun. Yeah. It was like the water's edge, which by the way, I know you can't see 'cause one of the cameras died. Uh, and that was probably my biggest disappointment, but we That's true. But Travis trust us, dropped both wheels off on the water's edge and there was a up look camera that died eight seconds before the wheels went off. It's just life. The universe wasn't giving us that one. But yeah. Um, no, I, I, [02:01:34] Future Gymkhanas? --- [02:01:34] Brian: I think in a way I would, I would be, I if if we never make another Gymkhana film again, that's fine too. We made plenty. I already said I don't need anymore on my resume. Um, but what actually would be really exciting would be to go do it again with Lia or any of the block kids, Kira Mika, and get to start with a blank slate and lower the bar again. Yeah. And then raise the bar again. Yeah. I think would be fun because I actually start to question like, the bar just feels too high. [02:02:08] Will: Uh, be between the two of them, right? Like between Ken's best driving with the car control and with the commitment on things. And then between Travis's 11 out 10, just on everything. Like Yeah. Where do you get in on that? And I think you and I have talked about the getting back to basics and things like that mm-hmm. And having a controlled thing. And honestly, the, the point that we're both at is like, Hey, we really wanna tell stories. And like, no one expects anyone to be at that level. Yeah. Now. And they shouldn't be. We, I want to go along with them on that journey [02:02:38] Brian: because I, there's an element, I know it's gonna end, but there's an element, there's an element of me that starts to look at stuff and be like, is this good enough? And I looked at the jump of the canyon on the final and I'm like, I don't know. Is this really big? Like, does this feel big enough? Like I, I don't, uh, maybe like this doesn't feel that big anymore. And then Zac watched it and Zac was like, [02:03:07] Speaker 3: whoa, [02:03:08] Brian: dude. Like, and I'm like, okay, I guess it's okay. But that's interesting that I'm now at a point, like my kink is so disturbing that I, someone jumps over a canyon with a RA road train, which is a three trailer length semi-truck that looks dwarfed by this canyon. And I'm going, I dunno if this is enough. I don't know. It needs to be more. Which is interesting and, and I that, that for me is almost like, maybe this needs a little cool off period. Yeah, dude. Yeah. So that we can go back to doing reverse entry slides around a cone. Yeah. And people are like, oh, did you see that he went out wide and, and hit the tall grass? Like Yeah. He he hit the plywood. Yeah. These are all Jim Connell one moments and they all seemed insane. And now I'm going He jumped over a canyon. Yeah. He walked, he, he basically is Jesus in vehicle form and walked on water. I don't know if this is enough. It might need more. And this is how Fast in Furious went to the moon. Yeah. Because eventually you're usually like, what's left? What's left? [02:04:12] Will: I mean, we do have things that are left. We do. Which could be its own thing. We do. We, we do have a little package of things [02:04:15] Brian: vaccinated. We, we do have a little package of the, the NC 17 reading thing that we can do, but Yeah. [02:04:22] Will: Yeah. But it's dark, dude. Like, nobody, nobody wants to come to and be like, oh man, I was into Autoerotic ation and be like, I almost, I almost died. And this is really the point that like, I'm not trying to kink shame you if that's your thing, but like, you don't wanna be at that point and be like, what's left? You know? Uh, [02:04:42] Brian: anyway, you know. Anyway, dude, [02:04:44] Will: enough's enough. [02:04:46] Brian: Let's go make movies. Movies. Let's go make some movies together, let make movies. I'm into that. That was super fun. [02:04:50] Movies or Gymkhana? --- [02:04:50] Brian: Yeah. So do, here's a quick one. This is like, this is just a simple, simple question that should be the name of your podcast. What did you enjoy more? Making that just landed. What do you, what do you enjoy more shooting on? Drifter or, or I'm sorry, working on drifter, which you shot to, but working on drifter or working on Gymkhana, what was more, or or, or the apples and oranges. [02:05:19] Will: Yeah. They're apples and oranges. Yeah. I think like, uh, I saw the potential of how we could apply everything we've learned from making apple pies to making really good orange juice. You know, it was like, yeah. Yeah. It was like, Hey, this is different, but it's also the same. Yeah. And like, I think the exciting thing is the part of it that, yeah, we don't get to do that was like, oh, well here we can really tell a really human story. Yeah. And we really have the opportunity to do something really long form that's even more in the trenches, I think, than what we could have imagined. It was like, oh, you know, like Gymkhana is great because for you and I, it's a, a month of solid work. Mm-hmm. But like on sets really nine or 10 days or something, right? Yeah. And then like you realize, oh, you can, you can do this for, [02:05:59] Brian: you could do this for 180 days. If you're Stanley Kubrick, you could do it for like three years. Right? Right. [02:06:04] Will: And you get to tell something even longer that's more in depth, that has more Easter eggs that Yeah. You can really take people on that feels more lasting and, uh. I think that's a cool legacy thing. Kind of in thinking about it is like, you know, we're making these great nine or 10 minutes sort of things that have been really influential in a, a lot of people's lives and our own lives, and we built a great crew that we've are like brothers and sisters to us, and now it's like, how do we take the next step? [02:06:30] Brian: Yeah. Well, thanks for Of course, joining on this fucking adventure, man. Sure. I, no, no, I, I, I mean the, the filming adventure. Yeah. I mean all of this, you know, I, uh, um. It's crazy to think back to like some of the early stuff that we worked on together, and now it's like we're, we're deep in the trenches together. Yeah. Like we, we've, we've seen the, we've seen the ugly side and the, and, and also the, and also the beautiful side of war. And now it's like, all right, cool. We went, we did all this. And like it's, it's cool to kind of go on and, and have like a very clear path of like, this is what we want to go make more of and, and, and go do this now. Hopefully people trust us to do it, but if they don't, we'll just go fucking do it ourselves. That's the best part about [02:07:10] Will: it. I mean, that's, that's like one of the greatest learnings of that too, right? Was that the intimidation isn't as there as much as it was from the outside. So [02:07:18] Brian: anyway. Thank [02:07:19] Will: you, [02:07:19] Brian: sir. Thank you. It has been, it has been a lot of fun. Let's go do a lot more of it. Um, all of you, thank you very much. Uh, again, remember, uh, check us out on Patreon for even more yapping if this two plus hours wasn't enough, uh, there'll be always more stuff on that. If you, by any chance decided that you were gonna watch this before watching the actual jumana film, go watch it. If not, go watch it again. Um, stay tuned for some of the upcoming stuff that Hannigan's got, uh, behind the scenes as well as Subaru will have, uh, with um, uh, launch control and yeah, I don't know. That's it. Good night or good day or good afternoon or whatever time of day. It's [02:08:03] Speaker 4: the mailbox. Is the mailbox is the mailbox. Accept any messages at this time. Goodbye. Goodbye. [02:08:18] Brian: I got a little secret to share. And that's, uh, I like talking a lot and for long periods of time, fortunately a lot of people know my secret, including my friends over at Vyper Industrial who said, you guys need stools that you can sit on for hours. They made us these really rad stools. It's their robust, but they did 'em custom. It's has  321 Action Action on the seat, really nice brown leather. These things are great and you can modify 'em. We're gonna do the adjustable back. We've already added pneumatics. I mean, who doesn't love a stool that's probably built better than your car and has just as many mods? And if you're sitting home right now listening to this in your garage, probably by yourself, check out your seating arrangement and question to yourself, do you deserve better? Because right now there's a holiday deal going on. Go check it out. Vyper industrial.com. That's Vyper with a Y, typically on set. I can't wear sunglasses. Why? 'cause I'm often looking at a screen and a lot of times it's hard to really see what's going on if my lens are too dark. But heatwave fix that problem. These new photochromics, they adjust from almost clear to a pretty dark tint, depending on the sun, which is great. Because when I was in Australia filming Gymkhana, it was one really bright, especially in the outbreak, and there's also a ton of flies out there. These prevented them from getting into my eyes. I don't actually understand how the technology works. They told me it's wizardry. I believe them. You should too. You also get yourself a pair. And if you have an extra large head, they fit pretty nicely. I hate to admit this, but uh, I've been in the automotive industry for over two decades now, but my first project car was my Audi Coup Quattro. And the first part of it that was ever sponsored was Toyo Tires. They gave me a set of R Triple eights. That's not the R triple eight R, that's the original R triple eight, uh, to run on that car across the board. I love Toyo. I love their tires. I've obviously worked with them on big films. Uh, the Gymkhana Films, Climbkhana. Uh, they make a great product, whether it's for just regular driving track stuff. Really, really good stuff in the offroad. Big thanks to Toyo for again, uh, coming in supporting very vehicular and, uh, having faith with me on the next chapter. I've seen them through zero to 60 Hoonigan and now this.