Giant Bicycle gravel tire promotional video
I love bicycles. In fact I love most things on wheels that require straddling. Santa brought me a Royce Union Sting ray at the age of five (despite the fact that my list specified a Schwinn that included a drawing of it and everything), and never stopped. I eventually got that Schwinn which was a souped-up version called the “Pea Picker” which had a springer front end and a stick shift on the top bar which I’m sure many a youth had a voice raising encounter with. My youth was consumed with bmx, minibikes, motorcycles and racing motocross. I’ve owned all sorts of dirt oriented motorcycles and mountain bikes throughout my adult life. My most recent toy is a 2019 Specialized Turbo Levo Carbon Comp. For those who don’t speak moto, it’s a very high end, electric pedal assist mountain bike with full suspension. I recently used an electric mountain bike on a subsequent shoot for Giant that happened a couple months after this one, and I could no longer put off the expense I took you down my personal memory lane (or trail) to illustrate just how happy I am shooting this sort of content.
BTW I’m in the process of writing a blog where I elaborate on this subject, and if you too grew up on two wheels I encourage you to give it a view.
Professional drone pilot shooting bicycle promotion video in Mammoth, California.
This shoot took place over three days in Mammoth, California which of course is at Sierra Nevada altitudes. High altitude props WERE employed on my workhorse drone the DJI Inspire 2. Those are suggested over 7500 ft above sea level FYI. I did a movie last year near Albuquerque starring Nicolas Cage and Lawrence Fishburn (it still hasn’t been released) which was a last minute hire, and the producers failed to let me know we’d be shooting at altitude, the drone worked, but really struggled as we neared the top of Sandia Mountain which is at 10,000’. lesson learned, when in doubt, bring high altitude props
Working with one of my good friends and favorite producers, Austin White. His company is USA Sport Inc., and he also grew up riding and racing like I did, and has a similar penchant for two wheeled vehicles, He’s even more die hard than me! The shoot was being produced by a division of Giant Bicycles out of Taiwan and as you know trying to please a corporate entity tends to dilute the creativity. So I have posted Austin’s directors cut of the video and I really like how his version came out. Mr. White follows the edict of all good directors. It’a ALL about the light. As you can see most of the shots take place in the morning and around sunset. I both fly the drone and operate the vehicle that gets the car-to-car shots. I am on a motorcrane team with Austin, but as is often the case, there was no budget for it on this shoot. So we incorporated a couple of secret tricks to get a RED camera low to the ground, and over-slung on the Movi pro running Blackjack.
Here’s some vintage 8mm film footage at what was called “Wonderview”, a patch of land in the Hollywood Hills that extended from lake Hollywood almost to the Hollywood Freeway. This is me Drew Cobb, and an old friend Rick Maki riding our custom Schwinn Sting Ray’s. This was before there was such a thing as prefabricated BMX bicycles. We used to call the move you see in a couple of shots a “Decoster” named for the legendary Roger Decoster. Incidentally, that is me singing, playing guitar and harmonica over a re-written Tampa Red song called “Can’t get the stuff’
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