Sounds great!
Now get your ass back ova here! =(
vlad immissing the america so much man,i mean i love it here too i dont knoww what to do i mean i have no choice now im staying until june no matter what
but god dammit, i been here almost 2 months and didnt have any effect on me , but now its starting to get at me man im just missing america
u dont even have a cluwe, well maybe u do cuz ur from russia but america is truely th best counry in the world hands down i mean i been around to other countries before but only for one or so months at a time, this is major man, im here for a long time dude… i mean this really opens your eyes,
madpoeople in america like travis just living everyday all for granted no fucking clue how life is onthe other side of the world, what these people have to live with and what they live for is unbeliable man, the fact i was born in america is not even explainable how lucky i am for that imean god damn i just wanna come back but at the same time i know i wont be back here for a long time so i just gotta stfu and tkae it as it is
America = Bike.
India = Scooter
I know, it’s harsh :tongue
:lol
I have a feeling between a two of us we’ll have the editing and voice over covered.
Now just footage. I’ve got to get the proper equipment for video such as remote mic’s etc.
yea the bikes here are crap i had them at wide open throttle popped the clutch and got the front wheel like .5 inches off the ground with a “fast bike”
only you singh, only you.
As I plan this out, the big problem I foresee is actually the entertainment aspect of it, it can’t be faked and we all have to just have it in us, if we are the entertainment.
Just making a factual TV production is no fun, and non of us enjoy watching documentaries. In the end it’s better to give a wrong result in an entertaining way rather then proper result in a boring way.
I’m thinking a participation in Lemons one year would be fantastic and can really provide a lot of material just by itself and hard to make it non entertaining, so that’s up in the year still.
It would be nice to come up with a silly way to get ideas too, maybe faking in somebody writing an email asking “why don’t you do that” or “have you heard of”
Top Gear has production team, Mythbusters have a fan base writing in, Rob&Big had financial resources to do w/e they wanted. All other TV shows just have a main host who gives off instructions and challenges.
Also since we can’t please everybody and we have to pick a target audience I think our best bet would be the under 40 mostly in the 20’s crowd, who’s internet savvy and can easily be reached and can help create discussions and spread content.
For our stage setting for presentation, it has to be something not effected by the weather, ideally where cars can go and we can fit a few.
At the moment I’m thinking a parking garage will be an ideal setting.
We can always start off talk with cars in the background and then whenever we want to introduce something new, take an elevator to a higher level and come out to reveal a car model of sorts sitting there. The only issue that may occur is lighting, and we will need some sort of external light source.
I’ve been doing a lot of homework on the matter and it definitely won’t be an easy thing to get done right, and proper equipment will have a bit to do with it.
I’ve found this on YouTube. These guys invested a LOT of time and planning into production of the video but frankly, it’s dreadful and pains me to watch their episodes.
They wrote out the scripts, spend their time editing and getting footage, but one it tries to mimic TopGear to the T, which is definitely NOT my goal, use too many public roads and it still has the amateur look to it. Plus there is only one Clarkson, and he’s not it.
Episode 5 beginning had potential
This looks more professional however.
:wow
I’ve send him a message trying to find out how he does it.
:wow :wow :wow
Sample script
Setting parking garage
Background - parked modified cars
Walking up to the camera
- Hello and welcome to ShiftNation
-"We’re not going to have elaborate comparisons of BMW’s new design to the queen of England, we’ll leave that to TopGear.
-We’re not going to have a star in a reasonable priced car, because frankly reasonable priced cars are what we own.
*Porsche pulls up
-Well with the exception of this guy, meet Chris.
I’ve just realized one thing, especially if I’m the one using the bicycle for the race.
We can start it out as if I’m riding the bike and be fully expecting to do so, when last minute you guys won’t let me and I’ll have to use the bicycle, in my one piece leather suit and motorcycle helmet :lol
Note to self, buy a cape to use on a bike :ninja
When planning a long ride and the driver falling asleep, he can plan out the ride by drinking 5 hours and calculate it out that way “I need to go two more hours” so drink half of it :lol
And bringing cosseys skyline to the dealership for something very basic to see their amusement.
Some of the visual filler material that should be used in production, that is entertaining but has nothing to do with the main point.
Pranks
One of the presenters putting seafoam into another presents without him aware car so that it smokes, and person thinks it’s broken
Using locking lugnuts on the vehicle so the tire can’t be taken off easily
Glowing valve caps on the vehicle which the driver won’t be aware off, but will attract attention of other drivers
Blowup doll
Challanges
Seeing if a sparkplug can really break the glass
Having 5 fingers on the table and trying to lift the 4th - impossible
Episode Ideas
Racing in full motorcycle suits and helmets at a Video Game arcade in a mall, on a motorcycle arcade game
Seeing exactly what it takes to blow a car up, messing with oil, coolant, over revving, etc
Trying to see if a revolutionary jet bathroom blower - handdrier, can actually work as a turbo.
Having us compete with each other on GPNY to see who’s the man
Somehow relating the Niagra falls to a vehicle test, whether its relating to it being canadian/american or just tying it in with the scene.
Doing some kind of test where the three or four cars that the presenters would have would have 3 issues but they could only fix two.
TopGear wanna be’s that give us an idea as to what our should would look like, just well… better
Since nobody reads these anyway I’l just keep making notes to myself
Introduction with secret to what the car is
stock sky footage cue music
glimpse of the car headlights - pan, fade out
showing background of sorts - area set in
voiceover of what the car is or the story behind it
shock the car in motion
pan in to continue the voice over from the car
Cast will be the main priority and it’s chemistry. It can’t be all serious because it will seem like any other dreadful representation of Top Gear found on YouTube, it can’t be trying to be humorous, it just has to be, naturally.
Main character must be quirky and easy to appeal to anybody, can’t be serious - examples - Mythbusters, Cash Cab, Dirty Jobs, Jackass, Top Gear,
CANNOT BE - anything like horsepower tv, pimp my ride, monster garage
This should be the programming bible
I posted a lot of this message up at #377 but I’m going to revise it as a means of saying toodles for the Christmas holiday. Hopefully you can take some from it if you read it, Top Gear.
Credit where it’s due to Johnny and Stereo MC Ya’ll for their views
What would make Top Gear great again?
- Road tests – this is a recurring concern from many, many different people. Instead of endlessly shoving supercars on a race track, it might be wise to send the cars out into a real world environment so that the reviewer (Clarkson, May, Hammond) can analyse the car’s advantages and disadvantages.
It doesn’t matter what type of cars they are but these cars must be balanced so as to appeal to a variety of different demographics – this can be from the smallest Tata Nano to the largest Maybach 62, and everything in-between.
If you feel as if you cannot review or enjoy a car unless it’s being tested on a track, it means that the car you are testing is irrelevant and cannot be enjoyed on the 300,000+ mile road network of Britain that millions of Top Gear’s viewers use each day. The only cars you should be allowed to test on tracks are cars that specifically designed to be Track Day cars for the roads, such as the Ariel Atom, KTM X-Bow, Caterham 7 or Caparo T1, etc.
2. Balance – what made Top Gear so great in the past was the balance the producers had as they walked the tightrope between fact-based programming and sheer, unadulterated entertainment (or ‘infotainment’).
In more recent series, entertainment has been at the forefront of the programme’s output. Top Gear has suddenly become less about the cars and more about the stunts, and banter between the hosts. All of this is secondary to the point of Top Gear – ‘The Point of Top Gear’ being a show about cars for car enthusiasts with entertainment being amalgamated into the mixture.
The World of Cars first; the World of Entertainment second.
The perfect formula for a great Top Series is as follows:
a) Cheap/used car challenges – no expensive holidays
b) Road testing real world cars relative to certain demographics
c) Epic races using supercars
d) Cool wall
e) The news (car related)
f) Star in a Reasonably Priced Car (actual celebrities)
g) Power laps
h) Relevant articles and segments that address the concerns of the general public
- More spontaneity – I cannot count using the fleshy digits on my hands and feet just how many times in recent years the more “staged” elements of Top Gear have been as easy to spot.
The Top Gear presenters, as media savvy as they are, are not actors and so every time they even try to act surprised when a rudimentary electric car rolls backwards down a hill, the more intelligent viewers forget about suspension of disbelief and see it coming from a mile away.
Obviously in the world of television one can argue if such a thing as ‘spontaneity’ exists but in past series (if it did exist), it seemed to be far more concealed.
4. Less Stig – instead of using him as the face of the Top Gear brand (Stiggy Bank, Stig Shower Gel, Stig Birthday Cakes, etc), why not just put emphasis on him as nothing more than a race driver?
The Stig is there to throw Ferrari’s and Porsche’s (et al) around a track in the fastest time possible, nothing more. Any jokes or major films involving him now are boring and unnecessary.
5. More James May – Hammond doesn’t really have much to say about anything and I usually forget any review he does. He’s just a guy who has a job where it’s a necessity to love cars but lacks the enthusiasm of a real driver.
Clarkson is just a wall of fairly ignorant and inconsistent opinions but is nonetheless very good at what he does when it comes to how he writes, the way he writes things and the way he speaks about his passion for engineering.
James May, on the other hand, is arguably the most interesting person on television at the minute, and his interest in cars, in engineering and just in how things work in general is something that… well, you’ve not even scratched the surface of his value to the programme.
The FCX Clarity film was, in my opinion, the finest film Top Gear have ever made, which is ironic considering it’s from a series that I despised. The best decision you have ever made in the history of Top Gear was giving the FCX film to James May. There was no ostentation, there was no joking or gimmicks; it was pure information and a wake-up call to the world of motoring.
Don’t push this guy to the back and conceal him amongst all the tedious stunts.
—— The Little Details ——
At the end of the day, the biggest thing you have to change is taking the time to remember your roots. It is not a case of being able to evolve with time to make a programme that draws audience figures; it is up to the public to evolve around you. Your goal is to remain a constant in an ever-changing world where it takes a split second for people to lose interest.
You need to understand that if people lose interest quickly then it is indicative of just how much they cared about the programme to begin with. This fickle audience isn’t the one you should be trying to appeal to.
If people find your programme “boring”, if people find the ideas I have suggested as “boring”, then they are denying us (and you) the true purpose of Top Gear. The true purpose of Top Gear isn’t to make a programme that will appeal to viewers of competitive Sunday-night programmes; it is to make a programme designed to appeal to a certain demographic of the populace that loves cars. Top Gear is crippled by the fact that it masquerades as a car programme but tries to appeal to an audience of people who do not care about cars.
Focus on what used to make your programme so good – the balance between sheer entertainment and the joys of motoring, best typified in the Mercedes-McLaren SLR vs. Boat race from episode 6.
What was once an entertaining, fact-based programme designed to appeal to a secular audience of car enthusiasts is now a ratings war between the BBC and ITV where you forsake the support of the real fans in favour of the fickle few who would run a mile at the very thought of you showing anything but The Three Stooges “cocking about” in the African wilderness.
It has become a programme designed by a select complacent few to appeal to a general mass market of people who are more concerned with getting their casual fix of Sunday night entertainment than to learn about the basic fundamental principle that makes Top Gear what it is; the joys of motoring.
Merry Christmas
When somebody is testing a car that will undoubtly lose to the car next to it, implement a cheap trick, jack up the back of the car and have the wheels spin upto 100mph or so, just to drop it in the beginning of the race.
The results will be spectacular either way.