CUNY Macaulay Honors College at Baruch College/Professor Bernstein
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Car Collage

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In my original collage proposal, I presented the idea of combining many pictures from different cars into “one” supercar. Since then, my idea of the perfect car collage changed. I incorporated that original idea in the introduction to my new collage by having forty-two cars flash by very quickly. These first forty-two cars are part of my top 100 list that can be seen here: http://bit.ly/aqHE7W. The cars flash by too quickly to focus in on any particular one, so I used the rest of the video to take a closer look at my favorite engineering marvels of the automotive world.

I used the instrumental track from the Swizz Beatz song – It’s Me Snitches to augment the stop-motion nature of many of the shots in my video. Since the song is perfect for pop-lock-and-drop dance, I envisioned it tying together the choppy nature of my collage, and it fit the video perfectly. I synchronized the shots and clips to match the sound effects from the music track, and this can be seen at various moments in my collage. For example, at 0:27, a GT4088R turbocharger from a Mazda RX-7 spools up together with the “spooling up” of the music.

Opening the video is a stop-motion capture of my favorite car, the Toyota Supra Twin-Turbo. This is Steven O’Donnell’s 600HP Pearl Blue Toyota Supra, owner of www.ClubSupra.com. Shots of his car are followed by two separate clips from the 2001 movie, The Fast and the Furious. The first clip has the camera moving towards the back of the rear wheels of the car. This was shot inside the garage where the car was being worked on. I noticed that this was the same exact angle that the wheels were being shot from during a race against a Ferrari F355, so I combined the two clips. At first glance, it even appears as though the Supra is launching out of the garage.

The next car in my collage is an R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R. This particular car was used in the 2009 Fast & Furious. Godzilla, as the Japanese call it, can be seen as a direct rival to the Supra, and I found it appropriate to have a juxtaposition of the two Japanese supercars in my collage. It is illegal to import any more of these cars from Japan, and since they were never produced in America, they are very expensive, and a rare sight on the streets.

The BMW GINA is a concept car that was designed by a team led by Chris Bangle. What makes this car unique is its exterior. The GINA uses a flex-fabric that can be customized into any shape that the user wants. A few shots of this magnificent car capture the magic of this design and the talent of BMW’s finest engineers and designers. Once again, the sound track is synchronized to the lights shutting off, and the headlights closing.

Bugatti has been consistently producing the most impressive, and expensive, cars known to drivers. Featured in my collage is one of their latest concept cars that is expected to reach the market in 2013 – the Galibier. This four-door sedan, which will cost more than a million dollars, combines art, technology, and passion. The full-length promotional video of this car does a much better job at capturing the beauty of this car, and can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTgoj6SNfVc.

Finally, I ended my collage with my favorite form of car racing – drift. For a split-second, you can see another shot of my favorite car to match the choppy nature of the music. This is followed by various drift racing clips. The majority of the clips here have been taken from Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which featured cinema-grade racing.  The collage is resolved with a drifter sliding through a parking garage ramp onto its roof where his peers cheer him on, and the bright lights from the Tokyo advertisements illuminate the setting.