Drivers, Race Teams, Fans and Potential Sponsors,
I have talked with Jerry ( V-Drive Video) about filming our races. This is going to be a great race and an important part of history. We need him out there at the races. His videos are not only awesome but they are the only way we have to preserve the history that we are making. We need to purchase some of the videos that he has already done for us and show him how important he really is to our racing endeavours. This is just another way to make our classes grow. He works very hard at each event for us. I, for one, use each and every video as a boat tuning tool and as well as a very enticing promotional tool to help secure sponsorship. It costs him more than $600 to attend each event, we need to somehow help lower those costs for him. If all the Jet racers put in $60 each per race, we would cover his costs and have him out there working for us. He would be covering all areas of Jet racing history, from the actual races, to the pits, the after parties and each driver/team interview. Let's preserve history in the making.
His website link; http://www.v-drivevideo.com/
Race sites that he shoots at; http://www.v-drivevideo.com/racecvr.htm
Check out all the videos he does for us; http://www.v-drivevideo.com/catalog/index.php
Let Jerry know what you guys think.
Thank you
Jim Rich
Jim,
I appreciate your efforts and enthusiasm.
Let me clear a few things up. 1st, shooting circle races is a labor of love and not my meal ticket. I started out shooting races in the late 80's (for fun) with a borrowed camcorder.
My first half ass attempt at something more was back in 96 with the classic v-drive club. The club founder and I did little interviews of club members with their boats and I shot some action. We then took video acquired from other members of different outings and combined the footage into one video. Jetboatperformance Tom is historically or hysterically in that video
. That first video sold about 40 copies.
From there I rolled the dice and maxed out my credit card on a $2700 camera, a $75 sound mixer, $800 title and effects generator and $1000 on an editing VTR. With that I travelled to all the club outings and started making annual videos. They sold about 200 per year at 20 bucks a pop. In between club dates I started shooting circle races (because my dad raised us in boat racing) and began working with some of the classes.
From the start, the circle races were not big earners (But then again I wasn't exactly speed vision either). Over the years, shooting races has had its ups and downs. What I lack in race to race sales is made up in sales of crash clips to shows like Real TV, You gotta see this, I'm still alive, Whacked out sports and recently Worlds most amazing videos.
In 2003, I updated all my equipment to digital and shot River rats 2. If it weren't for the success of the River Rat vids, I would have gave up on all of it back in 2002.
Currently, I am working towards a RR3 but the outings have slowed (insurance and noise law problems). It may take several years for another release.
I also shoot freelance for offshore races (TV production) as well as coorporate production.
Just like everything else, this last year has been slow for video sales. I have enough resources to stay in biz but I can't justify shooting races when I can't even break even on fuel to get there and back. I would rather just hitch a ride and be a spectator.
Jim Rich has been trying to get me to some of the races that I normally have shot in the past but I've had to explain why I'm not going. His solution was to bribe me with cash to cover expenses.
Thanks Jim, its appreciated!
I'm not going to Parker for the Thanksgiving races and honestly don't know what my next race gig will be. My main focus will be v-drive outings and *possibly* high profile jet outings.
Sorry for the long winded post and I hope some of you will have a deeper understanding of where I'm coming from.
ps lilrick is a queer.
