In the streets of San Francisco

[Skybird]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuDN2bCIyus&feature=player_embedded

I have no car, I don't drive. Now I know again why. It's because of the lunatics out there, you know.

[Takeda Shingen]

I saw the title and thought this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F0wlfmxKdU

[Penguin]

The part around 2:30 reminded me of the "Driver" video game - man, how much I hated these pesky streetcars there! :timeout:

I saw the title and thought this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F0wlfmxKdU

lol, me too. Must have been one of the first US series that I watched.

[Ducimus]

I'm inclined to think that is a masterpiece of special effects and movie editing with a blue screen or something.

[Stealhead]

Ken Block is a rally driver and not really even the best one out there they can drive a car in a manner can appear impossible.It looks real to me now did they do it all in one pass all in one car certainly not the tire marks indicate that the course was driven at least a few times.The ones with fancy camera shots probably took several tries.It says in the information that it was filmed over 4 days.

I think what they did is set up the course to get the shots that they wanted and he drove it several times and they of course only show the parts where he got it right.Each one of those hard landings scratched one car I bet.It is not much more over the top than the finale of any WRC event it just was choreographed to look fancy pants.

You can see one of the cameras fall off at 3:37.

Take out the spins and over the top jumps that is WRC racing more or less

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLOAurexAGI&feature=related

Actual road course
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlPHz_dPWGw&feature=related

[Penguin]

I'm inclined to think that is a masterpiece of special effects and movie editing with a blue screen or something.

I don't think so, it actually would not be cheaper and significantly more work-intensive if they did so. Even if they closed the Bay Bridge for a few minutes for the heli shot you see at the beginning. In the cable car part, around 2:30 you can see how they worked: they have shut down just a little part of California Street, while the traffic goes on normal up the street.
If you would shoot all this stuff in a blue/green screen you would still need the background images of deserted streets (=road blocks) or some very extensive editing out of all unwanted features from non-static backgrounds.

[Oberon]

I was thinking more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeRwYKi3nws&feature=player_detailpage#t=10s

Or the advert remake which I love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n09mLD9JUA

[JU_88]

This is the future!
With the decline in jobs and the boom in foreclosures, soon this is all most major cities will be good for :haha:

[Stealhead]

All I can say is that Ken Block wishes that he could drive like Colin Mcrae could.

[Rhodes]

I was thinking more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeRwYKi3nws&feature=player_detailpage#t=10s

Or the advert remake which I love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n09mLD9JUA

I remember seeing that for the first time. My father told me about Bullit and we saw it a few days after. Still it is a great advert!

[Sailor Steve]

I saw Bullitt in the theater, and thought I was going to lose my lunch in that scene.

Did you notice they passed the same green Volkswagen three times?

[vienna]

I downloaded the video so I could watch it in my downtime. I was curious to see if there were any scenes shot in Los Angeles; many car commercials and TV series that give the impression they are shot in San Francisco, except for some establishing shots, are acutually filmed in Los Angeles. There is a stretch of about 6 or 7 blocks in downtown LA that are often used to simulate San Francisco, NY, etc. I did not see any LA shots in the video. It appears the video was shot in fragments and not as a contiguous whole, i.e., the city streets were not shut down to produce a "race course", rather sections were blocked off to shoot each scene as needed. There never was a full, long "race course"...

Also, I was a bit baffled by thescene with the cable cars. I was born and raised in San Francisco and I was, in my childhood, obsessed with the cable cars. The running of two cable cars that close together is a big no-no for the gripmen who operate the cars. If you look closely at the undercarriage of the "cable cars", you will see rubber tires; the cars in the video are not running on the rails. They are the sort of gas-driven shuttle bus/cable cars used to ferry tourist between locales within the city...

So, while the video is interesting and amusing, it is not all it is cracked up to be...

...