April 18, 2024 • 56 mins
Sung and Emelia sit down with commercial film director, photographer, and racer Jeff Zwart. Jeff shares how his accomplished career in the car world started with a camera at veterinarian school in Germany. They also talk about their perspectives to maintaining passion and the late great Ken Block.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
All right, welcome back to Another Car Stories with Sun King.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And Amelia Hartford. So it's the questions. All right, I
got a question for you. Would you survive a zombie apocalypse?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Would I? Wow, that's a great question. Would I survive
a zombie apocalypse like right now?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Today?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
If it happened like in five minutes, Well, it depends
on what kind of zombie? Are they fast zombies? Are
they slow zombies?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm talking like walking Dead zombies.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Were they they were slow?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
They were slow?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well, I would be yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm not talking the last of us zombies okay, okay?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Or I am legend zombies that runs super fast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The walking dead ones, the ones where they can't run,
they could walk, but they'll eat your brains.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I would say that I'm not prepared at home, okay,
Like I don't have like yeah, sure, actually I do.
I do have a bag that will last me a month.
Vin Diesel gave it to me.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
That's awfully nice.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
He gave me a like a survival bag. I don't
know if it's still good. Wow. So I have that,
But I don't have any weapons. I don't have guns
and stuff. But if so, if they were to attack
my home like there were would I be able to survive?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I think you're overthinking this a little.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I would hope, what do you think? Well, how about you?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Hell yeah, I would survive a zombie apocalypse. You would, yeah,
I would?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, what makes you say that? Why it's so confident?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I just it's just my gut instinct. I feel like
I have those instincts given a life or death situation
to pull myself out of it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Would you so if there was like two zombies coming
in and you would be able to chop their heads off,
because you know you got to if I need it too.
Sure they're dead, so you would be okay doing that's all?
To do that, though, how would you do that depends?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We're here right now the iHeart Studios. Grab a knife
out of the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, there's no knife there. We couldn't even find a
fork for that.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I' found a knife. That's how I cut the sandwich
and have.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
A butter knife.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I kill.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
You.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Go upstairs like a lock on the doors. I could
scale the side of the building. I could park her
to the next building.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
You would do that.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I'd climb down to my car, my truck.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
But what about Teddy? You would just leave him behind?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
We can take Tedgi.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, no, no, he would be zombie. He would be
trying to hump that zombie.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I would hope.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I would hope I could survive. But I thought about
this before. I was like, what would happen if zombies
attacked my house and bit my wife and then she
turned into a zombie? Would I just leave? Or would
I wait for her to be a zombie and then
chop off her head.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I love that you've thought about that.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Useless stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Secondly, why do you have to stay at a chop
her head off? Why not just leave?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I don't want her to go around and exist right
as a zombie.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
But what if they come out with a potion or
a formula one day?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Like, yeah, well she still has to go around and
like eat people. Yeah, eat people, right? I would be sad.
Like what if like I'm like in the neighborhood, like
you know, breaking.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Into casually walking the dog. You see your ambie wife
running by.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
No, I would have to go get supplies, right, Like
I would break into someone's house to go get can goods, right,
you know, during the day, and then I see her
like walking just like, oh, living dead, right, I would
be sad. Sure, so I would want to end her misery.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Okay, I thought this was gonna be a fun Like
now I'm thinking about what it would take to murder
a significant other.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Come on, Like, would you okay, if you saw me
and I was a zombie and you're like you were
driving by me, would you just run over me to
end my misery?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Would you too?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I would hope you would.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Then sure, I'll squish your body so hard to get
some building with my truck.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
You could do that. Well, yeah, you would do that.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
And put you out a misery if that's what you wanted.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I appreciate that. Yeah, all right, all right, anyway, Jesus
speaking of I don't know what, there's no segue speaking
of kindness, of ending friends misery. One of the kindest
people I think in the community. And I mean, it
was just amazing to talk to this wonderful, wonderful hearted
(04:31):
human being.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, Jeff Swart. Swart, Yeah, he is a racing driver,
he's a director, he's an artiste, photographer, videographer, you name it.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I mean he was just dropping words of wisdom, all right,
just his philosophy of people being passionate about what they do.
That's the beginning and that's the end, you know. So
it's just a privilege and honor to sit down with them. Yeah,
be able to just listen to his words.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So yeah, without further ado, Jeff Swart.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now for the listeners that aren't familiar with your career,
you started in print and then you went into commercial directing,
and then you went into narrative film directing. So how
did you get your start in print photography?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
My fourth grade field trip in Delaware we lived in Wilmington, Delaware.
A fourth grade field trip. My parents gave me an
instematic camera to actually go take pictures on it. So
they did that. But funny enough, you know, as you
grow up, when you stop wanting to be a fireman
or an astronaut, you know, or at that he's kind
of all these kind of typical things. My goal was
(05:42):
to be a veterinarian. I loved animals. I loved that
whole process, and I always had a dog when I
was born. My dad, he was a sharpshooter in the Navy.
When I was born and came home, he took his
rifle down the street and traded it for a dog.
Every boy, he and his mind needed to have a dog.
(06:04):
And so I from that point on, we've always had
a dog. But so dogs and animals and everything were
so part of my life and so naturally the veterinary
part was very interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Oh wait, wait, wait, why did your dad feel that
every boy needed a dog?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And they say dogs are man's best friends.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, and that's also it's kind of it's just nice
to have a non communicating relationship with something where you're
not a verbal communicator with it so much you just
sense this wonderful animal is here for you, and I'm
here for this wonderful animal. And we don't sit down
(06:42):
and have long talks about things or share, but there's
a communication and a relationship that develops that is just pure.
It's like, you know right now, you know, we live
in Colorado, and it's just wonderful to just watch the
dogs go out and be dog every day, no fences,
no anything, and you just sit there and you kind
(07:04):
of look at that dog and go, what's going through
his mind or her mind or whatever. I just I
don't know, I really like that. So the veterinary side
was really kind of to help dogs, you know, that's
a whole other level and to be able to do that,
and I love the fact that, again, the dog doesn't
come in and tell you what its problems are. You know,
you need to look at it, you need to spend
(07:26):
time with it. And even in the days of when
I was involved in veterinary medicine, it was you know,
there weren't even a lot of testing, and there weren't MRIs,
and there weren't all the things that we do for
our dogs now. It was really more of just like
looking and listening to the owners and you know, feeling
things on the dog and just seeing where are the problems,
(07:47):
what can we do? And it kind of really very
spiritual to kind of get in the head and the
body of the dog to decide what to do with it.
But anyway, my plan was to go to veterinary school
in the United States, but then all of a sudden
it looked like, oh, maybe it would be a little
easier to get in the ventory school in Europe. So
I went to Germany. Got oh that's a huge Yes,
(08:09):
yeah it was. It was a bit. It was a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
This was your hold.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It would have been nineteen years.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It's just like it's going to be easier to go
to vet school or become a veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
For the It's very hard in California at that time
one vetinary school you see David ninety spaces. I think
it was easier for me to be a doctor than
it would have been to a ventnor. It was very,
very hard. It was hard and so but there there
were nineteen foreign student positions. So I thought, well, I'm
(08:41):
going to do do that. I flew to Frankfurt, took
a train to Munich, got off the train in Munich,
I stayed in the youth hostel, and I went around
Munich going to all the veterinarians showing up and they're saying,
do you need an assistant? Because I decided that for
the first year I needed to go there learn the language.
Really could and the only thing I really knew how
(09:02):
to do was to be a veterinary assistant because that's
what I done in the US. Ultimately, somebody knew another
veterinarian that needed help, and it was a large animal vetinary,
and I started working for a large, large animal veterinarian
outside of Munich. But the thing that simultaneously kind of
happened once I got settled into that was, as you
can in Europe. On Friday nights, I would get on
(09:26):
a train and take the train to somewhere else in
Europe and go to a race because I loved racing,
and here I was in Europe to get to see
racing from Formula one, sports car racing to whatever. And
so I would spend Saturday and Sunday at the races
and figure out ways to sit, sneak into the pits,
and do all those kind of things that you could
(09:47):
do then.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And during that era. To be able to go to
races in Europe. Ivote, God, what a what a time
to be alive?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh it was, And it was Nikki Lauda and James
Hunt and you know, all those kind great things, which
I'll tell you a little funny moment relative to that.
But I was literally, you know, with my little camera
that I had kind of evolved from that instematic and
fourth grade. I had a camera with me and would
photograph the races and be right there in the middle
of things. And I just came to this realization that,
(10:18):
you know, this is where I really wanted to be.
I was allowed to be around cars, the people that
were closest to the action were the photographers. So I
wrote my parents a letter from Europe after being there
for about nine ten months, and I said, you know,
I don't think I want to be a Venteroran anymore.
(10:39):
I want to be a photographer. And you know, you
have to wait for that to come back now. So
then the letter comes back, and I opened the letter
and said, well, you know, that's going to be a
really difficult life because my parents knew nothing about photography.
You know, as a career, I really didn't know anything
about photography. But they just said, we'll support you. But
(10:59):
you know, if you're a veterinarian, you've got it kind
of made. You know, you will be a doctor and
all that stuff. But if you want to be a photographer,
you need to come back to the United States and
you need to figure out where you're going to go
to school, because we can't help you in that. And
so that was my life change. And it was not
because I love photography, but because photography was the way
(11:20):
to be around cars. So that was really it. And
as it turned out, you know, I did eventually really
love photography. I did all that. I just in my
head the driving force was this is my way to
be around cars.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
You know, you think because you love cars and racing,
you were able to capture in your photography the cars
in a unique way compared to other photographers that would
just take a picture of a car.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
That was really true and it still works to this day.
I mean, there's so many subjects that relate to what
you just said, is that. You know, it was the speed,
it was the motion, it was the thing like that
to it that I was so attracted to. I was
less interested in just freezing the car. I wanted the
(12:07):
motion and things. And my highest aspiration was someday shoot
something for Road and Track magazine because that's what I'd
grown up with my family, was this magazine that came
every month. Well, of course, when I got out of
Art Center, I thought, you know, if I could just
do something. So the offices for Road and Track were
in Newport Beach and I went down to those offices
(12:29):
and my first assignment was a cover with them, So
it just it took off from there. But also I
started covering Formula one for Road and Track magazine, and
I'd go to the Brazilian Grand Prix and shoot the
Formula one spotters, guide and do all these things, but
it was always about motion and action and blurred backgrounds
(12:51):
and kind of creating it maybe more artful and funny enough.
I mean, who would have ever thought that somebody was
reading Road and Track magazine and they're at a company
that builds fighter planes and they call me up and say,
could you come up to our offices for a meeting?
And I come up there and they have all my
Formula one work from Road and Track magazine. They're saying,
(13:14):
we would like you to shoot our fighter planes like
you shoot Formula one, And I'm like, how do I
get in this situation? Ultimately it led to me being
Martin Baker ejection seat certified, went through all the training
that you do basically to be a pilot, and I
flew back seat with this little card I carried with
(13:35):
me in F eighteen's and almost everything that way, and
photographed fighter planes the way I did F one And
it was just kind of a magical moment. But it
came from Road and Track, came from shooting the Formula
one cars.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So came from something that you were passionate. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
what a great lesson.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Absolutely can you look back in your life and see
everything connect.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
The amount of full circle moments, it still to this
day gives me chills just around motorsport or whatever. You know.
I get a call through my office that Ron Howard
wants to have a meeting about a movie he's working on,
and it was the movie Rush, and he said, can
(14:22):
we meet for breakfast? I really like the way you
approach shooting cars and action and everything. He said, could
we just have a breakfast one day? And so I
go down and I'm sitting there and I didn't know
what he was working on, but I'm sitting there with
Ron Howard and then to get his perspective that says,
(14:46):
this is about James Hunt and Nikki Lauda, and I
go back to I'm a veterinary working for veterinarian in
Europe in the pits at Dutch Grand Prix and song
for it shooting Nikki l Loud and James Hung.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's like, wow, well, you know, Ron Howard is a
is a real special human being.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Huh. Yeah. I loved his diligence in studying it. You know.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, I did this table read for a film that
he was going to potentially do and we never did it.
And it put things into perspective, like meeting him the first.
You know, I grew up watching him on Happy Days
and Andy Griffith Show, right, and Andy griff The show
is a black and white TV show.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Room.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
It's great TV. But rn Over was like a little boy.
He's really the little boy of the local sheriff, right.
And anyway, so we're in his production office in Beverly
Hills and and then I went to the bat. I
was like, hey, can I use your bathroom? And he
had a bathroom in his office. He goes, hey, you
can use that one, and I'm using his toilet.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
There was an oscar on the toilet and I was like,
I guess this is what he thinks of what these
actually are. I mean, at the end of the day,
it's really the experience, really, you know that he values.
It's like at the end, it's just a statue, right,
And it was like one of those like full circle
moments to be able to work with this icon.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, yeah, no it is. And I think he really
need to appreciate those moments too, And it really puts
things in perspective. Even for like fun I shot the
first I think I shot four seasons of GT Academy,
the real, real GT Academy. Yeah, so you know, so
(16:50):
here we are, you know, a million I think about that,
you know, then the movie comes along. But you know,
it's like I was living four years with a group
of kids that basically had qualified by gaming, and then
we'd put them literally on day one in a GTR
you know, on Silverstone, and it was to watch the
(17:15):
mental load, the physical load, the the racecraft developed, all
these things that would have to kind of all come
together to succeed in that. It was a fascinating process.
And then here you are coming off the movie. It
was just again a really fun, you know, circle moment
of watching that evolve into something that was bigger than
(17:38):
we ever imagined in the beginning.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
What were some of the characteristics that stood out of
the individuals that excelled you know, I mean that's a
question through life, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
It really is. It was. It was kind of hard
to watch sometimes because people were so serious there the
competitors that were so serious and tried so hard, and
you know, it wasn't you know, racing is so much
a part of economics in a lot of ways today
is racing, and there was no economics in there. You
(18:11):
know you qualified or you didn't. It wasn't you know,
how you were bankrolled or anything. So for them to
arrive there, it was really kind of multiple great human
interest stories of guys that are just living, breathing. Everything
about it was, you know, basically in the hands of
(18:33):
this one week long event, and the problem in the
not the problem because the game prepared them so well,
but there was no consequence in the game for them
to get there. And I couldn't believe how fast the
competitors would ramp up. They would go quick right away
(18:55):
because they'd race with no consequence to get there. And
then the other side of it, too, was is that
they would they would be able to manage the cars
so often because some of this part of this. I
would ride with them sometimes in film and do thing
and you just, you know, knowing what I knew, their
(19:17):
car control was so good, and a lot of times
it would come back to saying, well, I have so
little physical feedback in the game, but now that I'm
in a car, that extra feedback I have actually really helps,
you know, I really understand it. It's it's obviously something
you have to adapt to, but the ability to kind
(19:39):
of ramp up and go quickly right away was always
surprising to me because I remember in some of the beginnings,
you know, some of these guys had never even driven
a manual transmission. You know, they qualified in the game,
but they never had driven a manual transmission, and the
things that they'd have to deal with was really fascinating.
And and it was interesting because it became more entertainment
(20:01):
in this as we went through the seasons, rather than
pure racecraft and everything that you needed to do to
be a racing driver. It needed to be a little
more entertaining season after season, and I think that.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Like a reality show.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, yeah, and it became probably the results were less
pure to what it took to be a racer.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I mean, when you bought that nine fourteen six, it
was the affordable Porsche. Yeah, but today that's not a fortune.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
No, I is really, but yeah, it was my cheapest
way to get into a six cylinder porschew How much
was that when you bought it? I think thirty eight
dollars or something like that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
The story, you know, we can get into it. The
story of getting that car is kind of very defining
for my whole kind of world. So I had a
paper out, like at thirteen years old, and so my
dad my parents. My dad was a mechanical engineer who
specialized in plastics, and my mom was a school teacher.
(21:21):
So it's kind of the environment. I was the only child,
and so I kind of just you know, grew up
in that kind of environment. But I had a paper out,
and his deal was I had to invest half my
money in the stock market. Wow. And it was just
kind of like you know, in retrospect, I gets just
teaching you to be conscious of your money and not
(21:43):
just like you every month getting my little paycheck from
my paper out, I was spending it. So it also
allowed you to kind of research and what would I
be interested in investing in and things like that. And
then when I graduated my school, deal was I could
buy my first car. And my dad had a early
(22:04):
nine to eleven and which is kind of a fairly
well known story, but it was actually chassis number thirty five,
nine eleven. It was a nine oh one, So like
this would be a revered amazing car to own today.
It just for my dad happened to be the oldest,
most affordable nine to eleven. He could buy at the time,
which was also a used car at the time when
(22:26):
he bought it, And so I love the sound of
a six cylinder motor and a nine to eleven. I
couldn't get a very new nine to eleven at the
time for the same amount of money, but I could
get an almost brand new nine fourteen six, and so
that's what I bought. So I bought a nine fourteen
(22:47):
six and I still have it to this day. It's
on display at the Peterson Museum. But the cool things too,
is that that car. You know, who would have ever
thought that car kind of provided so many life experiences
along the way because I went off to college in it.
You know, people who went to Art Center College Design
(23:09):
where I went to college, they still remember, oh, you
drove that yellow nine fourteen six in those days.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
The color of my nine fourteen is it? I have
a nine for it?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yellow? Yeah? Oh really, yeah, well that was the color
and ex actually made me kind of you know, I
still really like yellow cars to this day. But but
the thing was is, you know, like if you look
at back to the life, it's kind of been the
common thread in so many ways. And you know, I
went to college in it. I met my wife in it.
You know, I was a skateboarder. I was a longboard skateboarder,
(23:40):
and so I would be up in the hills in
between classes in Pasadena and at Art Center and skateboarding,
and I met my wife. She was one of the
girls giving rides back up the mountain after we'd skate down.
And you know, I was driving the nine fourteen six then,
and then if you kind of go years later in
nineteen already been rallying and doing things in the us
(24:03):
POR Rally Championship and racing at Pike, speaking different things.
But I had the opportunity to do a long distance
event FI Marathon Rally, which was twenty five days, ten
thousand miles from Panama to Alaska, and trying to decide
what car to do that in and everything it was
such a big deal. Well, I decided to build my
(24:24):
nine fourteen six into that rally car that I could
do it because that particular event had to be nineteen
seventy three. In earlier cars, that car being in nineteen
seventy worked for that. But I entered that car in Panama.
But the cool thing is you had a service group
and there were two people in my service crew, a
guy who we had known from Vasik PULLUK in the
(24:47):
early days of working with Porsche with my dad of
having his car being serviced there. He was Spanish speaking
and English speaking, so it's perfect for an event that
went through Central America and my dad was in the
service vehicle. So can you imagine, like the guy who
made me invest money at thirteen years old with the
(25:10):
deal I could eventually spend the money when I graduated
from high school. Here he is following me for twenty
five days in the car that I had bought with
that money that I got to invest. It was just
like it was so cool. And my dad wasn't one
of those guys who had done a lot of things
worldly and had done it. He was passionate with cars, yes,
(25:32):
but he just hadn't done anything like that. He's immersed
in this full on international event chasing his kid driving
this car that he'd you know, motivated to invest in
the stock market, and we finished second overall and had
an amazing race and everything, and you know, it was
probably if my dad could share it now, it would
(25:53):
probably be one of his great moments in life of
doing that. And so you know, you just don't get
that opportunity very often, and it was really something special.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Wow, where do you think you get that drive from?
You say your father wasn't much of a worldly traveler?
Did you take that after your mom.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
A little bit? I mean, you know, if you look
at the racing side of me and uh, you know,
racing at Pike's Peak, which is, you know, a fairly
daunting event, and it was some consequence, you know. I
remember growing up, my mom was the one that had
to go on the roof of the house to install
the antenna because my dad was afraid of being the roof,
(26:34):
you know, up high and heights and things. But I think,
you know, I think familiar to your point is like
it's also a little bit of an only child thing.
I went to a different school every year till I
was a junior in high school. It wasn't always because
we were changing houses and moving and things. But my
dad was in the plastics business, which was like an
(26:56):
emerging big business and so he was always getting offers
to do things elsewhere and things like that. But that
kind of having to do things for yourself and adapt
to environments and to be kind of very aware of
you're on your own and you got to do this,
(27:17):
and my parents were very supportive. It wasn't like I was,
you know, in my own in that way. But you know,
you as a kid, you know there's a generation you
want to be taking command of it. You know, you
didn't have a lot of friends because you weren't dropping
into you weren't living a life where you know, you
had lifetime friends and things like that. I was having
(27:38):
to constantly make new friends.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's so fascinating to hear you say this because I
doesn't sound like I want to as many different schools
as you did. But in my high school years, I
went to a new high school every single year. And
the traits that you're talking about of like I fortunately
have the childhood friends who I'm still in touch with today,
but constantly having to meet new people, almost growing up
(28:02):
on your own terms in a way, and there's just
a certain element that at the time I didn't understand,
but looking back at it really gave me this grounding
that it sounds like we share.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And you know, I think also the other thing that
for me at least, and I mean, this is more
career oriented, but it really spawned a lot of creativity,
you know, because you had to. You know, we weren't
internet bound. We weren't you know, entertained naturally by technology.
You had to figure out ways to be entertained. And
(28:34):
you know, for that, since I didn't you know, I
came home from school, I wasn't really hanging with my
friends because I was new to the school, you know.
So I ended up being I think, more motivated to
be creative and be self self motivated to make something
on your own because you didn't have that reliance. And
(28:54):
in a lot of ways, you know, if you look
at going into ultimately photography and then directing, is that
it kind of comes back on you. You have to
own it. Yes, in filmmaking, we have an amazing support
system and all these departments that work for you, but
it still comes back to it's got to be your signature.
(29:16):
It's got to be your vision. Otherwise, you know, your
your shelf life in the business probably isn't that great.
And I do remember the first time when I started
visiting production companies that wanted me to direct, they told
me flat out, you know this is you know, you've
got about a seven year shelf life in this world
of advertising directing because you know, it's a very much
(29:39):
an on to the next the new guys, the new views,
things like that. But you know, I'm in my thirty
fifth year of doing that and it's still just as
fun and as exciting as it was in the beginning.
And I think that, like I told you at the
beginning of this, it's kind of like you know, like
I said, the good news is I've I've been doing
this for a long time. Bad news, I've been doing
(30:00):
it for a long time because I also want to
always have things evolve, always have things changed, because that's
what stimulates me the most.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Now that's really beautiful because a lot of folks, even myself,
I catch myself being stuck in the old ways, right
and then it kind of I'm just turning into the
old guy. I'm like these young it wasn't like that
when I was young worldwide, and I could take it
to another generation, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And it's funny because you know, in the beginning of
your career, you kind of you just want to be
so focused and you want to just be you know,
no outside influences. This is me. This is who I'm
going to be, and you you have to kind of
hand it off to being Okay, who around me is
doing the cool stuff? You know? I got to start
(30:52):
being aware of that, And I think that that was
one of the keys. Is I kind of handed that
off earlier. Maybe I didn't hold on to just this
like I don't care what anybody else is doing. I'm
doing this. I really wanted to know what was going on.
And it's almost like, you know, in the creative process,
almost like a flip book, like you want to go
through a whole bunch of images really quickly and take
(31:16):
what you think you saw, not open up and study
a picture and say I'm going to do something just
like that, but like flip through something and see these
things all flashed by anything. I think I saw something
kind of cool, and then where's your mind taken? You know,
it's great so that you don't end up like just
copying somebody. You know, you don't want to do that.
(31:36):
I think, you know, one of my greatest compliments from
my kids a few years ago was she said to me,
how do you stay so relevant? And I thought, well,
that's pretty cool, But the reality is, if I am relevant,
you know, it's from people like you guys, from people
like you know, the race service guys or the whatever.
You know, there's so many people in our business that
(31:59):
I love watching evolve. You know. I think that one
of the single important things that leaves for me is
leaving room to be in awe of others beautiful. That's
to me. I wish so many people, filmmakers and people
(32:19):
that I see knew how in awe I am of
what they do. You know, because my crews are sixty
to eighty people. I mean you've been on features, you guys,
and you've seen all this, and I mean like when
you're on a feature, it's one hundred and twenty, one
hundred and thirty people whatever. But I'm in all of
the guys that go out with two or three people
and just do wonderful film. And I take that influence
(32:43):
into my own life all the time, every day virtually.
But leaving that room to be in awe is so
important as opposed to I'm just this. I'm that I'm
going to go out every day now, you know, got
to leave that window open. You know, it's like bad weather.
You know, we're in a business of filmmaking. You got
to have great weather. You gotta have this. But Honestly,
(33:04):
bad weather has given me more opportunity than it's taken away.
You know, the amount of times I've been filming in
a wall of blacks coming this way and everybody's worried
that we're going to have this or whatever. The scenes
it's created, and the opportunities and even the motivation to
move quicker and get things done, it's all it's just cool.
You know. It's like, as a director, you want to
(33:25):
control everything, but you have to respect the fact that
there's so many elements as you don't have control over.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I mean, this is I think this is something I
really needed to hear. Same on a personal level and
in terms of, like, you know, career as well, because
as I start getting older, like I go, I wonder
if you know, I'm going to be like aged out
of like opportunities. And what you just said is like
(33:52):
it rings like I mean, it's just great words of
wisdom that I'll you know, walk away with and it's like, okay,
being a roof for the younger people, right, And it's
like I think about it and I'm like, hey, the
fact that you know I was there early on and
you can kind of like you know, pave the way,
and then you see all of these great opportunities that
(34:14):
other you know, people of color are having, or Asian
American men are having. It's like being all yeah, right,
and it's such a beautiful positive way to be present,
right and still and and and it's not about you anymore.
It's about like the whole.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You know, really beautiful. It's a handoff of competing, which
is important in the beginning, yeah, to collaborating. Yeah, you know,
it's a simple process that I don't think you realize
you kind of have to go through, you know, in
a way. And and I think that that's you know,
filmmaking is so definitive in so many ways. And interestingly,
(34:55):
my parallels, you know, if I were to just take
from my racing side, the event of Pike's Peak, which is,
you know, a mountain we race up. I've raced over
twenty years there, I've done well there. I understand the place,
the place is home. But it's still so definitive. And
it's one run on race day. It's a finish line
(35:19):
that is at fourteen and fifteen feet, it's there's no
pit stops, smiling. I want to do that so bad,
but yet all those same variables we have in filmmaking
of weather and crew and you know, budgets and all
(35:39):
this management goes into you know, I'm under ten minutes
racing there, one of the few people are under ten minutes,
and it's like you got to put all into that
little package in the same way. But it's definitive. Again,
You've got to get to the summit no matter what.
And there's no second chances. There's not like you can't
bring it back in the way in filmmaking, and we don't.
(36:01):
In my entire career, I've never gotten to a sunset
and said, you know, we didn't get everything. We need
to come back tomorrow. That doesn't happen. That's in my world.
That's a two hundred thousand dollars vault. You know, you
don't just say, oh, didn't get it all. I gotta
come back tomorrow. That sunset, that thing the day that's
managed through your assistant directors and crew and everything else.
(36:26):
It's all for that moment of being done at sunset.
You know, we don't just start bringing out the lights
when the sun goes down. We don't have the chance
of bringing the sun back up all of things. And
I love that pressure, and I think that's why my
racing paralleling with my filmmaking. There is so many things
(36:47):
in the process that I approach in the same way.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
But when, for instance, like if you need to make
your day on a film set, or you need to
get to the finish line and you don't make it, like,
how do you find peace with that? Because it's add to.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Your question because we're going on a path of a
conversation we haven't had yet, you and I personally have
been not on this podcast is also adding to Song's
question of what's your relationship with failure when that comes?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
You know, that's a complicated one, I guess because in
my head, failure is a big deal. You know, I
don't take it lightly. I want it to work. I
can think of the moments of failure in motorsport, which
is pretty definitive, usually because you've crashed or done something
like that. In filmmaking, it's you know, you fret over
(37:40):
scenes that you might have missed and you didn't have
a chance to do it. But experience gives you confidence
knowing that you have the best people to edit, the
best people to finish these things. But it's it's hanging
over you. But in general, you want to be in
a proactive position, not a reaction of position. Your experience
(38:02):
is going to give you the opportunity to be reactive.
But the more you can plan and be proactive, it
creativity comes out. Creativity is in two areas. Creative pure
creativity is being aware of the moments you're filming and
(38:23):
working on to enhance it in the best possible way
to tell the story, both visual and from an editorial standpoint.
But there's also creative to the solution. You know, your
experience of I can creatively make this scene work even
though I don't have all the right elements there. So
(38:44):
it's a it's a balance, I guess in that way.
But I guess to your point, I, you know, fear
of failure. If you're fearing things in the process, creativity
has a hard time coming out. It really does. It's
like a blocker, you know, when you all of a
sudden have to just be reactive, reactive, reactive, you're kind
(39:04):
of on your heels, you know, and you want to
be on your toes. You want to be able to
move forward and have the big picture of the way
things go.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Together, being able to relinquish that control as a creative
It's very hard, right, I mean we were talking about
that earlier, Like you know, you know, do you when
when something doesn't go right then it all comes back
on you. But if you can relinquish it, you're like, hey,
you know, it's not just my fault, your fault. You know,
(39:52):
you started shooting basically it was analog, right, and today
moving into CG and you don't even yeah, a whole
other thing. Are you as open minded about that as well?
Of like that pushing the bar for action sequences with cars.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
It's really interesting. And again it's kind of like I
started in film and you had four hundred foot magazines,
you know, and that that ran for a certain amount
of time. You know, it's like everything was based on
changing film and things like that. You know, now we
leave cameras rolling, We have multiple cameras working, and you
know if when even when I was at Art Center,
(40:34):
I got into mounting cameras. I was mounting cameras on
my skateboards, on biplane wings, on all sorts of things,
and I just love doing that. And my first road
and track cover was actually a camera rig on a
car going down a road, and so it was like
this time tunnel blurry. Look, it really kind of showed
action and I love that. And you know, now we're
(40:55):
in the GoPro and all things. Everything's gotten smaller, everything's
gotten more usable. And you know, there was a moment
in time too where changing over from film to digital,
I shot with a different camera system every job. You know,
it was evolving so quickly, and the way things are evolving,
it's an opportunity, but in some ways it stands in
(41:18):
the way. And I was very much a person that
I felt like I needed to be genuine to filmmaking
and genuine to the car. I was in an area
where I was a high action specialist, so generally I'd
be shooting cool cars, you know, that were truly capable
(41:41):
of that, and I always felt like if they needed
to go into special effects and different things at that time,
it was kind of taking away from the you know,
believability that that car could really do it. So my
goal was by working with people like Rees and Tanner
and pulled all on back these guys as it could
put a car anywhere and do everything. I wanted to
(42:03):
really show the real action. I really wanted to be
part of that. So that if you ever pulled back
on the curtain on it, you actually saw it happen.
You know, there was a genuine nature to it. I
was fortunate to be shooting a car that was genuinely capable.
Let's film it in a way that it's really doing
those things. And so again it's up to you as
(42:26):
a filmmaker to put cameras in places. I wanted to
not just watch a car. I wanted to make you blink,
to feel like it was going to hit you, or
defy logic or do things like that. You know. It's like,
like you said, as a filmmaker, I want to be
on my toes. As a viewer, I want to be
on my heels like whoa, you know, this is it?
(42:46):
You know, so I look at what's happening now, And
obviously AI is going to be a whole nother category things.
But there was a moment in time where effects and
plates that we would shoot and all these kind of
tedious parts of filming ultimately didn't add up to as
pure experience of watching a car as I wanted, And
(43:10):
so my goal was always to put that car on
the edge. And as a director, I've spent twenty years
of my life racing up the side of a mountain,
putting wheels, half the tread on the pavement, half the
tread touching the edge of the road. You know, putting
those moments in precision on a mountain with huge consequence.
(43:35):
You know that perspective plays out in my own filmmaking
because I'm already looking at things that way. I have
a funny handoff, like I run the Colorado Hill Climb Championship,
which is dirt roads up the side of a mountain
and a Gt. Three Cup car. It's raw, it's pure.
It's a bunch of old timers who quit racing at
(43:57):
Pike's Peak because it got paved. They just all want
to be on the dirt and side. I will pitch
a car in the corner, rotate the car, drive on
the throttle. I'll feel that right front wheel just bound
a little bit over a rock or something corner and
I feel it go light. I feel it touched back
down and the attitude is just right. The wheels are set.
(44:18):
You just can feel the outside wheels tearing at the earth.
All this stuff's happening, my head will go, oh, I
hope somebody is out there with a two hundred millimeter
frames that be right shot, you know, and then I
do it. And it's funny because lately at Pike's Peak,
(44:39):
I think about what it looks like on the outside.
That funny, and I try to put the car exactly
in those moments, you know, and my perspective is already
at the edge of the mountain. My perspective is already
taking something to the ragged edge limit that sort of thing.
So I almost pick up in filmmaking at that point
(45:00):
rather than build up to it. So it's it's that
kind of perspective that I bring to it. And I
actually think that my racing has fed the longevity to
my career because if I sit in a client meeting
and somebody's got some new hot carry about, I can
(45:20):
put it in perspective of what that car can feel like,
look like, and be emotional about it. This isn't just
a job for me. This is a quest to share
my passion with the rest of the world through filmmaking.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
You know, our friend Brian Scotto, you know, I feel
like he is really pushing the envelope, or I guess,
redefining like how cars are shot action sequences, and he
coined this phrase. I don't know if he coined it
or he borrowed it or maybe even looked stolen from you,
(45:58):
but he has he has a phrase called honest angle, right,
and he's like, and we were talking about because I
was I always ask people, what do you think the
problem with fast like action sequences from the Fast and Furious,
And it's like it's not honest.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
It's like, you know, they're cool cars, but when the
car is like going from like one building to the
other or outer space, it's like it's that it's not honest.
And it's like what I'm listening to you is like
you shoot the car honestly, like because you understand how
the car would actually perform in reality, you were able
to convert that, you know, onto screen and then the
(46:35):
audience it's a it's it is like a visceral reaction.
I'm so opposed to Oh that's a special effect, right,
and it kind of just you just kind.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Of appreciate it less.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, it's just it's like it's like it's like junk food, right,
it's just easy, Like you.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Know, it's like I don't know, you did see your
favorite pizza was nominoe.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Know, you know what, there's a certain that you give
up inconvenience.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
It's delicious pizza.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
It's good stuff should taste like a pizza.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Well, I don't know whether Brian told you, but there
is a directorial team known as Zwardo. That's Jeff Swart
and Brian Scotto. We collected. We directed Climb Kana together,
and so when Ken Block, which makes sense, yeah, we
directed that together. And fun. It was fun because the
(47:45):
amount of times I would sit in a client meeting
in Detroit or wherever, I say, you know, we want that,
we want to see the kind of like that Ken
Block stuff, you know, they they would refer to it
or whatever. And Ken was so good at putting a
car on the edge and doing all that. So naturally,
when this project came up and I always asked to
direct with with Brian, I was just like, wow, this
(48:07):
is so cool, and I learned so much in it
to your point of like, you know, this style and
look and feel of filming, and you know Ken, I'd
actually I think I'd even raced with him at one
point or things. But we'd been, you know, certainly been
around each other and seen all the Jim Kannas and
(48:28):
everything at that point. But what was super cool was
Ken would have his opinions about the way we needed
to film, and you know, it's kind of like in
your mind, you have a routine and the way you film,
and this is your process and stuff. And I started
to understand why things were different in a lot of
ways with the way Scotto had approached it and the
(48:49):
way their teams had film Ken and then Ken's ideals.
And one of the things was interesting because I always
my office is a Cayenne armed camera car, the arm
on the roof, and you know, I go, you know,
that's my world and always tracking and doing moves and things,
and King goes, I don't like those. I don't like
camera cars. And I thought, well, you know, this is
(49:11):
the way I work. You know, we'll have camera cars.
But you started to realize that the moment the camera
was traveling with his car, it slowed his car down.
You know, as soon as you start matching speeds, things
start to slow down. And I kind of knew that,
I did know it, but I hadn't really applied it.
(49:32):
And it wasn't until Ken kind of said, I don't
like camera cars. I started to put the whole thing
together and stylistically, that's what I really liked about Timkana.
And we always have conversations about what was the best one,
Which is the best one. We all look at different
ones of which the best, But the first one that
I ever saw, and this is when I'm well into
my filmmaking career, I felt like I'd climbed over the
(49:56):
fence and gotten into something that I shouldn't be there
for such a way and got to record it and
see something that like, let's just put that away before
anybody catches us. You know, is that kind of that
tension and everything of like I'm in here, I'm going
to get this, and then I got to get out
(50:17):
of here because somebody's gonna bust me. You know that
moment and spontaneity and the way that played out in
front of you with them just ripping it up at
El Toro Marine Base, you know, it was like, yeah,
that was cool. And you know there were times where
it maybe got too polished or times where it got,
you know, a little bit of away from that purity,
(50:38):
but then it kept coming back to that and and
Ken also just developing as a driver everything about it
was such a great franchise and without it really you know,
consciously affecting me. I just know that so much of
their work played out in influencing me and on a
(51:01):
you know a little over a year ago, when I
got the phone call that Can had passed, it was
when that really kind of all rained down on me.
This guy was a huge part of my life, even
though we weren't directly hanging out best buddy friends. The
effect of my life, my industry, everything about it will
(51:23):
it really came to me at that moment and still
affects me in that way.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Yeah, speaking of that, you know, as one gets older
in life and you deal with loss. I mean something
that I'm noticing. It's like every few months now, I
get a phone call and someone is passing, and it
scares me. You know, It's like it really really scares me,
and I still don't know how to deal with it.
(51:50):
I don't know if I'll ever know I deal with it.
I mean, how do you deal with loss as you
get older.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
I got to say that within my family, at least,
I've been very fortunate that I haven't really had any
surprise losses. You know, my grand my grandparents were farmers
and they lived in their nineties. My parents lived in
the nineties. You know, there were no real kind of
surprises within the family. I've certainly lost race driver your
(52:17):
friends along the way, because that's you know, what happens
in the decades that I've been involved in racing, and
I've started losing some friends who you know, we grew
up with together and just lately, and I think that's
part of it. I you know, having the perspective of
what you've been able to do in your life and
(52:38):
be part of and like I said before, being in
awe of others and being inspired of others and kind
of keeping that going. I you know, Ken was one
of the more difficult ones because it was almost like
you just realized you hadn't spent enough time, you hadn't
(52:59):
taken it as seriously as maybe you should have of
what that guy provided, not just for you, but for
the whole car culture all that sort of thing. So
it is difficult, but I also savor so much and
I feel it's so important not to have regrets and
feel like you've been pure to yourself and chased your
(53:22):
passions and been able to be constantly invigorated. You know,
it's like perpetual motion when things feed something and it
just keeps it going. That's the way I look at
my career. You know, it's always been interesting. Every element
(53:42):
has been interesting. Every day of a life has been interesting.
I love going against the elements, you know. I love
being provided challenges, even at this age. You know, I'm
not looking for the easy path. You know, the worst
day is bright and sunny and perfect conditions. You know,
that's not the worst day. But you know what I mean.
I like the challenge. I love that fact that you
(54:05):
are just going against life and succeeding, you know. And
I love to see that in other people. And I
love the underdogs. I love the people that have looked
at life differently. Those kinds of moments just make such
a dynamic, engaging world. Because elements in life, whether it
(54:30):
be life or death, or health or weather or anything,
it's part of our life. And you love to see
people succeed in that. And that's the part that really
kind of motivates me and other people is watching that.
I love watching new filmmakers and people that haven't even
(54:51):
been educated in school, you know, they've just done it
on their own. I love that kind of vibrancy of
because the only reason for success in that environment is passion.
It's it.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
We Will said, it's really beautiful. This has been a
great conversation.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
I feel like I'm going to leave this a better person.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Well, I agree, it's all for us, and I think
that's the point of our world is just that we
can kind of feed off each other and and take
advantage of the relationships in the best possible ways and
take away the good and understand the bad. And that
balance of understanding how important a life is around us.
(55:32):
To be able to come back to and share in
it and live in it and give people space to
be part of that is so important going back to it.
It's like, you know, you guys are my inspiration. It's
a new generation of inspiration, and I just leave those
doors open to be inspired by others. But you guys
(55:53):
are great. Love it.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
Jeff, Yeah, thank you.
All right, welcome back to Another Car Stories with Sun King.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And Amelia Hartford. So it's the questions. All right, I
got a question for you. Would you survive a zombie apocalypse?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Would I? Wow, that's a great question. Would I survive
a zombie apocalypse like right now?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Today?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
If it happened like in five minutes, Well, it depends
on what kind of zombie? Are they fast zombies? Are
they slow zombies?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm talking like walking Dead zombies.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Were they they were slow?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
They were slow?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well, I would be yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm not talking the last of us zombies okay, okay?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Or I am legend zombies that runs super fast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The walking dead ones, the ones where they can't run,
they could walk, but they'll eat your brains.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I would say that I'm not prepared at home, okay,
Like I don't have like yeah, sure, actually I do.
I do have a bag that will last me a month.
Vin Diesel gave it to me.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
That's awfully nice.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
He gave me a like a survival bag. I don't
know if it's still good. Wow. So I have that,
But I don't have any weapons. I don't have guns
and stuff. But if so, if they were to attack
my home like there were would I be able to survive?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I think you're overthinking this a little.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I would hope, what do you think? Well, how about you?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Hell yeah, I would survive a zombie apocalypse. You would, yeah,
I would?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, what makes you say that? Why it's so confident?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I just it's just my gut instinct. I feel like
I have those instincts given a life or death situation
to pull myself out of it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Would you so if there was like two zombies coming
in and you would be able to chop their heads off,
because you know you got to if I need it too.
Sure they're dead, so you would be okay doing that's all?
To do that, though, how would you do that depends?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We're here right now the iHeart Studios. Grab a knife
out of the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, there's no knife there. We couldn't even find a
fork for that.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I' found a knife. That's how I cut the sandwich
and have.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
A butter knife.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I kill.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
You.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Go upstairs like a lock on the doors. I could
scale the side of the building. I could park her
to the next building.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
You would do that.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I'd climb down to my car, my truck.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
But what about Teddy? You would just leave him behind?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
We can take Tedgi.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, no, no, he would be zombie. He would be
trying to hump that zombie.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I would hope.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I would hope I could survive. But I thought about
this before. I was like, what would happen if zombies
attacked my house and bit my wife and then she
turned into a zombie? Would I just leave? Or would
I wait for her to be a zombie and then
chop off her head.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I love that you've thought about that.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Useless stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Secondly, why do you have to stay at a chop
her head off? Why not just leave?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I don't want her to go around and exist right
as a zombie.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
But what if they come out with a potion or
a formula one day?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Like, yeah, well she still has to go around and
like eat people. Yeah, eat people, right? I would be sad.
Like what if like I'm like in the neighborhood, like
you know, breaking.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Into casually walking the dog. You see your ambie wife
running by.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
No, I would have to go get supplies, right, Like
I would break into someone's house to go get can goods, right,
you know, during the day, and then I see her
like walking just like, oh, living dead, right, I would
be sad. Sure, so I would want to end her misery.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Okay, I thought this was gonna be a fun Like
now I'm thinking about what it would take to murder
a significant other.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Come on, Like, would you okay, if you saw me
and I was a zombie and you're like you were
driving by me, would you just run over me to
end my misery?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Would you too?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I would hope you would.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Then sure, I'll squish your body so hard to get
some building with my truck.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
You could do that. Well, yeah, you would do that.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
And put you out a misery if that's what you wanted.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I appreciate that. Yeah, all right, all right, anyway, Jesus
speaking of I don't know what, there's no segue speaking
of kindness, of ending friends misery. One of the kindest
people I think in the community. And I mean, it
was just amazing to talk to this wonderful, wonderful hearted
(04:31):
human being.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, Jeff Swart. Swart, Yeah, he is a racing driver,
he's a director, he's an artiste, photographer, videographer, you name it.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I mean he was just dropping words of wisdom, all right,
just his philosophy of people being passionate about what they do.
That's the beginning and that's the end, you know. So
it's just a privilege and honor to sit down with them. Yeah,
be able to just listen to his words.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So yeah, without further ado, Jeff Swart.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now for the listeners that aren't familiar with your career,
you started in print and then you went into commercial directing,
and then you went into narrative film directing. So how
did you get your start in print photography?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
My fourth grade field trip in Delaware we lived in Wilmington, Delaware.
A fourth grade field trip. My parents gave me an
instematic camera to actually go take pictures on it. So
they did that. But funny enough, you know, as you
grow up, when you stop wanting to be a fireman
or an astronaut, you know, or at that he's kind
of all these kind of typical things. My goal was
(05:42):
to be a veterinarian. I loved animals. I loved that
whole process, and I always had a dog when I
was born. My dad, he was a sharpshooter in the Navy.
When I was born and came home, he took his
rifle down the street and traded it for a dog.
Every boy, he and his mind needed to have a dog.
(06:04):
And so I from that point on, we've always had
a dog. But so dogs and animals and everything were
so part of my life and so naturally the veterinary
part was very interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Oh wait, wait, wait, why did your dad feel that
every boy needed a dog?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And they say dogs are man's best friends.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, and that's also it's kind of it's just nice
to have a non communicating relationship with something where you're
not a verbal communicator with it so much you just
sense this wonderful animal is here for you, and I'm
here for this wonderful animal. And we don't sit down
(06:42):
and have long talks about things or share, but there's
a communication and a relationship that develops that is just pure.
It's like, you know right now, you know, we live
in Colorado, and it's just wonderful to just watch the
dogs go out and be dog every day, no fences,
no anything, and you just sit there and you kind
(07:04):
of look at that dog and go, what's going through
his mind or her mind or whatever. I just I
don't know, I really like that. So the veterinary side
was really kind of to help dogs, you know, that's
a whole other level and to be able to do that,
and I love the fact that, again, the dog doesn't
come in and tell you what its problems are. You know,
you need to look at it, you need to spend
(07:26):
time with it. And even in the days of when
I was involved in veterinary medicine, it was you know,
there weren't even a lot of testing, and there weren't MRIs,
and there weren't all the things that we do for
our dogs now. It was really more of just like
looking and listening to the owners and you know, feeling
things on the dog and just seeing where are the problems,
(07:47):
what can we do? And it kind of really very
spiritual to kind of get in the head and the
body of the dog to decide what to do with it.
But anyway, my plan was to go to veterinary school
in the United States, but then all of a sudden
it looked like, oh, maybe it would be a little
easier to get in the ventory school in Europe. So
I went to Germany. Got oh that's a huge Yes,
(08:09):
yeah it was. It was a bit. It was a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
This was your hold.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It would have been nineteen years.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It's just like it's going to be easier to go
to vet school or become a veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
For the It's very hard in California at that time
one vetinary school you see David ninety spaces. I think
it was easier for me to be a doctor than
it would have been to a ventnor. It was very,
very hard. It was hard and so but there there
were nineteen foreign student positions. So I thought, well, I'm
(08:41):
going to do do that. I flew to Frankfurt, took
a train to Munich, got off the train in Munich,
I stayed in the youth hostel, and I went around
Munich going to all the veterinarians showing up and they're saying,
do you need an assistant? Because I decided that for
the first year I needed to go there learn the language.
Really could and the only thing I really knew how
(09:02):
to do was to be a veterinary assistant because that's
what I done in the US. Ultimately, somebody knew another
veterinarian that needed help, and it was a large animal vetinary,
and I started working for a large, large animal veterinarian
outside of Munich. But the thing that simultaneously kind of
happened once I got settled into that was, as you
can in Europe. On Friday nights, I would get on
(09:26):
a train and take the train to somewhere else in
Europe and go to a race because I loved racing,
and here I was in Europe to get to see
racing from Formula one, sports car racing to whatever. And
so I would spend Saturday and Sunday at the races
and figure out ways to sit, sneak into the pits,
and do all those kind of things that you could
(09:47):
do then.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And during that era. To be able to go to
races in Europe. Ivote, God, what a what a time
to be alive?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh it was, And it was Nikki Lauda and James
Hunt and you know, all those kind great things, which
I'll tell you a little funny moment relative to that.
But I was literally, you know, with my little camera
that I had kind of evolved from that instematic and
fourth grade. I had a camera with me and would
photograph the races and be right there in the middle
of things. And I just came to this realization that,
(10:18):
you know, this is where I really wanted to be.
I was allowed to be around cars, the people that
were closest to the action were the photographers. So I
wrote my parents a letter from Europe after being there
for about nine ten months, and I said, you know,
I don't think I want to be a Venteroran anymore.
(10:39):
I want to be a photographer. And you know, you
have to wait for that to come back now. So
then the letter comes back, and I opened the letter
and said, well, you know, that's going to be a
really difficult life because my parents knew nothing about photography.
You know, as a career, I really didn't know anything
about photography. But they just said, we'll support you. But
(10:59):
you know, if you're a veterinarian, you've got it kind
of made. You know, you will be a doctor and
all that stuff. But if you want to be a photographer,
you need to come back to the United States and
you need to figure out where you're going to go
to school, because we can't help you in that. And
so that was my life change. And it was not
because I love photography, but because photography was the way
(11:20):
to be around cars. So that was really it. And
as it turned out, you know, I did eventually really
love photography. I did all that. I just in my
head the driving force was this is my way to
be around cars.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
You know, you think because you love cars and racing,
you were able to capture in your photography the cars
in a unique way compared to other photographers that would
just take a picture of a car.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
That was really true and it still works to this day.
I mean, there's so many subjects that relate to what
you just said, is that. You know, it was the speed,
it was the motion, it was the thing like that
to it that I was so attracted to. I was
less interested in just freezing the car. I wanted the
(12:07):
motion and things. And my highest aspiration was someday shoot
something for Road and Track magazine because that's what I'd
grown up with my family, was this magazine that came
every month. Well, of course, when I got out of
Art Center, I thought, you know, if I could just
do something. So the offices for Road and Track were
in Newport Beach and I went down to those offices
(12:29):
and my first assignment was a cover with them, So
it just it took off from there. But also I
started covering Formula one for Road and Track magazine, and
I'd go to the Brazilian Grand Prix and shoot the
Formula one spotters, guide and do all these things, but
it was always about motion and action and blurred backgrounds
(12:51):
and kind of creating it maybe more artful and funny enough.
I mean, who would have ever thought that somebody was
reading Road and Track magazine and they're at a company
that builds fighter planes and they call me up and say,
could you come up to our offices for a meeting?
And I come up there and they have all my
Formula one work from Road and Track magazine. They're saying,
(13:14):
we would like you to shoot our fighter planes like
you shoot Formula one, And I'm like, how do I
get in this situation? Ultimately it led to me being
Martin Baker ejection seat certified, went through all the training
that you do basically to be a pilot, and I
flew back seat with this little card I carried with
(13:35):
me in F eighteen's and almost everything that way, and
photographed fighter planes the way I did F one And
it was just kind of a magical moment. But it
came from Road and Track, came from shooting the Formula
one cars.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So came from something that you were passionate. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
what a great lesson.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Absolutely can you look back in your life and see
everything connect.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
The amount of full circle moments, it still to this
day gives me chills just around motorsport or whatever. You know.
I get a call through my office that Ron Howard
wants to have a meeting about a movie he's working on,
and it was the movie Rush, and he said, can
(14:22):
we meet for breakfast? I really like the way you
approach shooting cars and action and everything. He said, could
we just have a breakfast one day? And so I
go down and I'm sitting there and I didn't know
what he was working on, but I'm sitting there with
Ron Howard and then to get his perspective that says,
(14:46):
this is about James Hunt and Nikki Lauda, and I
go back to I'm a veterinary working for veterinarian in
Europe in the pits at Dutch Grand Prix and song
for it shooting Nikki l Loud and James Hung.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's like, wow, well, you know, Ron Howard is a
is a real special human being.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Huh. Yeah. I loved his diligence in studying it. You know.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, I did this table read for a film that
he was going to potentially do and we never did it.
And it put things into perspective, like meeting him the first.
You know, I grew up watching him on Happy Days
and Andy Griffith Show, right, and Andy griff The show
is a black and white TV show.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Room.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
It's great TV. But rn Over was like a little boy.
He's really the little boy of the local sheriff, right.
And anyway, so we're in his production office in Beverly
Hills and and then I went to the bat. I
was like, hey, can I use your bathroom? And he
had a bathroom in his office. He goes, hey, you
can use that one, and I'm using his toilet.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
There was an oscar on the toilet and I was like,
I guess this is what he thinks of what these
actually are. I mean, at the end of the day,
it's really the experience, really, you know that he values.
It's like at the end, it's just a statue, right,
And it was like one of those like full circle
moments to be able to work with this icon.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, yeah, no it is. And I think he really
need to appreciate those moments too, And it really puts
things in perspective. Even for like fun I shot the
first I think I shot four seasons of GT Academy,
the real, real GT Academy. Yeah, so you know, so
(16:50):
here we are, you know, a million I think about that,
you know, then the movie comes along. But you know,
it's like I was living four years with a group
of kids that basically had qualified by gaming, and then
we'd put them literally on day one in a GTR
you know, on Silverstone, and it was to watch the
(17:15):
mental load, the physical load, the the racecraft developed, all
these things that would have to kind of all come
together to succeed in that. It was a fascinating process.
And then here you are coming off the movie. It
was just again a really fun, you know, circle moment
of watching that evolve into something that was bigger than
(17:38):
we ever imagined in the beginning.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
What were some of the characteristics that stood out of
the individuals that excelled you know, I mean that's a
question through life, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
It really is. It was. It was kind of hard
to watch sometimes because people were so serious there the
competitors that were so serious and tried so hard, and
you know, it wasn't you know, racing is so much
a part of economics in a lot of ways today
is racing, and there was no economics in there. You
(18:11):
know you qualified or you didn't. It wasn't you know,
how you were bankrolled or anything. So for them to
arrive there, it was really kind of multiple great human
interest stories of guys that are just living, breathing. Everything
about it was, you know, basically in the hands of
(18:33):
this one week long event, and the problem in the
not the problem because the game prepared them so well,
but there was no consequence in the game for them
to get there. And I couldn't believe how fast the
competitors would ramp up. They would go quick right away
(18:55):
because they'd race with no consequence to get there. And
then the other side of it, too, was is that
they would they would be able to manage the cars
so often because some of this part of this. I
would ride with them sometimes in film and do thing
and you just, you know, knowing what I knew, their
(19:17):
car control was so good, and a lot of times
it would come back to saying, well, I have so
little physical feedback in the game, but now that I'm
in a car, that extra feedback I have actually really helps,
you know, I really understand it. It's it's obviously something
you have to adapt to, but the ability to kind
(19:39):
of ramp up and go quickly right away was always
surprising to me because I remember in some of the beginnings,
you know, some of these guys had never even driven
a manual transmission. You know, they qualified in the game,
but they never had driven a manual transmission, and the
things that they'd have to deal with was really fascinating.
And and it was interesting because it became more entertainment
(20:01):
in this as we went through the seasons, rather than
pure racecraft and everything that you needed to do to
be a racing driver. It needed to be a little
more entertaining season after season, and I think that.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Like a reality show.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, yeah, and it became probably the results were less
pure to what it took to be a racer.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I mean, when you bought that nine fourteen six, it
was the affordable Porsche. Yeah, but today that's not a fortune.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
No, I is really, but yeah, it was my cheapest
way to get into a six cylinder porschew How much
was that when you bought it? I think thirty eight
dollars or something like that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
The story, you know, we can get into it. The
story of getting that car is kind of very defining
for my whole kind of world. So I had a
paper out, like at thirteen years old, and so my
dad my parents. My dad was a mechanical engineer who
specialized in plastics, and my mom was a school teacher.
(21:21):
So it's kind of the environment. I was the only child,
and so I kind of just you know, grew up
in that kind of environment. But I had a paper out,
and his deal was I had to invest half my
money in the stock market. Wow. And it was just
kind of like you know, in retrospect, I gets just
teaching you to be conscious of your money and not
(21:43):
just like you every month getting my little paycheck from
my paper out, I was spending it. So it also
allowed you to kind of research and what would I
be interested in investing in and things like that. And
then when I graduated my school, deal was I could
buy my first car. And my dad had a early
(22:04):
nine to eleven and which is kind of a fairly
well known story, but it was actually chassis number thirty five,
nine eleven. It was a nine oh one, So like
this would be a revered amazing car to own today.
It just for my dad happened to be the oldest,
most affordable nine to eleven. He could buy at the time,
which was also a used car at the time when
(22:26):
he bought it, And so I love the sound of
a six cylinder motor and a nine to eleven. I
couldn't get a very new nine to eleven at the
time for the same amount of money, but I could
get an almost brand new nine fourteen six, and so
that's what I bought. So I bought a nine fourteen
(22:47):
six and I still have it to this day. It's
on display at the Peterson Museum. But the cool things too,
is that that car. You know, who would have ever
thought that car kind of provided so many life experiences
along the way because I went off to college in it.
You know, people who went to Art Center College Design
(23:09):
where I went to college, they still remember, oh, you
drove that yellow nine fourteen six in those days.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
The color of my nine fourteen is it? I have
a nine for it?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yellow? Yeah? Oh really, yeah, well that was the color
and ex actually made me kind of you know, I
still really like yellow cars to this day. But but
the thing was is, you know, like if you look
at back to the life, it's kind of been the
common thread in so many ways. And you know, I
went to college in it. I met my wife in it.
You know, I was a skateboarder. I was a longboard skateboarder,
(23:40):
and so I would be up in the hills in
between classes in Pasadena and at Art Center and skateboarding,
and I met my wife. She was one of the
girls giving rides back up the mountain after we'd skate down.
And you know, I was driving the nine fourteen six then,
and then if you kind of go years later in
nineteen already been rallying and doing things in the us
(24:03):
POR Rally Championship and racing at Pike, speaking different things.
But I had the opportunity to do a long distance
event FI Marathon Rally, which was twenty five days, ten
thousand miles from Panama to Alaska, and trying to decide
what car to do that in and everything it was
such a big deal. Well, I decided to build my
(24:24):
nine fourteen six into that rally car that I could
do it because that particular event had to be nineteen
seventy three. In earlier cars, that car being in nineteen
seventy worked for that. But I entered that car in Panama.
But the cool thing is you had a service group
and there were two people in my service crew, a
guy who we had known from Vasik PULLUK in the
(24:47):
early days of working with Porsche with my dad of
having his car being serviced there. He was Spanish speaking
and English speaking, so it's perfect for an event that
went through Central America and my dad was in the
service vehicle. So can you imagine, like the guy who
made me invest money at thirteen years old with the
(25:10):
deal I could eventually spend the money when I graduated
from high school. Here he is following me for twenty
five days in the car that I had bought with
that money that I got to invest. It was just
like it was so cool. And my dad wasn't one
of those guys who had done a lot of things
worldly and had done it. He was passionate with cars, yes,
(25:32):
but he just hadn't done anything like that. He's immersed
in this full on international event chasing his kid driving
this car that he'd you know, motivated to invest in
the stock market, and we finished second overall and had
an amazing race and everything, and you know, it was
probably if my dad could share it now, it would
(25:53):
probably be one of his great moments in life of
doing that. And so you know, you just don't get
that opportunity very often, and it was really something special.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Wow, where do you think you get that drive from?
You say your father wasn't much of a worldly traveler?
Did you take that after your mom.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
A little bit? I mean, you know, if you look
at the racing side of me and uh, you know,
racing at Pike's Peak, which is, you know, a fairly
daunting event, and it was some consequence, you know. I
remember growing up, my mom was the one that had
to go on the roof of the house to install
the antenna because my dad was afraid of being the roof,
(26:34):
you know, up high and heights and things. But I think,
you know, I think familiar to your point is like
it's also a little bit of an only child thing.
I went to a different school every year till I
was a junior in high school. It wasn't always because
we were changing houses and moving and things. But my
dad was in the plastics business, which was like an
(26:56):
emerging big business and so he was always getting offers
to do things elsewhere and things like that. But that
kind of having to do things for yourself and adapt
to environments and to be kind of very aware of
you're on your own and you got to do this,
(27:17):
and my parents were very supportive. It wasn't like I was,
you know, in my own in that way. But you know,
you as a kid, you know there's a generation you
want to be taking command of it. You know, you
didn't have a lot of friends because you weren't dropping
into you weren't living a life where you know, you
had lifetime friends and things like that. I was having
(27:38):
to constantly make new friends.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's so fascinating to hear you say this because I
doesn't sound like I want to as many different schools
as you did. But in my high school years, I
went to a new high school every single year. And
the traits that you're talking about of like I fortunately
have the childhood friends who I'm still in touch with today,
but constantly having to meet new people, almost growing up
(28:02):
on your own terms in a way, and there's just
a certain element that at the time I didn't understand,
but looking back at it really gave me this grounding
that it sounds like we share.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And you know, I think also the other thing that
for me at least, and I mean, this is more
career oriented, but it really spawned a lot of creativity,
you know, because you had to. You know, we weren't
internet bound. We weren't you know, entertained naturally by technology.
You had to figure out ways to be entertained. And
(28:34):
you know, for that, since I didn't you know, I
came home from school, I wasn't really hanging with my
friends because I was new to the school, you know.
So I ended up being I think, more motivated to
be creative and be self self motivated to make something
on your own because you didn't have that reliance. And
(28:54):
in a lot of ways, you know, if you look
at going into ultimately photography and then directing, is that
it kind of comes back on you. You have to
own it. Yes, in filmmaking, we have an amazing support
system and all these departments that work for you, but
it still comes back to it's got to be your signature.
(29:16):
It's got to be your vision. Otherwise, you know, your
your shelf life in the business probably isn't that great.
And I do remember the first time when I started
visiting production companies that wanted me to direct, they told
me flat out, you know this is you know, you've
got about a seven year shelf life in this world
of advertising directing because you know, it's a very much
(29:39):
an on to the next the new guys, the new views,
things like that. But you know, I'm in my thirty
fifth year of doing that and it's still just as
fun and as exciting as it was in the beginning.
And I think that, like I told you at the
beginning of this, it's kind of like you know, like
I said, the good news is I've I've been doing
this for a long time. Bad news, I've been doing
(30:00):
it for a long time because I also want to
always have things evolve, always have things changed, because that's
what stimulates me the most.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Now that's really beautiful because a lot of folks, even myself,
I catch myself being stuck in the old ways, right
and then it kind of I'm just turning into the
old guy. I'm like these young it wasn't like that
when I was young worldwide, and I could take it
to another generation, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And it's funny because you know, in the beginning of
your career, you kind of you just want to be
so focused and you want to just be you know,
no outside influences. This is me. This is who I'm
going to be, and you you have to kind of
hand it off to being Okay, who around me is
doing the cool stuff? You know? I got to start
(30:52):
being aware of that, And I think that that was
one of the keys. Is I kind of handed that
off earlier. Maybe I didn't hold on to just this
like I don't care what anybody else is doing. I'm
doing this. I really wanted to know what was going on.
And it's almost like, you know, in the creative process,
almost like a flip book, like you want to go
through a whole bunch of images really quickly and take
(31:16):
what you think you saw, not open up and study
a picture and say I'm going to do something just
like that, but like flip through something and see these
things all flashed by anything. I think I saw something
kind of cool, and then where's your mind taken? You know,
it's great so that you don't end up like just
copying somebody. You know, you don't want to do that.
(31:36):
I think, you know, one of my greatest compliments from
my kids a few years ago was she said to me,
how do you stay so relevant? And I thought, well,
that's pretty cool, But the reality is, if I am relevant,
you know, it's from people like you guys, from people
like you know, the race service guys or the whatever.
You know, there's so many people in our business that
(31:59):
I love watching evolve. You know. I think that one
of the single important things that leaves for me is
leaving room to be in awe of others beautiful. That's
to me. I wish so many people, filmmakers and people
(32:19):
that I see knew how in awe I am of
what they do. You know, because my crews are sixty
to eighty people. I mean you've been on features, you guys,
and you've seen all this, and I mean like when
you're on a feature, it's one hundred and twenty, one
hundred and thirty people whatever. But I'm in all of
the guys that go out with two or three people
and just do wonderful film. And I take that influence
(32:43):
into my own life all the time, every day virtually.
But leaving that room to be in awe is so
important as opposed to I'm just this. I'm that I'm
going to go out every day now, you know, got
to leave that window open. You know, it's like bad weather.
You know, we're in a business of filmmaking. You got
to have great weather. You gotta have this. But Honestly,
(33:04):
bad weather has given me more opportunity than it's taken away.
You know, the amount of times I've been filming in
a wall of blacks coming this way and everybody's worried
that we're going to have this or whatever. The scenes
it's created, and the opportunities and even the motivation to
move quicker and get things done, it's all it's just cool.
You know. It's like, as a director, you want to
(33:25):
control everything, but you have to respect the fact that
there's so many elements as you don't have control over.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I mean, this is I think this is something I
really needed to hear. Same on a personal level and
in terms of, like, you know, career as well, because
as I start getting older, like I go, I wonder
if you know, I'm going to be like aged out
of like opportunities. And what you just said is like
(33:52):
it rings like I mean, it's just great words of
wisdom that I'll you know, walk away with and it's like, okay,
being a roof for the younger people, right, And it's
like I think about it and I'm like, hey, the
fact that you know I was there early on and
you can kind of like you know, pave the way,
and then you see all of these great opportunities that
(34:14):
other you know, people of color are having, or Asian
American men are having. It's like being all yeah, right,
and it's such a beautiful positive way to be present,
right and still and and and it's not about you anymore.
It's about like the whole.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You know, really beautiful. It's a handoff of competing, which
is important in the beginning, yeah, to collaborating. Yeah, you know,
it's a simple process that I don't think you realize
you kind of have to go through, you know, in
a way. And and I think that that's you know,
filmmaking is so definitive in so many ways. And interestingly,
(34:55):
my parallels, you know, if I were to just take
from my racing side, the event of Pike's Peak, which is,
you know, a mountain we race up. I've raced over
twenty years there, I've done well there. I understand the place,
the place is home. But it's still so definitive. And
it's one run on race day. It's a finish line
(35:19):
that is at fourteen and fifteen feet, it's there's no
pit stops, smiling. I want to do that so bad,
but yet all those same variables we have in filmmaking
of weather and crew and you know, budgets and all
(35:39):
this management goes into you know, I'm under ten minutes
racing there, one of the few people are under ten minutes,
and it's like you got to put all into that
little package in the same way. But it's definitive. Again,
You've got to get to the summit no matter what.
And there's no second chances. There's not like you can't
bring it back in the way in filmmaking, and we don't.
(36:01):
In my entire career, I've never gotten to a sunset
and said, you know, we didn't get everything. We need
to come back tomorrow. That doesn't happen. That's in my world.
That's a two hundred thousand dollars vault. You know, you
don't just say, oh, didn't get it all. I gotta
come back tomorrow. That sunset, that thing the day that's
managed through your assistant directors and crew and everything else.
(36:26):
It's all for that moment of being done at sunset.
You know, we don't just start bringing out the lights
when the sun goes down. We don't have the chance
of bringing the sun back up all of things. And
I love that pressure, and I think that's why my
racing paralleling with my filmmaking. There is so many things
(36:47):
in the process that I approach in the same way.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
But when, for instance, like if you need to make
your day on a film set, or you need to
get to the finish line and you don't make it, like,
how do you find peace with that? Because it's add to.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Your question because we're going on a path of a
conversation we haven't had yet, you and I personally have
been not on this podcast is also adding to Song's
question of what's your relationship with failure when that comes?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
You know, that's a complicated one, I guess because in
my head, failure is a big deal. You know, I
don't take it lightly. I want it to work. I
can think of the moments of failure in motorsport, which
is pretty definitive, usually because you've crashed or done something
like that. In filmmaking, it's you know, you fret over
(37:40):
scenes that you might have missed and you didn't have
a chance to do it. But experience gives you confidence
knowing that you have the best people to edit, the
best people to finish these things. But it's it's hanging
over you. But in general, you want to be in
a proactive position, not a reaction of position. Your experience
(38:02):
is going to give you the opportunity to be reactive.
But the more you can plan and be proactive, it
creativity comes out. Creativity is in two areas. Creative pure
creativity is being aware of the moments you're filming and
(38:23):
working on to enhance it in the best possible way
to tell the story, both visual and from an editorial standpoint.
But there's also creative to the solution. You know, your
experience of I can creatively make this scene work even
though I don't have all the right elements there. So
(38:44):
it's a it's a balance, I guess in that way.
But I guess to your point, I, you know, fear
of failure. If you're fearing things in the process, creativity
has a hard time coming out. It really does. It's
like a blocker, you know, when you all of a
sudden have to just be reactive, reactive, reactive, you're kind
(39:04):
of on your heels, you know, and you want to
be on your toes. You want to be able to
move forward and have the big picture of the way
things go.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Together, being able to relinquish that control as a creative
It's very hard, right, I mean we were talking about
that earlier, Like you know, you know, do you when
when something doesn't go right then it all comes back
on you. But if you can relinquish it, you're like, hey,
you know, it's not just my fault, your fault. You know,
(39:52):
you started shooting basically it was analog, right, and today
moving into CG and you don't even yeah, a whole
other thing. Are you as open minded about that as well?
Of like that pushing the bar for action sequences with cars.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
It's really interesting. And again it's kind of like I
started in film and you had four hundred foot magazines,
you know, and that that ran for a certain amount
of time. You know, it's like everything was based on
changing film and things like that. You know, now we
leave cameras rolling, We have multiple cameras working, and you
know if when even when I was at Art Center,
(40:34):
I got into mounting cameras. I was mounting cameras on
my skateboards, on biplane wings, on all sorts of things,
and I just love doing that. And my first road
and track cover was actually a camera rig on a
car going down a road, and so it was like
this time tunnel blurry. Look, it really kind of showed
action and I love that. And you know, now we're
(40:55):
in the GoPro and all things. Everything's gotten smaller, everything's
gotten more usable. And you know, there was a moment
in time too where changing over from film to digital,
I shot with a different camera system every job. You know,
it was evolving so quickly, and the way things are evolving,
it's an opportunity, but in some ways it stands in
(41:18):
the way. And I was very much a person that
I felt like I needed to be genuine to filmmaking
and genuine to the car. I was in an area
where I was a high action specialist, so generally I'd
be shooting cool cars, you know, that were truly capable
(41:41):
of that, and I always felt like if they needed
to go into special effects and different things at that time,
it was kind of taking away from the you know,
believability that that car could really do it. So my
goal was by working with people like Rees and Tanner
and pulled all on back these guys as it could
put a car anywhere and do everything. I wanted to
(42:03):
really show the real action. I really wanted to be
part of that. So that if you ever pulled back
on the curtain on it, you actually saw it happen.
You know, there was a genuine nature to it. I
was fortunate to be shooting a car that was genuinely capable.
Let's film it in a way that it's really doing
those things. And so again it's up to you as
(42:26):
a filmmaker to put cameras in places. I wanted to
not just watch a car. I wanted to make you blink,
to feel like it was going to hit you, or
defy logic or do things like that. You know. It's like,
like you said, as a filmmaker, I want to be
on my toes. As a viewer, I want to be
on my heels like whoa, you know, this is it?
(42:46):
You know, so I look at what's happening now, And
obviously AI is going to be a whole nother category things.
But there was a moment in time where effects and
plates that we would shoot and all these kind of
tedious parts of filming ultimately didn't add up to as
pure experience of watching a car as I wanted, And
(43:10):
so my goal was always to put that car on
the edge. And as a director, I've spent twenty years
of my life racing up the side of a mountain,
putting wheels, half the tread on the pavement, half the
tread touching the edge of the road. You know, putting
those moments in precision on a mountain with huge consequence.
(43:35):
You know that perspective plays out in my own filmmaking
because I'm already looking at things that way. I have
a funny handoff, like I run the Colorado Hill Climb Championship,
which is dirt roads up the side of a mountain
and a Gt. Three Cup car. It's raw, it's pure.
It's a bunch of old timers who quit racing at
(43:57):
Pike's Peak because it got paved. They just all want
to be on the dirt and side. I will pitch
a car in the corner, rotate the car, drive on
the throttle. I'll feel that right front wheel just bound
a little bit over a rock or something corner and
I feel it go light. I feel it touched back
down and the attitude is just right. The wheels are set.
(44:18):
You just can feel the outside wheels tearing at the earth.
All this stuff's happening, my head will go, oh, I
hope somebody is out there with a two hundred millimeter
frames that be right shot, you know, and then I
do it. And it's funny because lately at Pike's Peak,
(44:39):
I think about what it looks like on the outside.
That funny, and I try to put the car exactly
in those moments, you know, and my perspective is already
at the edge of the mountain. My perspective is already
taking something to the ragged edge limit that sort of thing.
So I almost pick up in filmmaking at that point
(45:00):
rather than build up to it. So it's it's that
kind of perspective that I bring to it. And I
actually think that my racing has fed the longevity to
my career because if I sit in a client meeting
and somebody's got some new hot carry about, I can
(45:20):
put it in perspective of what that car can feel like,
look like, and be emotional about it. This isn't just
a job for me. This is a quest to share
my passion with the rest of the world through filmmaking.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
You know, our friend Brian Scotto, you know, I feel
like he is really pushing the envelope, or I guess,
redefining like how cars are shot action sequences, and he
coined this phrase. I don't know if he coined it
or he borrowed it or maybe even looked stolen from you,
(45:58):
but he has he has a phrase called honest angle, right,
and he's like, and we were talking about because I
was I always ask people, what do you think the
problem with fast like action sequences from the Fast and Furious,
And it's like it's not honest.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
It's like, you know, they're cool cars, but when the
car is like going from like one building to the
other or outer space, it's like it's that it's not honest.
And it's like what I'm listening to you is like
you shoot the car honestly, like because you understand how
the car would actually perform in reality, you were able
to convert that, you know, onto screen and then the
(46:35):
audience it's a it's it is like a visceral reaction.
I'm so opposed to Oh that's a special effect, right,
and it kind of just you just kind.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Of appreciate it less.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, it's just it's like it's like it's like junk food, right,
it's just easy, Like you.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Know, it's like I don't know, you did see your
favorite pizza was nominoe.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Know, you know what, there's a certain that you give
up inconvenience.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
It's delicious pizza.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
It's good stuff should taste like a pizza.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Well, I don't know whether Brian told you, but there
is a directorial team known as Zwardo. That's Jeff Swart
and Brian Scotto. We collected. We directed Climb Kana together,
and so when Ken Block, which makes sense, yeah, we
directed that together. And fun. It was fun because the
(47:45):
amount of times I would sit in a client meeting
in Detroit or wherever, I say, you know, we want that,
we want to see the kind of like that Ken
Block stuff, you know, they they would refer to it
or whatever. And Ken was so good at putting a
car on the edge and doing all that. So naturally,
when this project came up and I always asked to
direct with with Brian, I was just like, wow, this
(48:07):
is so cool, and I learned so much in it
to your point of like, you know, this style and
look and feel of filming, and you know Ken, I'd
actually I think I'd even raced with him at one
point or things. But we'd been, you know, certainly been
around each other and seen all the Jim Kannas and
(48:28):
everything at that point. But what was super cool was
Ken would have his opinions about the way we needed
to film, and you know, it's kind of like in
your mind, you have a routine and the way you film,
and this is your process and stuff. And I started
to understand why things were different in a lot of
ways with the way Scotto had approached it and the
(48:49):
way their teams had film Ken and then Ken's ideals.
And one of the things was interesting because I always
my office is a Cayenne armed camera car, the arm
on the roof, and you know, I go, you know,
that's my world and always tracking and doing moves and things,
and King goes, I don't like those. I don't like
camera cars. And I thought, well, you know, this is
(49:11):
the way I work. You know, we'll have camera cars.
But you started to realize that the moment the camera
was traveling with his car, it slowed his car down.
You know, as soon as you start matching speeds, things
start to slow down. And I kind of knew that,
I did know it, but I hadn't really applied it.
(49:32):
And it wasn't until Ken kind of said, I don't
like camera cars. I started to put the whole thing
together and stylistically, that's what I really liked about Timkana.
And we always have conversations about what was the best one,
Which is the best one. We all look at different
ones of which the best, But the first one that
I ever saw, and this is when I'm well into
my filmmaking career, I felt like I'd climbed over the
(49:56):
fence and gotten into something that I shouldn't be there
for such a way and got to record it and
see something that like, let's just put that away before
anybody catches us. You know, is that kind of that
tension and everything of like I'm in here, I'm going
to get this, and then I got to get out
(50:17):
of here because somebody's gonna bust me. You know that
moment and spontaneity and the way that played out in
front of you with them just ripping it up at
El Toro Marine Base, you know, it was like, yeah,
that was cool. And you know there were times where
it maybe got too polished or times where it got,
you know, a little bit of away from that purity,
(50:38):
but then it kept coming back to that and and
Ken also just developing as a driver everything about it
was such a great franchise and without it really you know,
consciously affecting me. I just know that so much of
their work played out in influencing me and on a
(51:01):
you know a little over a year ago, when I
got the phone call that Can had passed, it was
when that really kind of all rained down on me.
This guy was a huge part of my life, even
though we weren't directly hanging out best buddy friends. The
effect of my life, my industry, everything about it will
(51:23):
it really came to me at that moment and still
affects me in that way.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Yeah, speaking of that, you know, as one gets older
in life and you deal with loss. I mean something
that I'm noticing. It's like every few months now, I
get a phone call and someone is passing, and it
scares me. You know, It's like it really really scares me,
and I still don't know how to deal with it.
(51:50):
I don't know if I'll ever know I deal with it.
I mean, how do you deal with loss as you
get older.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
I got to say that within my family, at least,
I've been very fortunate that I haven't really had any
surprise losses. You know, my grand my grandparents were farmers
and they lived in their nineties. My parents lived in
the nineties. You know, there were no real kind of
surprises within the family. I've certainly lost race driver your
(52:17):
friends along the way, because that's you know, what happens
in the decades that I've been involved in racing, and
I've started losing some friends who you know, we grew
up with together and just lately, and I think that's
part of it. I you know, having the perspective of
what you've been able to do in your life and
(52:38):
be part of and like I said before, being in
awe of others and being inspired of others and kind
of keeping that going. I you know, Ken was one
of the more difficult ones because it was almost like
you just realized you hadn't spent enough time, you hadn't
(52:59):
taken it as seriously as maybe you should have of
what that guy provided, not just for you, but for
the whole car culture all that sort of thing. So
it is difficult, but I also savor so much and
I feel it's so important not to have regrets and
feel like you've been pure to yourself and chased your
(53:22):
passions and been able to be constantly invigorated. You know,
it's like perpetual motion when things feed something and it
just keeps it going. That's the way I look at
my career. You know, it's always been interesting. Every element
(53:42):
has been interesting. Every day of a life has been interesting.
I love going against the elements, you know. I love
being provided challenges, even at this age. You know, I'm
not looking for the easy path. You know, the worst
day is bright and sunny and perfect conditions. You know,
that's not the worst day. But you know what I mean.
I like the challenge. I love that fact that you
(54:05):
are just going against life and succeeding, you know. And
I love to see that in other people. And I
love the underdogs. I love the people that have looked
at life differently. Those kinds of moments just make such
a dynamic, engaging world. Because elements in life, whether it
(54:30):
be life or death, or health or weather or anything,
it's part of our life. And you love to see
people succeed in that. And that's the part that really
kind of motivates me and other people is watching that.
I love watching new filmmakers and people that haven't even
(54:51):
been educated in school, you know, they've just done it
on their own. I love that kind of vibrancy of
because the only reason for success in that environment is passion.
It's it.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
We Will said, it's really beautiful. This has been a
great conversation.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
I feel like I'm going to leave this a better person.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Well, I agree, it's all for us, and I think
that's the point of our world is just that we
can kind of feed off each other and and take
advantage of the relationships in the best possible ways and
take away the good and understand the bad. And that
balance of understanding how important a life is around us.
(55:32):
To be able to come back to and share in
it and live in it and give people space to
be part of that is so important going back to it.
It's like, you know, you guys are my inspiration. It's
a new generation of inspiration, and I just leave those
doors open to be inspired by others. But you guys
(55:53):
are great. Love it.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
Jeff, Yeah, thank you.
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