OPTIMA BATTERIES | Client
MORNING WALK | Agency
ANDY RAMSEY | Editor
TOM GORTON | Creative Director
MIKE MATUSEK / NOLO DIGITAL FILM | Color
MICHAEL MASON | Sound Mixer
Betim Berisha has been building cars his entire life. He had a dream of taking a production line Porsche 911 and custom fitting it with the best bespoke gear available to set a new record at the legendary Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. This dream did not include having less than 30 days to build the car from scratch.
When I first received over 30 hours of footage from Betim and his media partners Hoonigan, I had absolutely no idea where to begin. Unlike Betim, I’ve never built a car (though I bragged for years that I was able to change the shocks myself on my 2001 Maxima). I scrolled through hours and hours of meticulous tuning, machining, installation, and assembly becoming more and more panicked with every day’s worth of footage. I had no idea what the story was here; no one wants to watch someone put a puzzle together.
But when I got to the very last day of footage and saw Betim’s reaction to seeing the car — that he and his team build with their bare hands — up on the mountain, it all clicked. Suddenly all that build footage was like gold to me. Betim may not know it, but his job’s a lot like a video editor’s: I had to take all these individual parts and bring them together in the right balance to get to this final moment. Yes, a lot of that is the assembly of the car. But the real story here is Betim’s passion and perseverance. Initially the assignment was to keep this video under five minutes but I quickly realized that wouldn’t do it justice. I’ve never sent a first cut that was twice as long as the target, but I was prepared to go to war for Betim’s story. Luckily, everyone who saw that first cut said “that was 10 minutes?!” and I was vindicated.