Ken Block’;s 10-point program for making mega-well-known YouTube automobile videos.
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Dan Gurney? Blank stare. Mario Andretti? Shoulder shrug. Ayrton Senna? Befuddled head tilt.
For a generation raised on YouTube, lost in Minecraft, and baked in Snapchat, these names don’t imply something. American kids have a hazy notion that Jeff Gordon is some old NASCAR guy and Dale Jr. sells Mountain Dew. Beyond that? Nothing at all.
But they know Ken Block. His 6 (so far) “gymkhana” rally-vehicle mayhem videos are what fun-with-cars appears like in the age of Oculus Rift: jumping, sliding, and tire shredding mixed with goofball humor and almost subliminal marketing and advertising messages. Occasionally, not so subliminal.
The Big Bang Theory is the best-rated show on prime time. It pulls in about 18 million viewers for CBS on a great week. On its personal, 2012’s Gymkhana 5—the a single exactly where Block and his 650-hp, 4-wheel-drive Ford Fiesta obliterate the streets of San Francisco in clouds of tire smoke—has a lot more than 61.4 million views on YouTube. The 2014 Daytona 500 had about 9.3 million viewers on Fox. When it comes to attracting an audience with motorsports-associated content material, Ken Block’s Hoonigan Racing and Hoonigan Industries are state of the art. Here’s how they do it.
1. Conspire
Each gymkhana video emerges from the hive mind of the Hoonigan collective. That’s Block, Hoonigan Industries’ creative director Brian Scotto, and video director Ben Conrad. Hoonigan is a robust sufficient mash-up of the Australian slang term “hoon” and hooligan that it could be trademarked. So, make that Hoonigan™.
 | KEN BLOCK: The initial amongst unequals, Block was one of the founders of DC Shoes in the early 1990s. Right after selling his interest, he pursued rallying with uncommon good results. Uncommon in that he didn’t compete in his 1st race until 2005, when he was currently 37 years old. Nowadays, at 46, he looks at least a decade younger. “The very good point is that most men and women don’t know my age,” he laughs. | |
 | BRIAN SCOTTO: Before hitching up with Block, Scotto was the founding editor of the sorely missed 0–60 magazine. “Ken is the smartest guy I’ve ever met,” says the 6-foot-8-inch-tall Scotto, 34, who spends most of his days preparing merchandise and managing the marketing and advertising. “And I’m normally the smartest guy I know in any room. Oh God, that’s going to make me sound like an asshole.” | |
 | BEN CONRAD: The final, and least talkative, lobe of that communal brain, Conrad, 39, has directed the last 3 gymkhana videos. His Los Angeles–based design and style and production company, Logan, produces them. “Brian talks adequate for all of us,” he quietly demurs. |
2. Uncover a Sponsor
Castrol is behind the latest Hoonigan video extravaganza, “Footkhana.” BP’s lubricant brand engaged Hoonigan to leverage the reputation of the gymkhana videos alongside its endorsement investment in 22-year-old Brazilian-born football, er, soccer star Neymar Jr. Because Neymar plays forward for FC Barcelona and is such a large international megastar that he only requirements 1 name, it was expeditious to bring Block’s entire rally team plus the Hoonigan production conspiracy to Spain. The concept was to match freestyle bouncy-ball tricks with Block-spec tire shredding and create some thing that would make the world’s youngsters aspire to fill their crankcases with Castrol Edge. Awkward logic and absurd contrivance are, right after all, the soul and wit of viral marketing and advertising.
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3. Place, Place, Place
In February, the 3 Hoonigans have been at a white-painted warehouse in Spain. Footkhana was scheduled to be shot there on a generic truck-parking pad. Surrounded by nurseries cut into terraces overlooking the Mediterranean, the concrete tarmac showed a light dusting of what seemed to be white ammonium nitrate fertilizer from the giant flower factories, scattered by sea breezes. Every thing would be filmed inside the confines of the parking pad, so there wasn’t a lot location scouting or any require to shut down streets as there was in San Francisco. And since the area was only perhaps half an acre in size, safety was less complicated than, say, shooting across the enormous Universal Studios back lot in 2011 for Gymkhana 4.
There aren’t any jumps in Footkhana. Although a single ramp-to-ramp over a shark might have been humorously ironic. Or wholly acceptable.
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4. Travel Light
By Hollywood studio standards, the Hoonigans operate on a shoestring. In Spain, 2 medium-duty box trucks filled with production gear have been parked next to a catering truck, a massive American-spec fifth-wheel travel trailer, and what is likely the only Ford Expedition in Southern Europe lugging port-a-potties. Add to that a transporter for the vehicle and a group truck to assistance it and that’s the whole circus.
In total there have been about 35 men and women at the Spanish location. Roughly 15 were directly connected to the production, a couple from Castrol, 2 to thoughts us journalists, 6 to service the car, and about 10 guys wearing sweat suits bouncing soccer balls off their feet. Hollywood productions, by comparison, can very easily employ 200 or much more.
“We don’t have a lot of the gear massive motion pictures have,” explains Scotto. “For one, we don’t have any camera automobiles. We shoot every thing utilizing cameras mounted to Ken’s automobile. There aren’t any automobile-to-car shots.
“People would be shocked at how small the videos expense to make,” he mentioned later. “Everyone assumes it expenses more. But we do far more and invest far more each year. If I put a figure on it, we’re limiting ourselves. It is not $ 2 million.”
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5. Practice Patience
Shortly soon after the Fiesta roared and cackled to life and headed for the pad in Spain, the tires on the punk-spec Ford became coated white from the agri-dust covering the concrete. Block made a handful of donuts around some obstacles, but it was obvious the car was skating atop the fertilizer. Even worse, it wasn’t generating significantly tire smoke. A few minutes later the car was back in the warehouse. The white stuff was an insurmountable difficulty.
Once more the Hoonigans huddled over a lunch table to contemplate their possibilities. The winner was canceling the warehouse shoot and moving the subsequent day to the nearby Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
That’s the day we journalists have been scheduled to fly house. And at least that schedule would hold.
Continued…
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