Hello! For those wanting quick updates can read the 4 bullet points below. The later section is a little behind the scenes postmortem, because who doesn't love a little game development chaos.
UPDATES:
FMVs filmed in Vancouver and Salt Lake City, 8 riders total, classic sports bikes ranging from late 80s to early 2000s (mid 90s bikes seemed super rare in Canada & America!). Mostly rolling shots and little skits. No budget/capacity for background actors. Roughly 11 hours total of film time which isn't massive, but should be enough to assemble some pre-race and skit FMVs for the game. A brief behinds the scene's video shown below and on my social medias.
Licensed Bands! Fans of 1994 Road Rash will remember its awesome soundtrack, among them featured 'PAW'. Mark Hennessey, lead singer from PAW and his latest band Godzillionaire will be featured in Bash Moto! It's very much a privilege to have Mark and his legacy connection with Road Rash join the Bash Moto soundtrack. Also on the list, Rainyard (an amazing sounding 90s rock band from Greece), The Vulcan Itch (also an amazing sounding rock band form Greece). 1994 Road Rash featured the band 'Hammerbox', a female led singer named Carrie Akre. Just my opinion but her style was more rooted in rock, less-so a screaming punk vibe which I feel is more prevalent among female singers in the rock genre. This is where Grocery Bag from Texas comes and taps into a 90s sounding female lead rock sound!
Bike upgrades. Odometer points are earned just by riding and can be spent of a couple minor upgrades. Fear not, the game is very much skill based, upgrades won't win you races but they will help.
New bikes added to the roster and Road graphics improved. All footage thus far as been recorded with Junkbike category bikes, now proper Sportsbikes have been added which are faster and more nimble. Superbikes will come later. Road surfaces look less flat and more textured, road lines more degraded and worn. I will have a video on these later in the week or two posted on my social medias.
FMV pre-production hell.
Independent film directors, automotive commercial producers, motorcycle social media channels. These are the entities I inquired to film FMVs for Bash Moto. Most didn't reply. One suggested I use AI to make the FMVs (Had to pass on that, AI gen FMVs isn't really an accomplishment imo). I was excited when a couple entertained my proposal... but sadly their suggested FMV budget was larger than my entire solo-dev budget and a figure that exceeds most indie games lifetime earnings. Not wanting to give up on FMVs... I started to question if I could arrange and film by myself. I understand lighting and composition... but I have no film or cinema camera experience. Little did I know I was walking into one the most challenging production undertakings in my 20year game dev career.
Prior to shooting, just about everything that could go wrong, did...
Vehicle Breakdown: Our desired camera car (a family members Vanderhall) was tied up by a vacationing mechanic for over a month... so we rented a 3-wheeled Slingshot. Ready to roll, right? Nope, the Slingshot completely broke down just 10hrs prior to shoot day. (fortunately we got a replacement in the nick of time)
Camera Casualty: A rented pocket camera dropped & tumbled off a rig (face palm) -$700 replacement fee.
Insurance headaches: This was bizarre to me. Insurance for a 1day shoot with with under 10 people and a small handful vehicles, no sets... not a problem and it's cheap to buy. BUT if you want to attach a GoPro camera to a vehicle, now you're 'stunting' and the only option is to buy an entire years of premium insurance for your 1day. Total BS. I've heard the Vancouver Film industry isn't very indie friendly, catering more to the big studios, definitely seemed like it.
Insurance double dip: I had to buy gear insurance TWICE because the provider was unresponsive for days while I tried to reschedule my insurance due to poor weather. (you'd think that would be a common and quickly resolved issue in film)
Bails: Luckily I ended up with a great group of enthusiastic riders in the end, however some local Vancouver riders and videographers bailed, lacked interest or flaked, despite the $100 per hour offer.
Permitting: Perhaps the worst part was studying permits, formulating a "low impact" shoot, getting permissions from the city, park, film agency, highway... everything looked green lit... then a 3rd party liaison deemed my "Low Impact" shoot to be a "Major Shoot" regardless of us obeying all road rules. A Major Shoot requires I pay the city to block off roads, hire flaggers and pay police overtime (4hrs minimum) to direct traffic. This would balloon the budget by many thousands I simply don't have. This liaison cited rulings that I couldn't locate anywhere and there were no productive conversations as to how my shoot could be structured in a "low impact" framework (which by definition it already compiled with). The ministry of highways was baffled at this liaisons discretionary choice. Honestly it felt like an exploitative cash grab. After all the planning, studying the landscape, shadows, staging spots and road conditions... I had to move the shoot to a new location to get around this "major shoot" obstacle.
Surprise! Road Construction: Paint my face red when I learned that the road that goes through your entire shooting area is scheduled for resurfacing over a 4 month span and no details on where exactly it starts (nor could I get answers). This discovery comes after weeks of research and AI chats regarding finding an ideal film location (Thanks Mr.AI, I thought you knew things). Loose gravel is a major issue, especially with classic bikes so this limited us to shooting in just one of three planned sections.
Fortunately the day of shooting went pretty well. I would do different in hindsight. I could have been more efficient with the short 4hr film block, but given this was my first shoot I think it went okay.
During this pre-production mess I was fortunate to find an experienced videographer named Ethan Adams (Instagam: e.adamsmedia ) that had experience, gear and examples of sleek looking motorcycle footage. He was interested and also offered a very reasonable rate given my circumstance. Ethan was a major help to this project and I'm very happy to have worked with him.
Filming in Vancouver and Salt Lake City is done and wrapped up... I definitely wish I had a larger budget for more footage but I can make due. Perhaps I can schedule a second round of filming in 2027 if the game sells well enough or I find a giant wad of cash on the street (it happened once as a kid!).
Fun fact. I've never used a cinema camera before and had only one day prior to shooting to get familiar with it + a RS4 camera gimbal. I studied all the gear for days on end without it actual physically in hand. This entire scenario was a head first leap into the unknown with multiple thousands of dollars on the line. No pressure, right? The amount of planning, setbacks and stress probably shortened my life by a few months.. but hey... doing hard things is generally worth it!
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Thanks!
FAQ page in the community tab for those wishing to know more general details on the game.