Behind the Scenes of NASCAR’s ‘Man on the Track’ Diesel Films on using Red Giant tools and After Effects to spotlight NASCAR food favorites.
NASCAR is synonymous with speed, and with so many legendary tracks in cities like Talladega and Daytona, the sport has also become well known for the lively atmosphere and epic tailgate meals. To turn the spotlight on the food culture and ambience of different races, NASCAR and Coca-Cola sponsored a web series starring Chef Eric Greenspan.
NASCAR Refresh and Refuel “Man on the Track” follows Greenspan around hot spots in race host cities, and through the lively tailgate scene to discover delicious food being cooked up by race fans.
We talked with Diesel Films Executive Producer Seth Shapiro and motion graphics artist Victor Velasco of Diesel Films about their work on the show, including how they used After Effects and Red Giant tools and captured, edited and delivered everything with speed.
Tell us about this original series.
Shapiro: NASCAR Refresh and Refuel “Man on The Track” is a culinary tour of our favorite NASCAR cities, at the track and around town. It’s hosted by Chef Eric Greenspan, and the show highlights and showcases the world of food associated with the NASCAR Cup series.
The concept came from NASCAR Studios and their Supervising Producer Pat Sage working with NASCAR Refuel, a virtual kitchen where people can have their favorite NASCAR dishes delivered right to their front door. We partnered with NASCAR and Coca-Cola to offer a look at the unique culinary experiences, food options and food culture available in different racing markets.
Where did Season 1 take you, and do you have any favorite food memories?
Shapiro: We hit Talladega, Charlotte, Nashville and Daytona. Oh man, in Nashville we asked to sample some hot chicken from several restaurants. Hattie B’s brought out their entire menu for the segment, every flavor of hot chicken plus all of their sides and desserts. The crew ate like royalty. That episode and the rest are now streaming on nascar.com and YouTube.
How is each episode captured, and what is the turnaround time?
Shapiro: It’s a two-camera shoot, shot over two days per race weekend. We capture around six hours of footage per race, and that’s all cut down by our lead editor, Jacob Gorenberg, in Premiere Pro.
We go through all the footage and determine how we want to order the scenes. We usually have an idea of the order ahead of time, but during the shoot things can often change. When we have the outline set, we write the script for Eric’s voiceover and then stitch everything together. The episodes were delivered in about three weeks after each race.
How do you design the graphics packages and assets?
Shapiro: Graphics were created by our motion graphics ace, Victor Velasco. After he designed the graphics for the first episode, he worked with the editor to create the rest of the assets for the other episodes.
Velasco: The motion graphics were definitely inspired by the NASCAR Refuel logo combined with NASCAR logo and colors. We wanted to celebrate the speed and rawness of NASCAR. We used race footage tinted with the classic NASCAR stripes color. They come in fast and with imperfections to express the excitement and rawness of a NASCAR race.
How were the graphics created?
Velasco: After Effects and Red Giant Universe helped bring all of the ideas to life. For the graphics we used quick cuts to express the speed of a NASCAR race where every second counts.
There’s one shot [shown below] where we show a closeup of the logo of the show with a RGB strong distortion, creating the well-known NASCAR color stripes. For the background we used splatter and grungy textures mixed with exciting race footage. We did the basic layout with the vectorized text so we did not lose resolution.
We tinted the background and added contrast curves, and Red Giant Universe RGB Separation was added to the logo to separate the text into stripes. That separation was animated by adding an overall Red Giant Chromatic Aberration that gives it a more filmic look. For the final touches, we added Red Giant Misfire to add a subtle flicker effect and Red Giant Magic Look Renoiser for a grain texture on top.
What are you working on these days?
Shapiro: Diesel just finished our first indie feature doc about college basketball recruiting and we’re in the process of finding a distributor. We’re also continuing to produce our client work with NASCAR Studios, the NFL, Whistle Sports and others while developing new longform content ideas. We’re also actively renting out our shooting space in the heart of Sherman Oaks on Ventura Blvd.