Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

(I III • ~ arr· E er t.O r-, m ...... 6r ~~. . ~ N ....c:: u ~ CI:l .,... II ~ - (Leftl Peter Starr puts the final touches on Ga ry Scot t 's lip mike as Brian King makes a check on the mi ni ature unit. (Inset) Corky Keener's helmet camera proved awkward d u ri ng the high speed fil ming. By Gary Van Voorhis Aficionados o f th e Pe ter Starr style o f cinematography are In store for another chapter In the Englishman's prolific career as the pu rve y or of m o t orc y cling t o the h usi 14 d husi: e nt u s ras t a n n on-en t us ia st m a sses. , S t arr will soon premie re his fifth half hour tele visi on specia l in j ust over two years. The film , entitled T h e All American Ra ce , is a chronicle of five races on the 1975 AMA Grand Natio n al Ch ampionship ci rc u it _ The Peoria IT, Indy mile Syra cuse mile, Toledo h al f mile and San Jose mile _ an d ce n te rs on Gary Scott 's successfu l ques t for th e championship alo ng with th e lives of the C b h d ff Har l ey Wrec ki Ing rew o t on an 0 the track. The ~ast o f characters (an ~p t term when apph; d to some of th e an tics re corded, that Will, no do~bt, e n d up o n the c u tt mg room floor) in cludes Scott , Corky, Keener, ~ex Beauchamp, Mert Lawwl11, Jay Springsteen and a host of others. The i~ea b ehind the .fiIm , as id e from the, obVIOUS one o.f an, In depth look a t r~cmg an~ rac~.rs ,! S o n e n ted t~ward t he b icentennial, Being an Engh shman I wanted to m~ke a fil m o n t~e tw o hundredth anniversa ry o f Am~nca th at showed a p art, of Americana . In mot~rc ycle r :, clng the only t~ue Amencan event .IS flat track; everythl~g ds.c. that American racers co m p.e tc l.n o~lgmated somewhere els e . T h e Ide,a IS s imple , You take an .A Il A~ en can moto~cycle ( Harl,ey-DavI~so n), In A ll American ,co m pe ll ll o n bem~ ndden by A ll Ame rican ra cers and , In the end. produce an All Ameri ca n ch am p ion ." For t h o se of yo u w ho m ay b e unfamiliar w ith the Peter St arr ap p ro ach to filming m oto rcy cling, hi s firs t fil m cap tu re d th e strain of co m p e titio n in an IS DT qual ify ing event at t he Bad R o c k Two Day s. In t urn that was followed by a close up of the O ntario Ch ampio n Spark Plug Classic road race. a glim pse o f m o t ocro ss su perstar-lo-be Ma r ty Smi th , and hi s m o st re cen t effor t , a por t~aJ t of 5 0 0cc m oto cross Wf lrld ? Champion Ro ger DeC osler. Each I rn, say s one ,o f the , ca m e raJn; n who h as been ,a sso cia ted With Peter S1I~ ce th e fir st film !S b etter .th a n th e I'!"t In te ~m ~ o f ~ow lng tec~nlcal ex per tise and insigh t In~~ ar r }ubJ~c,t. the t Id I'k t d h , f o r , IS part 'f':"'o U l l e o ,0 h IS pas eae 0 1 ms . ov er agam, " Ever y ti me I' ve d one a film I've learned so mUe" more ab out the subj ect tha t , given a secon d chanc e an d a larger budget, I'm su re we could do a n even better job. (Pe rfe ction in eve ry thi ng he does is one of Starr's main traits.) Films ar e very expensive. The h eli copter th at we used for segm en ts in the Bad Rock Two Day film cost 52,000 a day . Fo r thi s film we transported a came ra cre w of five ar o u nd the co u n try w ith o ve r 30 cases of eq ui p m e nt and various o the r ite ms. L ogistics cons tit u te a good po rt i on of the budge t, film and pro ce ssin g c ons ti tu te ano th er large hunk and when you add in all th e o the r costs, both real and unforseen, you h ave a ver y expensive proposition ." It w as a viewing of Bruce Brown ' s classic film . On Any Sunday, th a t gave S t a rr th e ur g e to ge t b ack into mo torcy cling a fte r h e had , b y h is ow n ad missio n " been out of touch fo r awhile.' Bikes and racing' ha ve been in Pe ter ' s bl ood si nc e h is d a ys as a fa ct o ry rid e r for Triumph in th e a rd uous Coupe d'Endurance events like the 24 Hours o f Bar celon a . the 6 h ours o f LeM an s and th e Thruxton 500 . It was in effect th is touch with the " g r ass roots of motorcycling," the feeling that he c o uld cap tu re and portray the real excitement of c om p e titio n and his feeling for getting inside (" Y o u must dig into th e riders em o tions.") the ride r th a t lur ed him b ack in to the sce n e . Pr ior to this e ntrance into fu ll time filmi ng , S tarr w orked at a varie ty of posit ions in th e e n te r tainment in d ustry incl ud ing a te n u re a s a tel evision di sc jo ckey on a Canadian Br oadcas t in g Company st ation wh ich opened his ey es LO th e o p p o r t un ities in television, T hat jo b led to a venture o n anoth er t el e v i s ion s tat io n d oin g f ilm do cumen taries wh ich incl u ded o ne o n the 19 67 Mon ter ey Pop Festival . F rom th ere it was into th e m u sic in d ustry an d a stint as a re cord p roducer. F il m m ak in g, like other creative professions, requires that th e person b ec ome in vo lved in what he is do in g. Peter Starr, if possible, is involved 110%. A lmost every one a t o ne t ime o r an other h as harbored the desire to so m eh o w b e in th e m ovi e s, Sorry, but we ca n ' t get y o u into films o r e ven ge t yo u a fre e ticket. What we ca n d o is take y o u b ehind t he s cenes for a sho rt glim p se of just what goes into m akin g a film. Roll 'em. "Hey Peter," y e lled Corky Keener as he was donning his leathers, " d o e s Rex have to win teday 's filming too?" It was 10 : 30 Monday morning, the day after the S an Jose mile N ational, and Keener's verbal jab broke up Starr, Jerem y Lepard and another cam eraman as th ey sifted and sorted through 30 cas es of equipment that was n eatly arranged prior to the d ays shooting . What Corky w as slyly re fe rring to wa s Rex's National w in the day before . " I just wanted to get everything straigh t , y'k n o w." The d ay had been set aside fo r th e filming of the special e f fec ts portion o f the fo otag e w ith Gary , Rex, Corky , Mert and J ay re ady t o put o n a sh o w for the cameras, By th e time an h our had p as sed a small crow d, m o stl y those pe ople assigned to the clean-u p c rew at th e fa irgrounds, h ad gathered to w a tch. It was hot a nd even h o tter in leathers , ye t n obody seemed to mind sinc e it was also a fun day , some th ing like having your very own track to practice and show off on. San J ose w as the first time since he began th e present project that Peter had had enough spare time to take a few m inute s to talk and even then he w as still planning a nd looking ahead. "Editin g is w h e re the real story t ellin g b e g ins . R igh t n ow I'm ga th eri n g info rmation; putting m y arms around everythi ng a nd bringing it together. The re al w ork b eg in s when w e view the entir e footage. From there it 's select wh at's really relevant, what's pretty, wh at 's exciting and what's different; in a ll abou t 4 0 m inute s of raw film to begin with . After that we b egin to p iece it toge ther like a jigsaw puz zl e to ge t it d o wn to t he 23 m inute fi nis he d p rodu ct. " S tarr h ad j ust co nd e nsed the entire concep t of m aking a film into th e absolute b asic s while co n su lting his notes and directing the location for the next serie s of c am e ra shots. In his world, that of the independent film maker, yo u learn to give y o u r und ivided a tten tion to three o r four jobs a t once . " It ge t s t o the point, when yo u 're in the fi nal stages o f editing, that you sa y to yo urself 'There just isn't a ny m ore that I can c u t out.' ye t you kn ow th at yo u must so me h ow remove 30 seco nd s mor e . It c o m es down to literally splitting h airs b ecause you e nd up cutting out individual frames (24 frames of film per second) ; one or two here and another one there. You finall y get it done. " The importance o f exactly 23 minutes of film -vno more , no less - is that the remaining seven minutes of time in a 30 m inute production ar e sch eduled for com m ercials and that, whether we like it or not, pays th e fre igh t . The film shot for the All American Race c o m p rises approximately ten hours of raw footage or enough to string a ro un d y o u r favorite mile rac e track o ver thre e tim es . Contrast that to the finished product which is 840 feet in len gth o r roughly h alf the d istance aro un d a q uarter m ile sh ort trac k and yo u will immed iatel y see th e j o b of e diti n g is no easy m atter. "What's worse ," says Peter , " is that I'm an en th us ias t ." Since editing is th e re al me at of th e proj ect Starr h as hi s own personal ed iti ng eq uip me n t a lt ho ugh the

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