Director: Andy Laputka
Director of Photography: Will Roegge
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang – Vaughn Gittin Jr drifts through the generations!
GT Academy – Season Four
Happy to have been a camera operator on the 4th season of GT Academy USA. Directed by Jeff Zwart. Shot on location in New York City and Silverstone, England.
Drift Mechaniks – 10 Year Anniversary
Went out to Atlanta Motor Speedway in May to hang out with my friends – the Drift Mechaniks and Team Rowdy as they celebrated their 10 year anniversary.
Utilized the RED Epic, DJI s1000 with 5D M3 gimbal, and the Panasonic GH4 to capture 4k video in car and on-car.
The Porsche from the Winter of 53 – Director’s Cut
Jeff Zwart loves to race and drive Porsche automobiles. We had been plotting for all of the winter of 2013-2014 to do this film and the original version that I imagined was something like this video. However with the success of the Porsche Gmund video we did for Porsche Panorama magazine and Porsche YouTube – made us think about adding in the history of the 356. We did an interview and I found that it made the story more complete and helped to explain for the naysayers – why it was fitting to slide a 356 Pre A around in the snow.
The original longer form video:
Charlie Vergo’s – Rendezvous
Director of Photography – EATS! BBQ Series.
Earlier this year, I worked as Director of Photography on several episodes of the Made Man series – EATS! The most inspiring BBQ establishment we visited was in Memphis, Tennessee – Charlie Vergo’s Rendezvous. I shot this episode with Canon Cine Primes and the Canon C300. I utilized kino flo 4ft 2 bank lights and kino flo divas for the interview lighting setups.
Updated Camera Car Reel
Over the past few years I’ve been fortunate to log some serious days behind the control desk in a camera car! It takes a team of people to make those smooth car to car commercials happen – precision drivers, camera operators, stabilized camera head technicians, and crane operators – to get a camera to run in sync with a moving hero car. My job as a Director and more frequently as a Camera Car – Camera Operator is to compose the frame and operate the remote stabilized camera head. It’s an awesome challenge because it involves directing and having a team of 5 or more people work in unison.
If you need an experienced Camera Operator for your project, feel free to get in touch with me via my Contact page.
Here is a list of the commercial projects that are part of my Reel. I’ve done many more days outside of these selected projects, but feel these are the best selection of my work!
1. Mazda – Mazda3 Heritage UK – Director
2. Buick – LaCrosse – Camera Operator
3. BFGoodrich Tires – One Up – Director
4. Infiniti – QX56 – Camera Operator
5. Kawasaki – Dean versus Dean – Camera Operator
6. Chevrolet – Trax Mexico – Camera Operator
7. Infiniti – QX56 – Camera Operator
8. Nissan/Playstation – GT Academy – Camera Operator
9. Honda – Summer Clearance – Camera Operator
10. BFGoodrich Tires – Awesomecross – Director
11. Chevrolet – Driving Dynamics – Director
12. Mercedes Benz – 2013 C Class – Camera Operator
13. Cadillac – The Challenge – Director
Thanks for watching!
Will Roegge.
Tanner Foust – VW GRC Super Beetle
From Storyboard to Screen – with Tanner Foust’s new GRC machine.
Back in June 2014, I was approached by Tanner Foust and his team to create a short promotional video with his new Volkwwagen Beetle GRC rally car. The window to shoot the car would be tight – Andretti racing had just finished building the two VW Beetles for Tanner and Scott Speed. I flew out to Washington DC to the GRC DC venue at JFK Stadium and met up with the team to capture the shots I needed for the film. We only had a few hours to shoot and I’m happy we were able to get the shots!
Here are side by side comparisons of my storyboards compared to the final frames from the video. Making the most of the short time frame for the shoot – I wish I had more time and a different location, but otherwise it was neat to really edit on paper and only shoot what I needed for the final piece.
Thanks to Tanner’s team for giving me the opportunity to create this video!
– Will Roegge
Keep Drifting Fun – Final Bout
Spent the last weekend in August in Shawano, Wisconsin filming the two day drift event – Final Bout.
It was an awesome gathering of the most stylish drift teams in North America. With teams traveling from places as far west as California, as far east as Massachusetts, and as far north as Alberta, Canada.
A New Mountain to Climb – BBI Autosport at Pikes Peak
This year we produced two pieces at the PPIHC.
The second and longer documentary video follows BBI Autosport as they prepare Jeff Zwart’s 997 GT3 Cup Turbo – Hill Climb Special for the 2014 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. BBI Autosport is based in Huntington Beach, California they specialize in Porsche and exotic car performance tuning.
In this 10 minute documentary I wanted to capture what made Betim Berisha’s story so special. It is his determination and commitment. Betim didn’t take an easy road to becoming a race engineer – he took on lots of risk and challenged himself. He left his life in Washington state and was homeless for a few months while trying to make a career in Southern California. It paid off when he eventually was hired by Porsche Motorsport North America. After a few years of building customer cars in his spare time, Betim started BBI Autosport and recruited talented friends to come work with him. Their commitment to doing things with passion and creativity caught the attention of Pikes Peak International Hill Climb champion Jeff Zwart who hired BBI to build his next Hill Climb race car.
We conducted interviews in Colorado Springs during the week of the hill climb as well as shot BBI’s facilities while they were prepping the car. Due to a fuel pump failure, we weren’t given the championship winning ending that looked certain during practice and qualifying – however that made the overall message more important. To me, that message is don’t quit. Keep pushing and taking opportunities. Passion will make you successful.
Director of Photography: Will Roegge
Camera Operators: Joshua Herron, Will Roegge, and Skylar Smith
Motion Graphics: Skylar Smith
Edited by: Will Roegge with additional help from Joshua Herron
Made Man – EATS! BBQ Tour
Director of Photography – EATS! BBQ Tour
While cars and racing action usually make up most of my year’s work – I took on a fun project traveling to 6 of the nation’s best BBQ joints with a production called Eats! The show focuses on a variety of restaurants and their back stories. For these episodes we explored some of the highest rated BBQ spots. Most of the places had a background in competitive BBQ. All of them were friendly, busy, and delicious. I’ve picked out a few of my favorite episodes and posted them here.
We shot on the Canon C300 with Zeiss and Canon Cine Primes. As well as with Canon EF glass for a super 8 mm handheld look for certain b-roll shots.
It was awesome to light interviews and pick out different areas of the restaurants to cover.