Review
WATCHING THE PHOTOGRAPHES SLIDE BY
After I had received The Kustom Photography of George Barris DVD, it took me several days to to check it all out. There is so much material on this double DVD that was initiated by Brett Barris, produced by Piero DeLuca from Mad Fabricators and co-produced by Brett Barris.
The first dvd contains very interesting interviews with George Barris, Larry Watson, Greg Sharp, Brad Masterson and Jay Mason. It tells the story on how Barris got involved in photographing custom cars and hot rods in the early 1950’s. It shows important places George used for his photo shoots and shares a lot of little details never before mentioned or at least caught on camera. It also shows Brad Masterson driving George Barris around in his chopped Chevy to all the famous photo shoot locations. With Barris memorizing all the details about the cars and the people, it sure brings you back in time.
The second DVD contains only stills, photos from the Barris Archives. Hundreds of custom car and hot rod photos. Most of them show contact sheet photos that were discovered in the archives a couple of years ago. A lot of material that was never before published. The photos shown date back from around 1952 to the mid 1960’s. With a few exceptions showing some earlier and later photos.
Very small sample of the 1000th of photos found on the second DVD in this set.
I love to put the second DVD in my computer and let the custom car photos slide by and start at this amazing amount of beautiful photos. Some of them are raw and perhaps out of focus, but they give us a good look and feel of how a photo session with George Barris was like back then. There is so much new photo material on these two DVD’s… Its just incredible and a dream come true for every custom car and hot rod enthusiast.
Thank you Brett and Piero, for putting this together, and thank you George Barris for taking all those wonderful photos back then and always hold on to these contact sheets. With its huge volume of photos from the golden era of custom cars and hot rods this is a very important historical document.
The interviews and other scenes on DVD I are shot in Piero Deluca’s typical and clearly identified way. Personally I would have shot these live coverage with a more regular lens, documental style, instead of the fish eye fast lane style which is used now. But then I realized that my version of this movie would have been VERY boring, and nobody would have watched it except myself and the few people I’d forced to watch it… And for sure nobody would have been as enthusiast about this fantastic DVD like people are about it now. And besides that the style is what makes the Mad Fabricators so great.
So the final conclusion is… its perfect the way it is! Job well done, and highly recommended.
Available directly from the Barris shop. and/or On Demand at the Mad Fabricators
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