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aniamajewska · 4 years ago

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Stop Motion - technical post production - my workflow Photoshop

26 March 2021

Follow a tutorial and create a finished product. Having had a practice in your software options, suggest the workflow you are going to use? From Optimisation to Export. Note any problem areas / solutions.

I followed tutorial about stop motion video post production in Photoshop and based on this tutorial and notes taken during today’s afternoon class I created my video. There is my workflow:

1. Download files from sd card onto laptop. Open in Adobe Bridge.

2. Select files I wanted to use for the brief and rename. I renamed files as banana and chose the sequence number starting from 001.

3. Open one of banana raw files in Camera Raw and make basic edition start from optics - remove chromatic aberration, geometry correction, then adjust sliders after applied auto correction.

4. In crop tool chose ratio 16:9 which is required for the brief and standard display option for most of the devices.

5. Saved settings (done) in this file then right click on the thumbnail >Develop Settings >Copy Settings.

6. Select all banana files, hold shift + cmd and right click >Develop Settings >Paste Settings. I didn’t make any local adjustments so I selected all settings to paste.

7. Keep all those files selected and go the top Adobe Bridge toolbar >Tools >Photoshop >Image Processor and wait for the Photoshop to open and show the Image Processor window. Choose the location or create new folder where your processed images will be placed. Select save as jpg and make sure to change quality for the highest option which is 12, than click Run. It may take a while to finish the process. Then Photoshop home page will open.

8. From top toolbar choose File > Scripts >Load Files Into Stack, browse files and don’t thick any small boxes. Sort files by names and ok to load layers.

9. Choose Window >Timeline and Timeline panel should open on the bottom of the screen

10. Then select Create Frame Animation and click on the bar, so the first frame should appear in the Timeline. Then go to Timeline option and select Make Frames From Layers.

11. In Timeline panel options chose Make Frames From Layers and this should bring all images as frames into Timeline. If they appear not in order, go to Timeline options and select Reverse Frames and they should go in the right sequence.

12. On the bottom of each frame is an option to choose frame delay time, that could be set for every frame individually or apply to all selected frames at the same time. You can change duration of the frames if they run too fast. To select all frames select first one and press and hold shift then click on last one.

13. There is an option to duplicate frames, when frame or frames are selected, by click the little square with + icon on the bottom Timeline bar. It is a good option to make video longer when we have just few frames.

14. Once happy with video it is good to save it as psd file, so we could go back to this at anytime if we need to make some changes.

15. To save video, go to the top Photoshop bar File >Export >Render Video and name your video so it would be saved as mp4 file (if you don’t name it Photoshop will save it as default untitled mp4 file). Then you can change the other properties and choose what will suit the best for you video and Render.

Problem occurs when Render Video?

If you see the spinning wheel for wee while that means that Photoshop needs more space in memory of your laptop. Click esc to stop the Render process as it will take forever. Clean up you hard drive from unused large files. You can change option in your Mac system preferences >Security & Privacy >Privacy >Full Disc Access, unlock as an admin and give Photoshop access to full disc, so it could use your laptop hard drive as a scratch disc for the space (it needs a lot of memory when working on large files) when required. If Photoshop is not listed you can add program by click on + and find it in Application, then select Photoshop. Click back on the padlock to lock the access. Close Photoshop and re-open. You can use an external hard drive to use as a scratch disc and you can set this option in Photoshop preferences, but I read that it is good to set scratch disc on the same hard drive where Photoshop is installed because it will improve the performance. Close all other applications if they are not necessary and web browser. That should also help to improve your laptop and Photoshop performance.

The Photoshop needs a lot memory to work well and fast. In Photoshop Preferences, go to Photoshop >Performance and check how much of your laptop memory usage is set for this program to use. Photoshop requires 4GB - 8GB of RAM. I moved the slider to give Photoshop maximum of RAM to use. Then click ok and reopen Photoshop. I would advise to restart your laptop before reopening Photoshop. If you keep your laptop working for long time it remembers all operations it made, so it is good to give it a reset and improve its performance. That should solve the problem.

16. If you want to export your video as gif you need to go File >Export >Save For Web and you can change resolution or other changes before you save the file.

I decided to use iMovie software to add audio to my stop motion video because it works more intuitive than Photoshop in this field and there is a lot of sound effects to choose from and suit the best audio for the video. I will create another post about it.

#stopmotion #postproduction

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irisstory2021 · 4 years ago

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Chapter 1: Adaptation

2035 -- Present Day

The plants were alive when I last saw them.

I walked into the testing lab, half-heartedly tossing a coat over my civilian clothing. I wasn’t supposed to be here outside of my shift -- my father’s way of trying to pull me out of my career and brush me against something resembling a personal life -- but I couldn’t get the image of that infant out of my mind. In the footage, she’d been as pink and full of life as a fresh peach, the first baby born on New Year’s Day in 2011. Then, in what felt like a flash, the color had been sucked out of her, she’d turned white as frost and her veins could be seen pulsating, even past the grain of the frames. I couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly she had shifted; her veins sprouted out like the pigment from a brush dipped in clear water.

I shut my locker, catching a glimpse of the plants again. There was a pot for peace lilies, which stood tall, their white petals mimicking the white walls. A pot for fastia, which my immature coworker always thought resembled marijuana leaves with their pointy ends. Then, a pot for monstera, a plant native to tropical regions that reminded me of the roundness of fat lobster claws. They were sitting in a row against a ledge on the wall that must have been left over when the windows were removed and built over when they first built the lab. They were the plants that needed the least amount of sunlight. I didn’t know why my father bothered to set them out -- their greenness and inert otherness looked stupid in such a white, clean room -- but he insisted. They honored something, or stood for something, he said -- “A reminder that nature can still exist and persist, despite man.”

I rolled my eyes at the irony. Someone needed to be taking care of the plants, watering them at the very least. In a sunless, rainless environment like the lab, nature could only exist if it was created by and coddled by the likes of us. And the person in charge of watering them -- presumably, my father -- couldn’t even do the bare minimum.

Turning to step inside the separate room where samples of the serum were kept, I suddenly gasped at the sight of my father. The clock behind him read far too late for either of us to be here, and yet he looked at me as if I was the only one in the wrong.

“Iris,” he said, with a raised brow, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re not supposed to come in for a few more hours.”

I shrugged my shoulders and gave him somewhat of a petulant look. Though I was almost 30, he still treated me like a teenager, and at this very moment, it was as if I was sneaking back into the house after a rambunctious night out. “I’m getting an early start.”

“4:30 in the morning early?”

“You’re here too, you know,” I said, brushing past him to perform my retina scan on the wall. The doors to the separate room swished open, letting both of us into a room where the temperature easily dropped 10 degrees. “Besides… I’m usually up this early. You know how I like my routines.”

“Yes, you’re just like your mother, you two could never get a full night’s sleep, always restless.” He shook his head and pulled out the day’s sample for me.

We kept two versions of the serum in the lab: The original version, alpha, which was currently in commission, and the experimental version, beta, which was a copy of the original that we could test on and improve upon. Only when we made any sort of notable improvement to the beta could we eventually replicate the same improvements to the alphas we had on hand, and even then, it would take months of approval and months more of the changes to be made for the completed version to actually begin being used.

Nothing excited me more than a fresh beta. Of course, in the petri dish, it looked clear as water -- yet, the next 10 hours I would spend working on it meant endless possibilities to bring it to life. It almost brought a smile to my face if my father hadn’t been there.

I put on a surgical mask and a pair of gloves, wiped down the counter with some bleach, and retrieved the sample in the petri dish from my father before setting it down on the counter. “I’ll see you at lunch, dad,” I dismissed him, lowering myself to be at level with the sample as I thought about what I could do to it today. “And water those plants.”

“I will. Don’t forget these,” he said, dangling a pair of goggles in my peripherals. I sighed, snatching them with a sarcastic smile and putting them on. Satisfied, he finally left me in the lab. In the small, square window of the sliding doors I could see him pouring cups of water into the pots.

My father and I were biologists for Plethora, a pharmaceutical company that worked on cures for human diseases. My father has been working for Plethora ever since he earned his master’s degree; the company paid for his education so long as he remained an employee. In my eyes, Plethora was a good company -- it didn’t seek to reinvent the wheel, and instead sought for ways it could keep the wheel spinning. What stopped it, of course, were terminal illnesses like cancer, heart disease. Plethora looked for cures by exploring what proteins to introduce to invasive cells rather than what could be done to eradicate them, hoping to recreate the way a tree grows its leaves back every spring despite the way it seems to die in the winter, or the way its branches grow around telephone poles instead of stop growing altogether. Adaptation.

I agreed with almost everything that Plethora did.

As I looked at my fresh sample, I wondered what I always did whenever I started the day. What could I do that any of the other scientists -- especially my father -- hadn’t thought of yet? What could I contribute to change this seemingly perfect, sterile sample into an alpha candidate? It hadn’t killed anyone yet -- was I smart enough to keep it that way with whatever new thing I’d conjured up? I began to think about what the alpha was before it became the alpha; who was the scientist in this very same room and what were they thinking?

Most mornings, I dove deep into this slump, and my wonderings became intrusive thoughts of whether I was good enough or just following in the footsteps of my father after losing my mother. I could never really focus until somehow pulling myself over this slump. But today, my mind drifted back to footage of that infant again -- and gone were those self-absorbed thoughts. What replaced them dared to be more sinister.

❧

My father showed me the footage a couple of days ago over dinner. In a strange way of connecting with me, he often told me stories of when he first began working for Plethora. For dual-method purposes, he might have also been trying to convince me to stay at the company long enough, knowing I was slowly but steadily losing interest in it. I always felt indifferent about his stories, but this one has since stuck with me.

“I’m not supposed to be showing this to you, Iris,” he said. He had found an old, cathode ray television that had a disc player built in it -- it was forward-thinking, except for the fact that it had weighed 50 pounds and its screen was only a little over a foot wide. He brought this out in the middle of dinner, while I had been uninterested in my carrots, forking them into mush. I furrowed my brows, of course intrigued by my father’s antics -- and yet something hung over him, something quite serious, and it reeled me in enough to absentmindedly taste my carrot mush for the sake of closing my slacked jaw.

He slid the disc in and it went straight to footage of New Year’s Day in 2011. Watching diligently, I saw a mother -- her name was Terry -- giving birth in a hospital room while her husband, whose name I didn’t know, filmed the whole thing.

“Ugh, dad, what the hell are we--” I dropped my fork in disgust, fully resigned from his clear attempt at just grossing me out. He knew I was afraid to have children and didn’t really like them in the first place.

“Shh, just watch.”

Terry was wailing, her blonde hair stuck to her forehead and her cheeks cherry red and glistening in tears. You couldn’t really see the childbirth, since the doctor had obviously been covering between her legs, but her expression was enough to churn my stomach. Watching on, it was presented like what I expected of any record of childbirth -- the crying from the mom, then the child, then the dad. Footage of them holding the child in their arms, and then later, footage of them cooing over the child as it slept in its crib.

I was an only child and my parents were estranged from their family, so I had never had an experience of visiting a newborn at the hospital. It didn’t strike me as peculiar when the father filmed his child -- whom they called Susie -- suddenly

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b-does-the-write-thing · 8 years ago

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Happy Bday!!!!!!!!!! Side of the road or speed trap?

As usual in this verse, I’ve decided to make an AU where they did not meet on the side of the road or by Gold getting David to pull Belle over. No, instead, they’re going to meet a new way because why not?

“Carpooling?”

Belle nodded. “The Mayor announced it this morning. All Storybrooke residents who work in the downtown area are being advised to join a new community initiative.” She added a little shrug at Ruby’s aghast face. “It’s for the good of the world. Cut back on carbon emissions, reduce oil intake, save on car repairs…”

She trailed off at Ruby’s expression changed from incredulous to mischevious. “What?”

“You’re only okay with this because you know Mr. Gold Cadillac has to sign up for it too,” Ruby pointed out. She kicked her feet up onto Belle’s desk, ignoring Belle’s grumble of disapproval. “So, tell me, did you sign up right away or…?”

Belle didn’t deign that with a response. She had signed up yesterday upon getting to work, and had already declined three different group requests but Ruby didn’t need to know that.

“He lives at least an exit or two further from me,” Belle reminded them both with a sigh. She nudged the few bites of Granny’s famous lasagna around her plate as she tried to avoid the awful truth of the matter. It was entirely possible he wouldn’t even sign up in the first place…

After all, the new carpool initiative wasn’t mandatory. It was just heavily encouraged along with a few tax breaks on vehicle registrations and the use of the newfangled community HOV lane the Mayor had pushed through almost overnight. Not every citizen would sign up, nor would they need to, but most of Storybrooke seemed to think it was harmless enough, even beneficial to the community in the long run.

“This is a tourist thing, isn’t it?” Ruby muttered as she scrolled through her phone’s newsfeed. “Look, even Boston’s paper picked the story up.”

“Really?” Belle said, craning her neck to see over Ruby’s shoulder. “That’s great!”

“For Regina,” Ruby scoffed. “She’ll run on re-election with this alone- ‘My Carpool Plan Was Mentioned in the Boston Globe, Page 10, buried beneath the obituaries’.”

“Think she’s ordered two hundred copies or just went ahead and bought the actual printing press?”

“She’s probably down in Boston now, handing papers out on the street,” Ruby said with a giggle. “Think they’ll keep her?”

“Unlikely,” Belle admitted. She idly checked her email to see if she had any new messages on the carpool community page and nearly stopped breathing at the fourth post down.

East Storybrooke Victorian Neighborhood. 6:00 AM-5:00 PM. Cadillac. Punctuals Only Need Apply.

Belle hastily clicked on the link, missing whatever Ruby was saying about Regina’s heritage. The page had four or five posters, most of who lived in the Victorian district of East Storybrooke judging by their questions.

One asked if the end of the day time was at all flexible. It was not.

Another asked if they could eat in the car. They could not.

The last person asked how far the original poster would be willing to travel for the carpool, and the answer was as far as exit 112.

That was her exit.

With shaking hands, Belle typed a quick response as Ruby helped herself to leftover garlic bread. She expressed an interest in the hours, explained she drove a Mustang so she would only be able to drive one other comfortably, and asked if there was still room available.

An hour later, she got her answer.

–

“There had better be a good reason for this,” Ruby grumbled over the phone. Her voice was rough with sleep and the sound of something crinkling meant she was still horizontal in bed, the comforters pulled up over her head.

It was barely light outside, Belle’s phone the only light outside her apartment building. She stifled her own yawn with the back of her hand before replying,” Tell me this isn’t stupid,” she begged her friend. “Tell me…I don’t know! Tell me that this is the brave thing.”

“You should have called Ariel if you wanted a pep talk at- Jesus Christ, it’s not even 6 am yet!”

Belle’s eyes grew heavier at the reminder and she had to bite her lip to keep from yawning again. The thermos of tea in her hand, and the two cups in her bag was pleasantly warm despite the early morning chill of fall in New England. Around her, the trees were growing yellow and orange and the smell of bonfires still lingered in the evening air. Her neighborhood was at least ten miles from the shoreline and the downtown sea breeze rarely if ever made it this far to her door.

“He’s an early riser,” Belle said as if that explained everything.

“What business opens before sunrise?” Ruby hissed.

“The docks?” Belle suggested but Ruby grumbled something unintelligible. “What?””

“I said,” Ruby repeated, her voice growing fainter. “He wouldn’t drive a Cadillac if he worked on the docks.”

“Maybe he owns one of the fishing boats?”

“Ariel would have known who he was,” Ruby reminded her. “You already asked her about a middle aged guy in a Cadillac, remember?”

Belle nodded even though her friend was not here to see it. She had asked everyone in Storybrooke about the Gold Cadillac. No one knew any middle aged man with silver hair who drove such a car, nor had she been able to find the car while walking around Storybrooke on her lunch date.

“Do you think it’s really going to be him?” Ruby asked after a pause so long, Belle had almost thought she had fallen back asleep.

“Maybe?” Belle admitted nervously. “I’ve never seen him on the ride in…but he always on the road by 5:05, same as me…”

Mr. Gold Cadillac.

Belle couldn’t really remember when she had first seen him on the road, but she had grown accustomed to him. The way his hair flashed in the sun, or the way he held his steering wheel so casually, ass if the giant vehicle was an extension of himself…but really it was the way he smiled ass if he thought no one was looking. The way he nodded his head to his music….

Belle had lost count of the near misses over the past year and a half of commuting with the man in the gold Cadillac. He had become her own personal reward after a long day at the library, her way of unwinding and it had soon grown into a fascination bordering on obsession.

At the end of the lane, lights turned the corner and the hum of an engine broke the silence of the early morning. Dawn had yet to break through the sky was lightening. On the phone, Ruby made a noise of interest. “That him?”

“I can’t see the car,” Belle whispered as she clutched the phone closer to her ear. “It’s a sedan but-”

The car moved slowly, the color lost in the shadows of the street. Belle’s fingers were numb and Ruby’s was muttering something, but she couldn’t hear it over the hum of the engine. Let it be him, Belle prayed to whoever was listening Let it be him.

And when the car stopped at the curb just feet from her feet, she saw the flash of pale gold before the passenger window slow rolled down to reveal Mr. Gold Cadillac in all his glory.

–

The silence stretched into actual mass. It hung heavy in the air between them, consuming the oxygen until Belle felt faint.

“Is it too hot?” Mr. Gold asked politely, his hand already reaching for the knob on the dashboard. Belle shook her head a bit, and his fingers fell easily back onto the gear shift. Her throat burned with a million things to say, her teeth buried in her lip as she tried to resist the urge to ask him everything and anything about himself and her lips so eager to curl into an ecstatic smile at her own good luck she almost forgot it wasn’t even light outside yet.

He had introduced himself as Mr. Gold, and so caught up in her own private joke that Mr. Gold Cadillac was actually Mr. Gold, Belle had giggled. GIGGLED. He had looked so surprised, she had wanted to fling herself from the moving car. It wasn’t until they had gotten to the interstate that Belle had remembered to introduce herself.

“Oh!” she yelped and he cut his eyes over to her without taking his gaze off the road. “I’m such a- I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Belle. Belle French.”

His lips curled into a small smile. “Nice to meet you, Ms. French,” he said smoothly. Belle swallowed and nervously held up the thermos. “Tea?”

An eyebrow quirked in interest. “You brought tea?”

“And cups,” Belle said as she fished them out of the bag. “Do you like tea? I thought about making coffee but I just despise black coffee and you mentioned you didn’t like food in the car so I didn’t want to bring a jug of milk or sugar packets-”

“I prefer tea actually,” he said and he turned his head ever so slightly to toss her a warm smile. “It wouldn’t be any chance be Breakfast tea?”

“Earl Gray,” Belle said with a smile. “Be glad it wasn’t Lipton. Sprat’s Market was nearly out of everything else.”

“God forbid,” he said under his breath as he signaled on to the highway. Belle poured his cup, handing it over to him carefully as he effortlessly merged into the HOV lane. It was unnecessary, few if any other cars were on the road, but he relaxed as his fingers wrapped around the cup. “Fancy,” he added as he glanced down at the teacup.

Belle flushed. “I didn’t have anything else,” she admitted with a nervous laugh. “I thought as long as we were careful…”

“It was very thoughtful,” he said. Belle poured her own, the liquid still warm but not scalding as she held the cup between her hands. Mr. Gold used one hand to hold the wheel steady as he sipped his and Belle was rewarded with his eyes fluttering slightly in pleasure. “Perfect,” he said just as the dawn light rose behind them and caught the silver in his hair.

“It sure is,” Belle admitted as she gazed over at him. “It sure is.”

–

The day went by as slow as molasses.

Belle spent the whole day staring at the clock. By the time the latchkey kids left for the afternoon, it wasn’t even four thirty and Belle’s foot was jiggling impatiently as she sat at her desk watching the clock hands spin.

The Storybrooke Library closed at 4:00. Belle usually spent her time cleaning, organizing or doing some billing but she had nothing on her mind but the drive home. So, she was both thrilled and surprised when at 4:45, a familiar gold Cadillac pulled up outside the library and idled in the loading zone.

Belle grabbed her purse and the thermos, had a chance to check her hair before she strode outside as if this had been the plan all along. She must have surprised him because when she opened the passenger door, he was in the process of moving a cane into the backseat. His eyes widened when he saw her standing there in the sunlight, his gaze dropping guilty to the device in his hands but before either of them could say anything, Belle’s body rebelled and let out the largest yawn she had ever yawned in her entire life.

Both of them were frozen now. Belle with her hand clapped to her mouth and Gold with his cane in his hands as if caught red-handed. For a moment, neither of them said a word.

“Hey!” came a voice from nearby. “Loading and unloading only!”

Sheriff Nolan waved from his patrol car, parked right behind the loading zone. He had a large grin on his face and seemed to be enjoying this immensely for some reason. Mr. Gold recovered first, flinging the cane behind him before gesturing for her to take a seat. Belle folded herself into the car, and with one last glance at his rearview mirror, Gold pulled out into the traffic.

“A friend of yours?” Belle guessed by the way sheepish way Gold was holding his shoulders.

“We know each other,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t say friends…”

“You must not have a lot of friends,” Belle said before she could stop herself. He cut his eyes over to her and she hurriedly added,” I just meant…you know…”

He nodded. “I’m not…the easiest person to get along with,” he admitted with another of his self conscious grins.

“I haven’t noticed,” Belle said as another yawn threatened to crack her jaw. Some jazz played softly on the radio as the heat from the vents swirled into the car around them, creating a cozy cocoon and only increasing the heaviness of her eyes. “I didn’t ask, what is it you do, Mr. Gold?”

“I own the pawn shop off Main,” he said with a shrug.

Belle nodded. “Explains the early hours,” she said as she stretched her legs out. Her skirt, always shorter when she sat down, rode up a bit and she tugged it down self consciously. When she looked back up, he hastily averted his own gaze from her lap, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

“I…have a confession,” he admitted ass Belle stared at his profile, trying to figure out what had just happened.

“Oh?”

Was it getting hotter in here? It was definitely too warm in here…

“The shop doesn’t open until 10 am.”

Belle shook her head. “But-”

“I didn’t really expect anyone to… I thought…”

Belle stared at him in growing understanding. “You were trying to get the tax break without having to actually join a carpool!” she said in shocked indignation.

He winced. “Not exactly-”

“And I was stupid enough to- Oh my god!” Belle exclaimed as she clapped her hand to her forehead. “I made you tea!”

“It was very good tea,” he added hastily. “I know it sounds ridiculous but-”

“Of course I was the only one stupid enough not to realize-”

“Belle.”

At the use of her first name, Belle stilled long enough to give him a chance to speak. “Belle,” he repeated, clearing his throat slightly. “I wasn’t…I’m not trying to cheat the system. I was…I was …Christ, this is going to make me sound like a crazy person but I was trying to meet you.”

He kept talking. Belle could hear him, but her brain wasn’t processing it. It just sounded like white noise in the background of her own thoughts, the majority of which were not so much intelligent dialogue but a high pitched noise of utter and complete disbelief.

“You wanted to meet me?” Belle said, cutting of whatever he was saying about stalkers.

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“I agreed to wake up at four in the morning to catch a ride with you at 6 am because I wanted to meet you!” Belle breathed, a too large smile stretching across her face. “I’ve wanted to meet the guy who drove the gold Cadillac for the last year and all this time- you wanted to meet met too?”

Her exit was coming up, but he didn’t seem to see it. “You-you what?”

Belle laughed, a loud, loose laugh that tore free from her nervous excitement, her embarrassment, her exhaustion and her relief. “Oh, remind me to buy Mayor Mills flowers!” Belle exclaimed as she leaned her head back against his headrest.

Gold had not quite caught up yet. “You’re saying…”

Belle twisted her head around to smile at him. “I’m saying, I only agreed to your absurd ridesharing rules because I was hoping the punctuals only Cadillac was you.”

He didn’t blush but his head ducked a bit. “I knew you lived off exit 112-” His eyes widened. “Shit!” he swore. “I missed it!”

Belle shrugged. “It’s okay,” she assured him. “Want to grab dinner?”

“I can turn around up here-dinner?”

Belle sighed and reached over to cover his hand where it rested on the gear shift. “I know a great Italian place,” she said as he gently turned his hand to curl his fingers around her’s. He stared down at their clasped hands for a moment, only remember he was driving when someone honked behind them.

“Is this actually happening?” he said after another long beat. “I’m not dreaming right now, am I?”

Belle shrugged, a mischievous smile on her lips. “If we are, let’s not wake up.”

#b does the write thing #rumbelle fic

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itsworn · 7 years ago

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Ultrarare 1 of 7 Canadian 1965 Ford Falcon Hi-Po Was Built for the Dragstrip

When physics teacher Graeme Thompson sat down at Little Brothers Ford in Weston, Ontario, just north of Toronto, to order his 1965 Falcon Futura, salesperson Ole Sorensen told him, “I’ll place the order, but I don’t think they’re going to build it.”

That’s because Thompson had opted for a little-known performance package that included the 271hp 289 Hi-Po engine, Top Loader four-speed gearbox, and Traction Lok–equipped 9-inch rear axle. That would be the K-code engine package in Mustang or Fairlane terms (minus the Traction Lok), but for the Falcon, it was simply conveyed as code 992. And it was only offered in Canada. No American-built Falcons were built with the package, and the K-code was never officially available with it north of the border.

brouwer-1965-ford-falcon-hipo-rear-three-quarter Nick Brouwer was a fan of the racecar Teacher’s Pet back in the 1960s and was “thrilled” when he was able to buy it in 2003.

As with other factory high-performance packages of the day, the intent was to make the car legal in NHRA Stock Eliminator racing. Problem was, only seven of the cars were built by Ford at the Oakville, Ontario, assembly plant: three pillared coupes and four hardtops, like this one. NHRA demanded at least 50 to qualify for a Stock Eliminator class. As a result, they were relegated to the Factory Experimental (FX) class.

brouwer-1965-ford-falcon-hipo-engine-overall Although the original is long gone, the engine is an internally authentic 289 Hi-Po, dressed with more contemporary induction components.

Knowing the cars would go straight to the strip, Ford truncated the normal two-year/ 24,000-mile warranty to 90 days/4,000 miles.

A modern, Quick Fuel-prepared 750-cfm four-barrel atop an Edelbrock aluminum intake takes the place today of the original 600-cfm Holley and iron intake of the original 271hp engine.

Racing the car was the very reason Thompson ordered the Hi-Po Falcon. He wasted little time in attaching a tow bar and pulling it to dragstrips around Ontario, often bringing home trophies for his weekend’s work. For the first couple of years, Thompson was sponsored by a local shop named Weston Race and Custom. When the sponsorship money dried up, he dubbed the car Teacher’s Pet and soldiered on independently.

All told, Thompson campaigned Teacher’s Pet for about eight years, typically running in the mid- and low-13s. He even worked his way through a 24-car class field, including a 390-powered Galaxie in the final round, to win the Niagara Gold Cup Nationals in 1969 at Niagara Dragway. It was one of 30 trophies the car earned in its eight years on the strip.

The restored interior matches the original, well-trimmed Futura cabin in Palomino, including the bucket seats and console.

It’s no surprise Thompson was able to drive around so many competitors. With a curb weight of right around 2,800 pounds, the car had a strong power-to-weight ratio of around 10.7:1. The 1965 Nova SS, by comparison, tipped the scales nearly 200 pounds heavier, and its 327 engine was down 20 hp to the 289 Hi-Po.

As it did many racers of the day, the advent of bracket racing prompted Thompson to put away his helmet. He sold Teacher’s Pet in 1973, and it changed hands a number of times before Nick Brouwer acquired it in 2003. More than a fan of the factory Hi-Po Falcons, however, Brouwer was a fan of the racecar.

A Hurst-shifted, close-ratio four-speed was standard fare with the 289 Hi-Po engine and could be matched with a range of rear-axle gears, up to 4.11.

“Starting around 1967 and for the next couple of years, I would walk past the car every day on my way to school,” says Brouwer. “Graeme worked on the car in his driveway. I don’t think the rest of his neighbors appreciated that, but I sure did.”

Brouwer even saw the car run at Golden Horseshoe Dragway (later renamed Toronto International Dragway), then watched it drive around his hometown after Thompson sold it, as a succession of his friends traded ownership. Although the car stayed local for a while, it eventually moved away. But not too far. Brouwer recognized it immediately when it popped up in a local trader publication in 2003.

The 60-series, 15-inch drag radials fill out the stock rear fenders, while a set of CalTrac bars used with the stock rear leaf springs keep axle hop to a minimum.

He says, “It had been painted black from the original Prairie Bronze, and the Palomino interior had also been changed to black, but it was definitely the Teacher’s Pet. I was thrilled to buy it. What it really deserved was to be restored to its original racing condition.”

Fortunately, the car’s early years as a dedicated track tool kept it off the street in the salted months, helping preserve the body. The miles were comparatively low, too. To date, the odometer shows 54,800 miles, the first few thousand, as it is said, racked up a quarter-mile at a time. The original color was resprayed, and temporary reproduction “Teacher’s Pet” graphics were added to the sides. They were ultimately removed, and discreet versions of the racecar name now reside on the rear quarter-windows. It’s a subtle but knowing tribute to the car’s heritage.

The car also rolls on updated wheels and tires, but it carries that classic big-and-little dragstrip stance. With a deep oil pan and a set of CalTrac bars out back, the effect is a nice blend of restomod and vintage drag car. Frankly, we just don’t see many Falcons with such a look, and it’s refreshing.

The original “Teacher’s Pet” graphics are honored in quarter-window decals.

Like so many dedicated racecars of that golden era, the original 289 Hi-Po engine had expired long before, and a replacement engine was nestled between the shock towers. Brouwer had a correct replacement build featuring all of the 271hp goodies, including a solid-lifter camshaft, heads with smaller chambers that supported a 10.5:1 compression ratio, a dual-points distributor, the appropriate crankshaft, and more. It was all to enable 6,000-rpm engine speeds, and it was a potent combination.

Vintage participation stickers show that the rare Falcon got around in the early 1980s. The Street Machine Nats were in Indianapolis in 1981, while the Motion event was a Toronto show that ran from 1974 to 1989.

Externally, the engine varies slightly today, with an Edelbrock Victor Jr. aluminum intake, a Quick Fuel 750-cfm Holley, finned valve covers, and a few other bolt-on items.

After the restoration was complete, Teacher’s Pet was displayed at the 2008 Speed-O-Rama in Toronto, as well as the Toronto Performance World Car Show, where Brouwer reunited it with Thompson for the first time in decades.

“It was a great moment,” he says. “And after the show, I took the car over to Graeme’s house. He still lived in the same one I walked by more than 40 years earlier. He and his son took the car out for a few blasts down the street. It was just like 1967 again.”

There’s not a K to be found on the Canadian data plate. The 992 engine code doesn’t correspond with other standard engine codes for Canadian Fords and is an indicator of the special-order option.

Brouwer has accumulated copious documentation on the car, including photos and notes of Thompson rebuilding the engine in his living room, a letter from NHRA indicating the low production excluded the car from Stock Eliminator classes, and, curiously, a copy of the original dealer invoice, which was shown in the Jan. 2002 issue of MCR. It was part of a story on another of the seven don’t-call-it-a-K-Code Hi-Po Falcons.

“I’m not sure how the invoice for my specific car ended up in the story, because it wasn’t for the car in the story,” Brouwer says. “But there it was, which prompted my contact to the magazine.”

For the record, we don’t know, either. It’s an MCR mystery dating back to the days when photo shoots involved a brick of Fujichrome slide film and when flip phones were still a thing.

Today, the car is part of Brouwer’s enviable muscle car collection. To be honest, his true penchant is for Mopars, but the Falcon is one of those cars that, like many of us, has burned into the brain: the muscle car you saw in your formative years that you just had to have one day. Brouwer made that happen, with one of the rarest high-performance Fords on either side of the U.S./Canada border.

At a Glance 1965 Falcon Hi-Po Owned by: Nick Brouwer Restored by: Chris’s Auto Body (ext. and int.); Autoserv 98 (engine) Engine: 289ci/271hp Hi-Po V-8 Transmission: Top Loader close-ratio 4-speed manual Rearend: 9-inch with Traction Lok (Detroit anti-spin) differential and 4.11 gears Interior: Palomino vinyl bucket seats with center console and Hurst shifter Wheels: 15-inch Cragar Street Pro five-slot Tires: 5.60-15 front runner front, P235/60R15 Mickey Thompson ET Street R rear Special parts: Factory performance package with 289 Hi-Po engine and driveline, including transmission; 9-inch rear axle with limited-slip differential; heavy-duty suspension; heavy-duty 10-inch drum brakes

Racing Days

Original owner Graeme Thompson showed the car in 1966 at the Speed-O-Rama car show. It’s the same event at which current owner Nick Brouwer reintroduced the car to Thompson in 2008.

Graeme Thompson, a physics teacher himself, hand-painted the lab-coat-wearing namesake character on the Falcon’s flanks, circa 1968.

Teacher’s Pet at Cayuga Dragway (now part of Toronto Motorsports Park), circa 1968 or 1969. Note the full house for the heads-up action.

Here’s the letter from NHRA tech director W.E. Dismuke indicating that the low production rate of the 271hp Falcons would keep them out of Stock Eliminator and push them to Factory Experimental.

The post Ultrarare 1 of 7 Canadian 1965 Ford Falcon Hi-Po Was Built for the Dragstrip appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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itsworn · 7 years ago

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Inside The Race of Gentlemen 2018, As Seen from Andy Kohler’s 1930 Ford Model A Roadster

Revivalist.

“There’s something magical about a car that’s built entirely from old parts. It’s like a time machine of sorts,” says Andy Kohler, hot rodding devotee and owner of Kohler Kustom (kohlerkustom.com) in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. “I’ve always felt that building and driving a hot rod is a way to reclaim something lost in the name of progress.”

Andy has forged a name in hot rodding over the last decade, fabricating period-perfect parts and building top-notch hot rods at his extensive shop, which resides off the beaten path in the quiet hills of the Keystone State. Walking into Andy’s garage/laboratory is like blazing through a wormhole in time, putting you back in a period of history that lies somewhere between the Treaty of Versailles and the Korean conflict.

Andy Kohler waits for a run on the Jersey Shore at The Race of Gentlemen. Look closely and you’ll spot our Sept. 2018 issue’s cover car, Rob Ida’s ’32 roadster, with Gene Winfield in the seat, behind Kohler’s ’30 Model A roadster.

Vintage tools are plentiful (and used extensively) in his shop, and there are always several hot rods being worked on. His work is well known in traditional hot rodding circles, and he’s got a worldwide following. “I’m just starting on my fourth hot rod that will go to Switzerland,” he says.

As he points out, the craft of hot rodding as we know it is an ever-changing entity. “The term ‘traditional hot rod’ has deviated from its initial meaning as we’ve advanced. The once cut-and-dried description is starting to take on another meaning as time moves on and the mainstream embraces the hobby.” The perception of the hobby has changed with the resurgence of roots hot rodding through major high-visibility, high-intensity shows popping up across the globe.

Andy at speed in his dry-lakes-inspired roadster over the slippery sands of Wildwood during TROG 2018. He took styling cues from several notable cars for the roadster, including the historic Khougaz ’32 lakes roadster. His ride is channeled 6 inches over the Z’d frame to help get its aluminum belly to hover just over the sand.

It’s through well-attended and -covered events like The Race of Gentlemen where traditional hot rodding has now merged into the mainstream. The once underground event, built on the sands of the New Jersey beachfront, has gained a huge following, due not only to the renewed interest in building original-style hot rods, but also because of the fact that the event is a feast for the senses. Aurally boisterous, hypnotically rumbling, and a festival for the eyes, The Race of Gentlemen has become a mainstay for many hot-rod-hungry consumers.

Andy has certainly done his share to make TROG succeed and helped make sure the storied past is not forgotten. He’s one of the many vintage car aficionados not only helping to keep the hot rod hobby healthy, but also striving to keep it moving forward. Since day one, he’s participated with TROG, initially making the nine-hour trek in a hard-chopped ’34 Ford from his past hometown of Buffalo to the sands of the Jersey Shore for a day of racing.

This is how Andy’s chassis looked prior to mounting the body. He started with the front half of an original ’32 chassis and built the back half from box tubing, incorporating a sturdy tubular center-X. Next he added a 10-inch kick-up and a Model T rear crossmember. A Mike-Moore-built quick-change features spider gears that have been welded together, and a set of reversed ’47 Ford axle housings so that Kohler could mount the spring in front of the rear axle.

Fuel to the Flames

Andy has piloted several crazy-cool hot rods at past TROG events, including a ’34 coupe, a Model T lakes racer, and a supercharged ’32 three-window. For the 2018 event, his ride was definitely one for the ages. “I guess I am hung up on the aesthetics of 1946-1954-era land-speed racers, and this car is basically a collection of ideas pulled from a few of my favorite cars from that period.”

This particular car was first thrashed together in just a few short months for TROG 2016. For this year, however, the low-slung roadster has gone through a few improvements. Race organizers like to see new cars at the show every year and recommend that repeat drivers either build new cars or at least modify their last one. That was Andy’s motivation for the changes.

Here’s a shot of the underside of the roadster during the bellypan fabrication. The tear-drop-shaped pan is a big plus for aerodynamics and helps keep some of the loose sand out of the car.

The car’s history with Andy goes back five years. “I had just sold my ’34 coupe, and I wanted to build a roadster.” He put a want ad up on the H.A.M.B. and immediately got a response. “It was in Detroit, it was rough and in 10 pieces. But the price was right, so a deal was struck.”

When Andy finally got the roadster body home, it had all the telltale signs of being a hot rod at one point. What was left on the subrails was raised to accommodate a channel job, the rear section was cut out to fit a Z’d frame of some sort, and the back fenders had been raised.

Andy added an auxiliary tube crossmember ahead of the stock location to accommodate the spring forward suspension. It’s not usually an appealing look, so he made a frame-horn cover that blends in with the bellypan. This piece gives the car downforce, which helps cancel out some of the opposite lifting force being created by the bellypan.

Andy built a nice chassis for the Model A body. Starting with an original ’32 frame, he added a ’37 center X-member along with Model A front and rear crossmembers. Andy took little time turning the car into a roller, but then his attention was drawn to something else he couldn’t live without: a set of original Ardun heads. He sold the car to fund his purchase of the rare race parts without a second thought.

A couple of years later, the buddy he sold the body to needed a quick cash infusion, so he called Andy back and offered him the body. He had the cash and the space, so he bought it back in early 2016, just in time for a short but spirited build to make that year’s TROG.

Andy initially painted the roadster red with a white flame job, but decided to change it. “After coming up for air after days of a pre-TROG thrash, I realized I had unintentionally copied my buddy Jeffrey James’ paint job on his Hot Mess coupe.” So days before the 2016 event, the fresh paint was sanded down, masked off, and a new color scheme was devised and executed.

At this point, Andy had enough parts to fabricate a new chassis for the roadster and powered it with a 255-inch flathead. An 11-inch truck clutch joins the engine to the gears in a ��39 Ford transmission, which in turn spin a Mike Moore–built quick-change rear.

For TROG 2018, Andy mounted a set of Ford wide-five wheels, the rears being ultra-rare 16×5.5 pieces. These wide hoops were once used on Marmon Herrington 4×4 conversions. The rims are shod with Tornell 7.00x16s out back and Excelsior 5.50x16s up front. Andy also changed out the MG steering wheel he used in the past to a ’40 Ford wheel and added ’47 Ford juice brakes up front (the ’16 version did not have front brakes).

The front end of the car is made up of an original ’32 grille shell that was perfect “till I cut the bottom off to make it fit,” says Andy. It didn’t go to waste, though. The leftover lower piece was used to repair a friend’s shell that had seen better days. Andy made the radiator shield using a design similar to ones he had seen on late-1940s land-speed racers.

A Day at the Races

Since Andy is a newly enlisted member of the Oilers crew, his TROG adventure starts with race prep early in the week and continues until race day. Like many drivers, though, there were hours spent on his race car before he headed to Wildwood, going down a basic checklist to make sure the car would perform up to standards. The Model A had spent many months in slumber over the long winter and needed to be gone through thoroughly.

Most of the basic maintenance points were touched: plugs, wires, fluids, and running gear all checked out and tweaked. Since Andy runs a full hood and bellypan, sand issues are cut down greatly, but not completely. He runs a sand shield and screens on his carbs to fight off issues. You’re bound to get the grainy stuff in every nook and cranny (including on your person), so every precaution should be taken, unless you’re just a glutton for punishment. Sand and salt water make for a nasty combo to say the least, and there have been quite a few engine fatalities after a weekend in the grit.

The main attraction up front is Kohler Kustom’s own 2.5-inch drop axle. Andy makes these in his shop, using his grandfather’s 60-year-old press to shape them (a process we covered in “Get Your Drop On!” May 2017). This particular one is from a ’36 Ford, as are the split wishbones, installed in spring-forward fashion. An F1 steering box keeps this sand-shearing ride pointed in the right direction.

While the first TROG in 2012 was a one-day happening, now it’s a weeklong event—that is, if you don’t count the endless hours TROG chief honcho Meldon Stultz and his Oilers Car Club crew spend off the sand preparing for the weekend. Now in its seventh year on the Jersey Shore, the show has become a “well-Oiled” machine.

After a late Friday night of festivities, Andy is up at dawn, ready to meet with fellow racers to prepare for an assault on the sand in a car he’s christened number 169. By now, the sound of open headers can be heard throughout the streets that make up the Wildwood grid, echoing off the multitudes of concrete mid-century-themed hotels that dot the town.

A pair of ’47 Ford Lockheed-type juice brakes was mounted up front this year for added stopping power, and match the ones in back. They were liberally drilled by the last owner (obviously without any layout) to help alleviate heat buildup. Shocks are swap meet specials, hung on 1940s Dodge upper mounts.

By 8 a.m., the racers are lined up along Ocean Avenue for their entrance to the beach. The “gazing tunnel,” the passage under the boardwalk at the race location, has become a favorite spot for spectators and photographers alike. Here, Andy leads the way for the four-wheeled rides, with more than 150 cars following him onto the sand.

Weather can wreak havoc on TROG, and this year was no exception. An overly wet spring left the sand in a frothy boil; groomers were constantly flattening the dragstrip as the tide retreated along the shoreline. Weather reports told of possible thunderstorms along the lower coast, which would not be welcome in the least. But at TROG, there’s no rainout. You get the runs you can get before it all goes to pot.

The powerplant is a refurbished 255ci Mercury flathead, topped with Edmunds heads, an Edmunds 2×2 intake, and a pair of Stromberg 81 carburetors. A Winfield SU1-A cam, Mallory dual-point YB-type 241 AX dizzy, and a set of vintage headers round out the rodder’s recipe here.

After a required driver meeting, the cars hit the sand. With the largest field to date, the lines moved slowly. Add in rain, fog, and delays for grooming the surface, and it was tough getting in multiple runs.

The bikes had it especially hard, as the soft sand was tough to navigate on just two tires. There were trikes added this year, which had a little more stability on the eighth-mile runs. Cars and bikes dug in and tried to get traction in the fluffy grit, throwing mounds of beach at the lucky few who got to be up close and personal on the beachfront.

The roadster’s interior is as bare bones as it gets. A ’41 Ford dash was cut and molded to fit. Three vintage Stewart-Warner gauges keep track of the engine vitals. A ’40 Ford steering wheel, which replaced the MG wheel Andy first had, is on a ’39 column. Andy’s seat is a canvas-covered steel tube frame that was pulled from an old stock car racer. And Andy’s co-pilot for the race is a WWII-era oxygen tank, which now serves duty as the roadster’s fuel tank. The aluminum tonneau cover helps greatly with air flow, and adds a nice custom touch to the post-war racer.

It was a rough first day on the beach. With the delays, Andy had managed to get in only three runs. After seeing how difficult it was for many racers to get through the pits and down the track, having raced at TROG nearly every year, and knowing many of these participants have come a long distance to ride the surf, Andy decided the best thing to do was call it a weekend. This would help more guys and gals get in multiple runs on Sunday. It’s this type of sportsmanship that makes The Race of Gentlemen such a great event.

The only thing left was to bring number 169 off the beach and check her vitals. The roadster ran well, with no issues. However, sand is a pesky hitchhiker. You could spend weeks pulling grains out of every corner of your ride, which Andy did, and yet he still gets reminders of his day on the beach with each bump he hits on the road. But that’s fine with him. It’s a friendly reminder of good times on the sand, with good friends, doing what he loves most.

Andy’s choice in wheels is among the fine details that sets his cars apart from others at TROG. The roadster rides on a set of Ford wide-five wheels, with the rears being a matching pair of Marmon Herrington 4×4 conversion rims.

Saturday at TROG was plagued with delays. Poor sand, inclement weather, a smaller footprint for the race, and the largest field ever for a TROG event all played with the flow of the race. Sunday saw improvement, which put a smile on the faces of both the drivers and spectators alike.

Andy just doesn’t come to play in the sand. His band, The Tell Tale Signs, has become a staple of Saturday night at The Race of Gentlemen weekend bash.

The post Inside The Race of Gentlemen 2018, As Seen from Andy Kohler’s 1930 Ford Model A Roadster appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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