God, Guns and NASCAR - the motion picture (Roger Simon goes racing with Gov. Perry)

Finally up on PJTV (link HERE) is the video version of my trip to Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex to go NASCAR racing with Texas Gov. Rick Perry. This was amazing fun. If only I had better relations with local politicians here, I could get some Laker playoff tickets. Oh,well, neither of those things is likely to happen, given my (non-existent) relationship with Mayor Villaraigosa, not that he could get good seats. Those go to the truly important people like Jeff Katzenberg and Dyan Cannon.

But back to NASCAR. Will I ever go again? Who knows? I’m still a Blue State boy with some Red State ideas. I’m sorry – I prefer basketball and, yes, tennis. Still I’m pleased with how the video turned out. It was a test of my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35, an extraordinary piece of equipment for slightly over 300 bucks. As you can see at the left, NASCAR is noisy (to say the least), but the tiny stereo onboard mike still came through. As for picture quality, I have seen this video on the 50-inch or so monitors at the PJTV studio and it’s indistinguishable from others shot on professional cameras. I was even able to operate the zoom during the shots and, as you will see, it usually stayed in focus. (And this camera has a gigantic Leica zoom.)

I had heard that the last season of this year’s House was shot on a Cannon DSLR and I believe it. But that camera costs ten times what this Panasonic cost. Is a new era of filmmaking upon us? Well, it could be but…. you still need a script. There isn’t a computer to do that automatically…. yet. Anyway, thumbs up for Governor Perry, a helluva fun guy to hang with (and to break the phony… illusory… disingenuous… wall between media and politician with).