California, September / October 2011: Round Mountain Road, China Grade Loop, State Route 33, 7th Standard Road, Lost Hills Road.
An oilfield video done in the greater Bakersfield region, especially around State Highway 33 (probably my favourite California highway — I drive it a lot instead of taking Interstate 5 through The Valley). A couple of years after doing my Pumpjack video, I wanted to show people how surreal and weird the sprawling oilfields off either side of Highway 33 and nearby places down towards McKittrick and Taft are. So I did my Drive-By thing and hung a cheap Nikon DSLR (720p!) off the side window of my Subaru, and drove very slowly along the oilfield highways and roads when there was a suitable break in the traffic (which might take ten minutes to happen). No, I didn’t slow any part of this video down — it’s all been done at 30fps on that cheap DSLR’s video (and it really shows). As with Pumpjack, I’d love to redo this with modern 4K (or better) gear, better stabilization and exposure control, and knowing what I do about video work now (I knew nothing about how to do this sort of thing back then), but security is tighter nowadays, and the traffic seems a lot heavier. Plus I’m lazy. Maybe one day…
Soundtrack by Oakland’s Stephen M. Duffy.