DeathCobra - Halcyon

[DeathCobra]

A Vice City solo.

Backstory

As I am sure many of us have - I have always wanted to produce a solo I could be proud of. Towards the end of my first stint in stunting, this was planned to be in San Andreas. However with the final crew video from TMS in production - the little stunting I did was focused on Vice City, and I found myself enjoying it more than making attempts in San Andreas. I also discovered a couple of spots that were remarkable, both in terms of difficulty and the extent to which they pushed Vice City physics to the limit. Perfect centrepieces, were I to swap to making a Vice City solo instead. Unfortunately, I never landed them. And as TMS itself came to a close, combined with myself moving away to university and into young adulthood - stunting and gaming generally faded out of my life. A largely deliberate choice to make the most of those younger years.

Ten years, a degree, and a career later - I dipped my toes into stunting once more. Given my history and a warm welcome from SA stunters, this tended towards San Andreas to begin with. But once again, I just found Vice City more enjoyable to play around in. Adding to this - many of the spots I had in mind for San Andreas had, in the intervening years, already been landed by the likes of Taz, AR and similar. To my surprise, my few Vice City spots were undefeated. Whilst I enjoy less time-consuming stunts (in fact I prefer them, consciously), it seems I have a natural affinity for trying the ridiculous. Because what occured over the next few years, can only be described as obsession. With a decent amount of free time to spend, and also conscious that age and responsibilities will soon prevent me from pursuing such things, I decided to push myself to see these spots landed. Or at the very least, exhaust every possibility and time limit before giving up. As the months and years rolled on, however, the spots kept feeding back on themselves. Regularly demonstrating that they were, in fact, doable. Which drove me even harder to make them happen. And eventually, they did. I also found that spots, new and old, unlocked just through sheer practice and experimentation, and I was learning details of the physics right up until the last.

So we arrive at this video. All in all around 3200 hours of stunting time went into these clips. Months of recording and editing by Haywire. Countless more hours spent thinking about cinematography, music and discussing spots and ideas. I am more than comfortable saying - I gave this everything I had.

With all that said - we hope you enjoy. As ever, reaction videos are extremely appreciated. Nothing beats the visceral feeling you get from watching a video first time, and it easily justifies the time and effort that went into the project. Thank you.

XQ
Mega / Drive

XQ (30fps)
Mega / Drive



YouTube



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Drive

Additional Notes

- Replays were recorded by using Freeplay slow-mo, with the recordings returned to normal game speed, in the video editor. This emulates the look of 60fps gameplay, whilst the stunts themselves were obviously performed at 30fps.

- Extensive live recordings were taken for all stunts in this video. These will be made available ad-hoc should people want them.

[Jason]

It's been an honour and a privilege to be a part of this project. Working alongside DC to create this video was a massive effort, and I'm very proud of the outcome.

However, on that note, I do not foresee undertaking any future editing projects. While I worked hard to produce what you've just watched, a lot of the time I avoided that work knowing the involvement it asked of me. I think that is a sign not to force myself into things unless I'm truly motivated towards the process. It's likely I will produce one more personal project, whenever that may be, and that will be that.



Anyway, that's enough about that. Halcyon, and DeathCobra, will be watched and spoken about for many years to come. This video is fucking badass.

Perhaps in a few days I (or we) can tee up a director's cut stream and share everything about the process. 

[DeathCobra]

Thanks

I would like to add a few shoutouts to individuals who were enormous contributors to this video, in their own right.

Haywire - for editing, of course. But also for support and shooting the shit since the very earliest stages. Also for pulling Barney out of nowhere, as his solo served as a big source of motivation and inspiration.
Biel - as someone very familiar with spending countless hours ramming into map objects, and working on a solo in tandem, he was a tremendous source of support and inspiration.
Rainbow - for having a borderline paranormal spot memory, and endless theorycrafting and discussions along the way.
Dannye - for creating the incredible tools that we all use regularly. Stunting would not have enjoyed the longevity and depth that it has had, without him.
Darkstar - also for replay tools giving us essentially unlimited cinematographic options. Also for pointing me to a few spots along the way.
MaCi - for inspiration and the few chats we got to have, before his passing. I hope he is somehow able to see this, because he had more of a hand in this video than he probably ever knew.
Barney - for allowing me to use a couple of spots of his.

[Simon]

Definitely one of, if not the, best VC solo out there. I'm sure we've all been in the same mindset before, wanting to release one killer solo. But very few people see it to the end, and even fewer see it to the end with such a consistent high quality of stunts. So many of these spots are ones I've looked at and decided that they are very much possible, but I just did not have the persistence and dedication to put time into. This video is very much an inspiration to go out and tackle my own library of these spots.

[Ezraph2001]

LFG

[AllBeast]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3RcWyhHm2k

[Doksa2]

I got a lot of inspiration from watching videos of DC when I first started doing stunts. After that we started getting older and moved away from the GTA
But when I came back, I saw people who were still doing it, and I thought it was amazing. I'm into VC these days, too, and I feel like I'm following your path
Thank you for the good video   

[khaimyk]

Vietnam: bạn stunt đỉnh vai lon khien toi phai nhan xet bang tieng Viet
English: amazing this is best solo of year

[puzzLe]

first

[Ezraph2001]

no one:
absolutely no one:

me: holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit


REACTION VIDEO

[MadX]

Man what a masterpiece, Haywire really wasn't lying
All the stunts were amazing, banger after banger from start to finish.
I will use this as motivation to make a solo one of these days

[puzzLe]

https://youtu.be/SDCv-CyvCpA

[Cooper]

https://youtu.be/dlMkZaepmWE

Completely satisfied with the stunting and editing. I must confess that the hype set up a higher expectation but its still a absolute killer video. Every spot and execution is monster level, some more than others, and that camera work, colours and editing is what I need

edit: not really a fan of pure pcj stunts, and jason quitting editing

[Extrem.]

Dude, you're crazy!! this is a crazy solo that made my eyes pop out of my head!! These stunts are just mind blowing!! great job!!

[wviMis]

Seven minutes of video. I smoked two cigarettes. I've seen it for the first time now. Open and strong. Until the end. Surprise me step by step. There's a lot of places I've thought about. But I've never tried. Because I don't feel like I can do it. And you. It's all done. You pulled off a stunt that a lot of people think about but don't dare to do. High energy all the way. Crazy output. By the way. You really hit your stride. Reach the sky in one step. I hope you will continue to be active in the forum. Recent forums are more active. It's something I've always wanted to see. Hope goes on forever. I'm gonna go see it again.