''Big Rig'' is a 2007 documentary film by
Doug Pray about long-haul
truck drivers. The film consists of a series of interviews with different drivers, focusing on both their personal life stories and also the life and culture of truck drivers in the United States.
Production
The film was shot with a crew of three people: director and cameraman
Doug Pray, producer
Brad Blondheim
Brad may refer to:
* Brad (given name), a masculine given name
Places
* Brad, Hunedoara, a city in Hunedoara County, Romania
* Brad, a village in Berești-Bistrița Commune, Bacău County, Romania
* Brad, a village in Filipeni, Bacău, Romania
* ...
, and lighting, sound, and general production assistant
Jim Dziura.
[http://bigrigmovie.com/bigrig/INFO5-about.html, official production notes]
Filming took place over four different two-week roadtrips.
The crew of three did not schedule interviews with truckers: they would drive into a
truck stop
A truck stop, known as a service station in the United Kingdom, and a travel center by major chains in the United States, is a commercial facility which provides refueling, rest (parking), and often ready-made food and other services to motori ...
in their
RV and approach the truckers for interviews.
If the driver agreed, Pray would ride as the passenger and interview the driver for the day, while Blondheim followed in the RV. Most of the interviewees were very skeptical of the crew at first, and the crew was repeatedly thrown out of truck stops for soliciting interviews, which is typically not allowed.
Director Pray and producer Blondheim became interested in a trucker documentary after a series of road trips to various concerts during the filming of Pray's ''
Scratch''.
[Doug Pray, Brad Blondheim, audio commentary on ''Big Rig'' DVD] In 2001, Pray and Blondheim shot and edited a 10-minute film as a
proof of concept for the film's production process.
For the film's music, producer Blondheim was inspired by the roots music featured in the film ''
O Brother, Where Art Thou?''.
One of the music producers from ''
Scratch'' interested them in the music of
Buck 65
Richard Terfry (born March 4, 1972), better known by his stage name Buck 65, is a Canadian alternative hip hop artist. Underpinned by an extensive background in abstract hip hop, his more recent music has extensively incorporated blues, country, ...
. The final cut of the film uses several contributions from Buck 65; about one third of this was composed specifically for the film.
The film was shot on a Panasonic
Varicam
Varicam, originally stylized as VariCam, is a brand name associated with specialized Panasonic video cameras that are mostly used to imitate the look and feel of motion picture cameras. They have been used to record scenes for many feature films. ...
and edited by the director using
Final Cut Pro.
In July 2012 it was announced by several in the truck driving community and by a source inside Ocule Films that there will be a sequel to the film, No time frame for when filming or production will begin on the sequel.
Reception
The film was an official selection of the
Seattle International Film Festival and
AFI Fest, and was featured at a handful of other small film festivals.
[Source: DVD jacket] It was released on DVD in late 2008.
The film was and remains a big hit with the trucking community and truck drivers.
References
External links
*
Collection of press reactionsat the ''Big Rig'' official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Big Rig (Film)
2007 films
American documentary films
2007 documentary films
Trucker films
Films directed by Doug Pray
Documentary films about road transport
2000s English-language films
2000s American films