The Slow Mo Guys

"Gav and Dan take on the world in Slow Motion! We shoot all of our videos in HD using high-speed cinema cameras and we highly recommend you watch them that way if you can!"

- Official website. The Slow Mo Guys is a Streamy Award-winning science and technology entertainment YouTube channel web series created, presented and run by Gavin Free and his friend Dan Gruchy, starring themselves and produced by Rooster Teeth Productions where they film many different things in Slow Motion.

It has been described as the biggest channel for slow motion videos on YouTube.

The series consists of a wide variety of things filmed in extreme slow motion using a range of Vision Research Phantom high-speed cameras, capable of shooting over 343,000 frames per second. The series premiered on 3 November 2010. As of September 2016, their YouTube channel has over 9 million subscribers and over one billion video views.

A second channel The Slow Mo Guys 2, was created on February 23, 2015 with its first video airing March 27, 2016. The side channel is for any material that does not constitute as a Slow Mo Guys episode, instead revolving around the shenanigans of Gavin and Daniel.

Overview and History
The channel was initially created in order for Gavin to earn a Visa to move to the United States to work for Rooster Teeth.

Their videos were frequently featured on the Rooster Teeth website before the show was acquired by Rooster Teeth. They usually record multiple episodes at once due to their limited time for when they can meet due to living on separate continents.

In 2007, Gavin Free joined Green Door Films, the first production house in Europe to utilize Phantom digital high-speed cameras as a source of slow motion, working as a Data Technician and Camera Operator. He began working on adverts, music videos, and films such as Hot Fuzz. In 2008, he was hired to direct the seventh season of the Rooster Teeth machinima series Red vs. Blue. Afterwards, he had decided to make a move to Austin, Texas and work full-time for Rooster Teeth. He then created The Slow Mo Guys along with friend Daniel Gruchy in order to get a work visa.

Free and Gruchy met while working in a Waitrose in their home county of Oxfordshire.[9] The Slow Mo Guys, featuring slow motion footage of various pranks and stunts of the pair, has garnered millions of views since it launched in 2010. According to Free, the name partially comes from a comment Richard Hammond made on the set of Top Gear.

"[Richard] Hammond was the first person to ever refer to me as a "slow mo guy" because he knew there was a high-speed camera on the shoot that we were doing, which was him going around in a Formula 1 car. And he hopped over the wall as we were setting up the Phantom... he said, "oh you must be the slow mo guys," and I thought that sounds pretty good."

In April 2011, the channel was voted the winner of YouTube's On The Rise program, which highlights up-and-coming YouTube partners on the homepage. In September 2012, their episode involving crushing watermelons was featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

On 20 February 2013, Free confirmed that the series had been picked up by Rooster Teeth and that further episodes of the series would be released on Rooster Teeth's website, as well as the series' existing YouTube channel. A best of compilation was released by Rooster Teeth Productions for home video on 10 September 2013.

In January 2014, in collaboration with GE Global Research, the R&D division of General Electric, they released a video showcasing the company's latest innovations, including superhydrophobic surfaces and how magnetic nanoparticles behave like liquid magnets. Two additional videos featuring them demonstrating MEMS and "cold spray" 3D painting technology were also released on the official GE YouTube channel.

Gruchy is currently an explosives expert in the British Army and has one more year of service before he plans to join Free in Texas to work at Rooster teeth full time.

The series has been featured as part of YouTube's "Rewind" year-in-review video in 2013, 2014, and 2015.

The series was nominated for a Webby Award in Best Web Personality/Host (Online Film & Video) in 2016. At the 2016 Streamy Awards, the series won in the Cinematography category.

Equipment
Their equipment is very expensive, capable of recording and playing back many times slower, without looking excessively choppy. Their camera, the Phantom Flex, is capable of playback in Full HD (1920 X 1080p) video.

The cameras used by the Slow Mo Guys are all produced by Vision Research Phantom. The first few videos were produced using a Phantom HD Gold high speed camera. The majority of the Slow Mo Guys videos were produced using a Phantom Flex camera, capable of filming 2500 frames per second (fps) at 1080p video resolution, 5000 fps at 720p, and 10000 fps at 480p. Finally, a Phantom V1610 was used to produce the fastest videos in the series, filming 18000 fps at 720p and even higher speeds at lower resolutions. The 'slow motion' effect arises when events filmed at such high frame-rates are played back at conventional playback speeds (usually 25 or 30 fps). For example, a video filmed at 2500 fps and played back at 25 fps lasts 100 times longer than the original event, and is hence perceived as 100 times slower. Lately they have acquired a new camera called the Phantom V2511 which is capable of shooting 30,000 fps at 720p resolution and 1,000,000 FPS at a 128x32 resolution.

Trivia
First episode date: November 3, 2010

Number of episodes: 135+

Created by: Gavin Free and Daniel Gruchy

Language: British English

Genres: Comedy, Science and technology, entertainment

Original Network Distributors: Fullscreen (2013-present); Rooster Teeth (February 20, 2013-present); YouTube (October 15, 2010-February 20, 2013); Green Door Films (2006-2010)

Picture format: 1080p                                                                                                                                                                    4K

Audio format: 126 kbps AAC;                                                                                                                                                  155-165 kbps Opus WebM

First shown in: Thame, England, United Kingdom

Original release: November 3, 2010