NOT JUST A GAME

WHEN TALENT BEHIND THE COMPUTER SCREEN TRANSLATES TO ONE OF THE COOLEST COROLLAS WE’VE EVER SEEN

- Trevor Ryan

Landin Williams got his driver’s license more than a decade ago, during The Fast and Furious franchise’s explosive early years. He later got hooked on Initial D and spent his evenings goofing off, playing racing games with his friends. Years later, he picked up his first AE86 and went drifting. It all sounds like a familiar story of how many of us got into cars, right? Except Landin’s story is anything but ordinary.

Things really got started when the aspiring videographer produced a filmback in 2007 in which he recreated a classic Initial D battle sequence—the one where Takumi Fujiwara faces off against Keisuke Takahashi on the backroads of Gunma— using footage from the video game Forza. The folks at Microsoft admired the video and sent Landin an email, which ended up in his junk mail. Weeks later, and just one click away from clearing his spam folder, Landin just so happened to open the email. Initially, he couldn’t believe what he was reading, but fast-forward through the red tape and Landin landed a gig as an editor and cinematic director at Turn 10 Studios where he’d be putting together launch trailers, tutorials, and other videos for Forza. Wow!