Dean Papadeas

About me:

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The ground shakes. Nitro noise cacks. Adrenaline-inducing action erupts on the starting line. Fuelers burn-down each other with dry-hop bursts that literally make you jump. Header-flames surge as dragsters leave the line like a bomb went off.

Dean Papadeas experienced all of this drama, energy and excitement up close as Englishtown Raceway Park’s official cameraman (1979-94). The entertainment value of drag racing was pure rock & roll to him and a natural subject for home video.

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In 1980, Papadeas formed Main Event Entertainment to produce energized drag-racing fare for the burgeoning new Home Video market. There were no parameters or restrictions with videos. You were free to blast the sound of nitro dragsters and stick the lens where it never went before. Television standards and practices would never allow such aesthetics in place of straight-up journalism.

The results of this new experimentation with camera and sound produced highly-charged shows that pulled viewers into the action. In 1986, the Main Event groove debuted in the first ever drag racing video, representatively entitled: The FUNNY CAR Experience.

MainEventVideos.com - The Leader and Originator in Professional Motorsports Video

The creation of unique “swoopy” shots, (frenetic, unorthodox, in-your-face camerawork far removed from traditional stationary shoulder-shooting), would became his signature trademark. Like a human steadicam, Dean shot from the hip, bobbing and weaving his lens around moving cars and getting as close to drivers as possible.

It was 1988’s NITRO WARRIORS, The Super Bowl of Drag Racing, shot and shown in a totally new TV presentation, that became the model that literally changed the look of drag racing on TV. It went on to earn numerous awards and rave reviews, even from PEOPLE Magazine.

Front End Dragsters Starring Big Daddy Don Garlits & Kenny Youngblood

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Dean’s arsenal of innovative, cinema-verité angles have influenced a generation of cameramen.

Three prominent Drag racing magazine editors wrote:

“Twenty-some years ago Dean Papadeas took his video camera to a drag race and wound up changing the look of drag racing video presentation. The "Swoopy Shot" of running alongside and around fuel cars, shooting from the hip, and in the driver’s face style of camerawork that he started using during the 1980s with Main Event Videos have since become standard in motorsports coverage." --Chris Martin, Senior Editor, DragRacingOnLine

“The pioneer of drag racing video ingenuity. Several years ago, he was using camera angles, exciting close-ups, and editing techniques that have been copied ever since." —Randy Fish, Editor, Drag Racer

MainEventVideos.com - The Leader and Originator in Professional Motorsports Video

"Papadeas taught all the others how to videotape drag racing in its own element and present it in such a manner that it grabs the viewer by the ears and eyes and turns ‘em every which way but loose.” —Don Prieto, Senior Editor, DRAG RACER

The camerawork, the sound, the fist-tight editing and the music all combine to make Main Event Videos entertaining, watchable over and over, and channel-changer resistant!

MainEventVideos.com - The Leader and Originator in Professional Motorsports Video

MainEventVideos.com - The Leader and Originator in Professional Motorsports Video

MainEventVideos.com - The Leader and Originator in Professional Motorsports Video