GRAN TURISMO PRODUCTION
W hen cinematographer Jacques Jouffret – of The Purge and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan fame – discovered racing video game Gran Turismo (GT), he saw an opportunity to create something uniquely exciting, yet accessible. “The director Neill Blomkamp wanted real authenticity,” he explains. “He wanted his audiences to feel the thrill of actually being at an auto-racing event.” This ambition is deftly accomplished in the feature film adaptation of the best-selling game – Jouffret claims it ‘bursts right off the screen!’ – and promises to blow audiences away with racing scenes like they have never seen them before.
With over 30 years in the game and 40 feature and TV credits to his name, Jouffret is no novice. “I’ve worked on adaptations in the past – like Bloodshot , which came from a comic book – so I knew the parameters,” he comments. “However, with Gran Turismo , I felt this was strangely different, yet an exciting challenge to tackle.” The DOP was up to the task of delving into this high-octane mix of hardcore racing laced with emotional drama – but he came to the project by chance. “I was supposed to work with Neill on another project that fell through,” he explains. “But one of the producers knew me from a past project and mentioned my name. I met Neill and thought we
could work well together – then, as luck would have it, around three weeks later I got the call to work on Gran Turismo .” Forging an electric synergy, the filmmakers were on the same page from the get-go. “We were so in sync – and we had the same work ethic,” Jouffret enthuses. “Neill wanted someone who could handle multiple cameras, be proactive and give a stylised documentary look.” In order to achieve this ambitious objective, they had to perfectly capture the tone and feeling of being in a race car – and what better way to get some experience than by playing the video game? “Neill wanted us to feel the way it was exactly, all the bumps, turns –
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