academy | Pipe dream
Roar power It was Huffman's love of tinkering with fast cars that helped him build up his exhaust business Valvetronic Huffman consequently set his media team the objective of creating the best videos to show why Valvetronic’s products are special. His 333,000 individual followers on his personal Instagram page @heyafb and 559,000 on @valvetronic prove his content is hitting the mark. “There are a lot of people that sell exhaust systems,” he says, “but nobody does media and content creation like we do. You can create the most badass, craziest exhaust in the world. If no one knows about you, they can’t buy.” For Rush, however, communicating an exhaust isn’t simply pointing a camera at the back of a car and recording some revs. “It’s not only information, but also showcasing the experience,” he says. “It’s the way the car and exhaust work together and the way it makes you feel.” That emotional response is crucial. The films don’t just show a piece of stainless steel and explain its engineering. They try to let the viewer imagine owning the car. unusual audio problems. An exhaust can generate enormous sound pressure levels, while wind, tyre noise and changing distance from the microphone make clean recording difficult. More fundamentally, there isn’t one definitive place from which a car should be heard. The product is the sound Recording cars presents some
Rush deliberately captures different perspectives. For exterior sequences, his preferred approach is a Sennheiser MKE 600 XLR shotgun microphone mounted with substantial wind protection, used with the team’s Sony cameras – a mix of FX3s and A7 IVs. Rather than attaching the microphone close to the exhaust itself, Rush positions the recording set-up away from the vehicle and has the car drive past it, because that’s how a person would actually hear the car. “If we had a mic on the back of the car, that doesn’t really communicate exactly how others are going to hear your exhaust,” he explains. “We like using a shotgun mic on the camera itself. When we’re driving by the camera, it’s as if you were hearing the car from the outside.” The team then provides the other side of the experience. A separate section puts the audience inside the car, effectively in the passenger seat. The viewer hears acceleration through the gears, downshifts and, importantly, the difference between
the exhaust valves being open and closed. This is often recorded on a more portable Rode Videomic Pro+, sometimes with a Rode Wireless Go kit, which can be used with a lav mic for dialogue or capturing exhaust noise from a more distant location. “We go through all the different sound characteristics outside and inside the car too,” says Rush. It’s a lesson for filmmakers working with any product where sound matters: don’t simply record the cleanest possible sound; record the sound from the perspective your audience actually wants to experience. A repeatable formula Despite the spontaneous appearance of much of the company’s social output, its core product films follow a surprisingly disciplined formula. For advertising and paid short-form campaigns, the team may storyboard and hold planning meetings. The longer YouTube product films are based on a format developed several years ago and refined through repetition.
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November/December 2026
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