PRODUCTION F1
CLIP THE APEX Filming relied on prototype cameras custom- built to fit inside race cars without interfering with performance
cinematographers, we always like late light, but that goes all out the window on a project like this. You just start with the races; some of it is high noon – which is not always the best – but I would choose that over some virtual reality room at perfect sunset all the time, as I prefer the reality over artificial. “Abu Dhabi was an interesting one, moving from an hour before sunset into twilight and then full night. It was a challenge both in terms of lighting and schedule. I wasn’t putting bounce cards out or chasing highlights – it was more about just getting light on the actors and hoping the camera had enough range. There were moments of perfect timing, like when Brad would turn a corner and a sliver of sunlight would shine through, for example.” NEED FOR SPEED Brad Pitt and Damson Idris did all their own driving for the film. “Brad was going over 180 miles per hour,” reveals Miranda. “He was great. In normal moviemaking, we have things called biscuit rigs. It’s like a self-driving trailer. And as you can imagine, no matter what kind of VA engine they put into it, it’s still going to be a quarter of the speed of what an actual car will do. I was watching other racing movies and I could see that the exteriors look fast, but when you get inside the cockpit, it all of a sudden feels slow. The thing about F1 cars is they have
IT WAS A CHALLENGE BOTH in terms of lighting and schedule ”
a great view of the outside world. It’s a very driver-exposed sport, meaning we couldn’t have cheated any speed tricks to make this movie. Brad and Damson trained for months, from regular cars to F2 cars. The shoot lasted a couple of years, and the actors’ strike delayed us. Because of that, we missed part of the racing season and had to wait for the following year to go back and reshoot Abu Dhabi, Monza and all those scenes with Brad.” Miranda and his team often found themselves shooting from the sidelines and the pits, which meant they weren’t able to do a lot of Steadicam work. “Any
of the walking, or when we’re with the crowd, we’re shooting on DJI Ronin 4Ds,” he continues. “We used those mostly for the whole opening of Daytona. We needed a small camera that could be steady, fluid and nimble – one that wouldn’t be too big. The whole point of this movie was to stay small. I really liked the problem-solving element of the whole job.” Miranda concludes: “I love working with Sony too; they were up for it. It took almost six months from conception to actually having a camera in my hand. That’s amazing speed to build a camera and an extraordinary feat.”
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