Major Project - Donington Track Day Shoot
Donington Track Day
Today was a long and eventful shoot experience. We began the day in the morning being picked up by Alex's father and heading towards Donington, since we had to be there for ~08:30 we left the house around 05:30 so that we would account for any traffic delays as we approached Donington. When we arrived myself and Alex went into the reception area so that he could sign in as a driver for today's track day, at which point we were informed that the driver's introductory briefing would be taking place shortly in the briefing room adjacent to reception.
There we met up with Sam McKee, Alex's racing partner and owner of the BMW 3 series that he'll be racing in on April 14th. Sam's BMW was actually a standard road car that he's converted into a race car, making his situation fairly unique, given that he drives his car to every event. It was good to get to know Sam over the course of the day and both myself and George had several positive interactions with him. The briefings prior to track days are mandatory and essentially just establish the ground rules for the day, as well as what each colour flag corresponds to and what a driver should be expected to do upon seeing a particular flag. After the briefing we headed to the garage to check out the car for the first time and get to grips with the events of the day.
Having been to Donington Park 2 weeks ago, we knew exactly where we were going to position our operators. On this shoot we had myself operating the Sony AX53, George on my own FZ330 and Nick (Alex's Dad) on the Lumix G7, all of which were mounted to tripods for additional stability when out track-side. Any pitlane-based material was recorded by me with the Sony on a shoulder-mount, I then switched the shoulder-mount out for a tripod after lunch, at which point I went trackside for the latter half of the day. The first half of the day was spent collecting footage of Alex and Sam interacting in and outside of the car, as well as actuality of the garage and Donington Park in general. There were several points in the pitlane area that we were already aware of would make good shots based on our scouting - these included areas such as the grandstands facing the far-end of the straight as you come into the pitlane, the pitwall straight itself and the exit to the pitlane.
We wanted to maximise the coverage we got therefore whenever Sam/Alex were out on track I would spend increments of time shooting from different locations in the pitlane. I was sure to capture at least 3 takes of the same shot everywhere I went to ensure that I had something usable when it came to editing this sequence over the course of the next week. We'd much rather overshoot than undershoot in all cases. Regardless of the material I was able to get in the moment, we had a shot-list to adhere to throughout the day. There were some key shots that were particularly crucial for us to get, e.g. the car leaving the garage/pitlane, the car entering the pitlane from the grandstand area, Alex getting in/out of the car, putting his equipment on etc, as well as a PTC/Interview with both Alex, Sam and a debrief with them both towards the end of the sequence. These PTC's were recorded using a clip-mic connected to an iPhone and consisted of asking Sam how Alex is doing out there during the time Alex got out on track alone, Alex and Sam talking to each-other about how the day went after the fact and Alex on his own talking to the camera about what he's taken away from the day's experience.
We were fortunate enough to be able to acquire all of the footage that we wanted to capture during this shoot, including a large amount of great looking track-side footage from our track-side operators, myself included. As the sun began to set we started shooting the final sequences for the day, this included Alex waving goodbye, walking towards the car and un-suiting, as well as the final PTC and shot of us driving away. The sunset at this time was incredible and really helped set the scene for this last section of the sequence, and put a wonderful cherry on top of the day as a whole.
Today was a long and eventful shoot experience. We began the day in the morning being picked up by Alex's father and heading towards Donington, since we had to be there for ~08:30 we left the house around 05:30 so that we would account for any traffic delays as we approached Donington. When we arrived myself and Alex went into the reception area so that he could sign in as a driver for today's track day, at which point we were informed that the driver's introductory briefing would be taking place shortly in the briefing room adjacent to reception.
There we met up with Sam McKee, Alex's racing partner and owner of the BMW 3 series that he'll be racing in on April 14th. Sam's BMW was actually a standard road car that he's converted into a race car, making his situation fairly unique, given that he drives his car to every event. It was good to get to know Sam over the course of the day and both myself and George had several positive interactions with him. The briefings prior to track days are mandatory and essentially just establish the ground rules for the day, as well as what each colour flag corresponds to and what a driver should be expected to do upon seeing a particular flag. After the briefing we headed to the garage to check out the car for the first time and get to grips with the events of the day.
Having been to Donington Park 2 weeks ago, we knew exactly where we were going to position our operators. On this shoot we had myself operating the Sony AX53, George on my own FZ330 and Nick (Alex's Dad) on the Lumix G7, all of which were mounted to tripods for additional stability when out track-side. Any pitlane-based material was recorded by me with the Sony on a shoulder-mount, I then switched the shoulder-mount out for a tripod after lunch, at which point I went trackside for the latter half of the day. The first half of the day was spent collecting footage of Alex and Sam interacting in and outside of the car, as well as actuality of the garage and Donington Park in general. There were several points in the pitlane area that we were already aware of would make good shots based on our scouting - these included areas such as the grandstands facing the far-end of the straight as you come into the pitlane, the pitwall straight itself and the exit to the pitlane.
We wanted to maximise the coverage we got therefore whenever Sam/Alex were out on track I would spend increments of time shooting from different locations in the pitlane. I was sure to capture at least 3 takes of the same shot everywhere I went to ensure that I had something usable when it came to editing this sequence over the course of the next week. We'd much rather overshoot than undershoot in all cases. Regardless of the material I was able to get in the moment, we had a shot-list to adhere to throughout the day. There were some key shots that were particularly crucial for us to get, e.g. the car leaving the garage/pitlane, the car entering the pitlane from the grandstand area, Alex getting in/out of the car, putting his equipment on etc, as well as a PTC/Interview with both Alex, Sam and a debrief with them both towards the end of the sequence. These PTC's were recorded using a clip-mic connected to an iPhone and consisted of asking Sam how Alex is doing out there during the time Alex got out on track alone, Alex and Sam talking to each-other about how the day went after the fact and Alex on his own talking to the camera about what he's taken away from the day's experience.
We were fortunate enough to be able to acquire all of the footage that we wanted to capture during this shoot, including a large amount of great looking track-side footage from our track-side operators, myself included. As the sun began to set we started shooting the final sequences for the day, this included Alex waving goodbye, walking towards the car and un-suiting, as well as the final PTC and shot of us driving away. The sunset at this time was incredible and really helped set the scene for this last section of the sequence, and put a wonderful cherry on top of the day as a whole.
Comments
Post a Comment