I had brought camera plans which I used for the previous test days at Brands Hatch so I had a reference of which locations to film if there was an opportunity. I was sharing the car with Steven, who lent his garage to us for the Diary Room as well as owned the Formula Ford that I test about a month before. We would only be running the car in the afternoon to save costs. This was fine with me as I knew the budget was tight for the project as well as allowing me to focus on planning for the upcoming sequences during the morning.
After arriving and setting up the cameras in the car, one behind the driver and one in front looking towards me, I was ready to get out on track after some advice from Steven which really helped. The importance of this trackday for myself cannot be understated. This would be the first time I was able to actually test the limits of a rear wheel drive car [I had only ever driven front wheel drive bar the Formula Ford, but that was at a media day so I was not able to push the car]. Learning rear wheel drive was important because the car I would be racing uses that configuration and any time in a similar car would vastly help me.
As we did not have camera operators out on track it was hard to capture great b-roll from outside looking at the car, however, I used my initiative and filmed Steven while he was out on track as he did a few laps. I had planned for us to share the car 50/50 so I would be able to obtain a lot of footage of Steven on track, as we both have the same helmet and suit colour the viewer would not have noticed a difference. However, Steven wanted me to have as much time in the car as possible, which was great from the perspective of learning the car, but less so in terms of getting the shots we maybe needed.
I was really stretched today and while I got enough footage to be used for this small segment, I don’t think we maximised this opportunity as even one camera operator changing positions around the track would have enabled us to get some great coverage of this day. We did no pieces to camera or actuality as I did not have anyone there to do that, but luckily we only need a few clips for the 20-minute version for the university.
I was very happy with the shots I obtained. My rudimentary camera setup within the car enabled me to capture two great onboard shots and while it took time to set these up, it was well worth it as both of the shots give the viewer a unique perspective of what it is like to be out on track. As Steven only did a handful of laps on track, I was only able to get a few shots of the car on track which was a little disappointing. Nonetheless there are clips which are good enough to be used in a quick montage, especially those of the car in the garage which will be able to give the viewer the perspective of the car that I’m driving. I have pointed this out to Cailan who will be editing this sequence.
Overall I was a bit disappointed with today in terms of the documentary as I feel we could have done a lot better to organise a crew member to be available to film around the track. I did still manage to obtain a number of shots which will ensure this will be featured in the montage. Even though this was a last minute film shoot I regret not taking the initiative to ask around the university and get someone to help film. It is only a tiny part of this documentary but I wanted to get as much footage as possible to ensure each scene is spectacular. I am happy with what I personally filmed and I still think it will look great in a montage. I know that personally, I need to be more proactive if the rest of the team cannot make it and we need camera crew. It’s possibly not the job you should be doing as a director but I regret not doing so.
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