Let's make a racing car commerical without an actual racing car!
Here's a great example of how a quick-thinking creative director can turn a rather blase idea into something fun to watch. The SPX Corporation was auctioning off a Ford Mustang FR500S with proceeds going to the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Originally, I was to fly to one of the locations that was displaying the car to shoot whatever footage I could get. When timing logistics spoiled that opportunity, Creative Director Jamie Ambler master-minded the concept of having several kids face the camera and growl out their sound effects of a racing car.
Sell an illusion with framing and lighting
We shot on the Sony EX3. (As a side note, we were going to shoot with my Panasonic HDX900, recording to a Firestore Drive; but at one point, I inadvertently plugged the firewire cable in upside-down into the camera and fried the port's fuse. Ouch. $150 lesson learned).Â
Lighting was pretty straightforward. Two 2k Zip lights (A) flanked the talent, one at full intensity, the other at half. A spotted Baby 1k fresnel for a back light. And the occasional light flashes across the talent's faces was achieved by spinning a 2k Junior (B) so that it first kicked the talent's face, then reflected off the front shiny board for a quick Fill flash, and then hit the 2nd shiny board for another kick on the face.Â
To further add to the sense of speed, a fan blew at the kids from below camera-right, while I also shook the camera and tripod during most of the takes. Last thing that helped a little was to shoot at shutter speed of 1/500.Â
Final thoughts
All in all, I think it turned out great, particularly for being so low budget. If I could do anything differently, I think shooting with a 1/1000 shutter speed would have worked even better, and a different method of shaking the camera to create even more "road-shake" also would have added to the sense of speed.Â
Here's the finished spot:Â
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