Claudio Miranda entered “F1” with the same goal he had on “Top Gun: Maverick” – render action sequences as kinetic as he could and capture as much as possible on camera. Working with a big budget, high-quality equipment and prime access to the world of Formula 1, Miranda began planning the shoot about a year before filming actually began, taking time to study the cameras “and prepare for all our crazy ideas.”
“Our high bar is always ‘How can we get it on camera?'” Miranda said. “We’re not really interested in other synthetic approaches. The high bar is reality. Then the trick is figuring out how to do it. Joe says we can get the actors to drive these cars, and I say, ‘Yeah, how do they drive these cars 200 miles an hour?’ We couldn’t do that with traditional film equipment.”
The traditional equipment, such as biscuit rigs and drag dummies, would not be able to reach anywhere near the breakneck speed of real Formula 1 racing. So he thought back to his earlier collaboration with Kosinski, when they captured high-speed action and the crowd turned out in droves. “In ‘Top Gun,’ we found out how immersive the audience felt when they were in the jet,” Miranda said.
Over the course of the two-year “F1” shoot, the director of photography—who during the SAG-AFTRA strike detoured to take over the second unit’s photography as a way to move forward—was given access to various tracks and races. His team replaced Formula 1 equipment with their own special cameras to get the footage they needed. Apple made the crew a series of on-board cameras they could use on the cars’ wings during real races, while Sony developed its own series of disposable cameras that Miranda called “sensors on a stick.”
The DP said Formula 1 prefers “a very tight shutter” on the automatically mounted cameras it uses, as it allows viewers to identify the abundant advertising on each car. “Cinematically, I like it a little more open shutter that gives you motion blur and all that, so we found a compromise there.”
The “F1” crew adjusts their shots in short time slots allotted to them during actual Formula 1 events, allowing them to put their cars on the track during the warm-up laps. This often meant filming what they needed in 15-, 10-, and even three-minute chunks. It was a tough job, but it made the film feel all the more real, eliciting genuine audience reactions and evoking the true environment of an ‘F1’ race.
“We kept it small and played well,” Miranda said. “We weren’t trying to be ‘Big Hollywood’ in their world. We were trying to be a small version of Hollywood.”
This story first ran in the Below-the-Line issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
The post ‘F1’ DP Claudio Miranda breaks down the extreme lengths he went to for his ‘Crazy Ideas’ appeared first TheWrap.