Non-Stop Camera Movement on ‘Need for Speed’

By JAY ANKENEY, DIGITAL VIDEO on March 12, 2014 1:58 pm

Aaron Paul stars as Tobey Marshall in 'Need for Speed.'


The first studio feature film shot with Canon’s EOS C500 camera, DreamWorks Pictures’ Need for Speed is sure to be a smash-and-crash car chase spectacular when it hits theaters on March 14, 2014. The movie is inspired by the Need for Speed video game series launched by Electronic Arts in 1994. Now controlled by Criterion Games, Need for Speed is heralded as one of the most successful video game franchises of all time.



In a return to the great car culture films of the 1960s and ’70s that tap into what makes the American myth of the open road so enticing, Need for Speed chronicles a near-impossible cross-country race against time—one that begins as a mission for revenge, but proves to be one of redemption.


Need for Speed the movie is the tale of a street racer, Tobey Marshall (played by Aaron Paul), who was framed for manslaughter by wealthy, arrogant ex-NASCAR driver Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper). Tobey is set on revenge, with plans to take Dino down in the high-stakes De Leon race, the pinnacle of underground racing. To get there in time, Tobey must run a high-octane, action-packed gauntlet, dodging cops coast-to-coast and dealing with fallout from the bounty Dino put on his car.

The movie is directed by Scott Waugh (Act of Valor).

The film’s cinematographer, Shane Hurlbut, ASC (Act of Valor, Terminator Salvation), says perhaps the most spectacular aspect of the film is that there’s very little CG work in it, apart from wire removal. When you see those million-dollar cars flip, spin, tumble and smash, it’s all real steel and glass with some pretty gutsy stunt drivers inside.

“We wanted it to look like Bullitt meets The Road Warrior,” Hurlbut says. “Scott Waugh, the director, wanted a visceral and progressive modern mood and tone mixed with a classic style of action.”

According to Waugh, “Need For Speed is accurate and authentic to car racing culture. My job as a director is, I am going to allow you that thrill and put you in that seat and let you drive 230 mph.”


Hurlbut’s camera package included ARRI Alexas, Canon EOS C500s, Canon EOS-1D Cs and more than a dozen GoPro HERO3s. The veteran cinematographer selected the cameras in order to maximize image quality and flexibility in a variety of challenging conditions. Photo by Derek Johnson/Hurlbut Visuals.

Need for Speed is the first studio feature on which the Canon EOS C500 served as the main shooting platform.

“We did a series of tests with nine cameras, including all the major digital cinema models and even a film camera, before production started,” Hurlbut explains. The team staged a blind test at Technicolor, where material was projected without identifying which footage came from which camera. “Scotty immediately picked out camera number six, and that was the Canon C500, so that became our A-, B- and C-cameras.”

Hurlbut estimated that he would need at least 40 digital cinema cameras to shoot the film he envisioned. In addition to the Canon C500s, his camera package included ARRI Alexas with Canon CN-E 14.5-60mm Cinema Zoom lenses (mounted on a Russian Arm gyro-stabilized mobile camera crane for car tracking shots) and several Canon EOS-1D Cs with Carl Zeiss 15mm lenses (deployed in helmet cams and squeezed between the engine cowling and the car’s body to get over-the-shoulder shots).

For camera mounts with an even smaller footprint, the production turned to an assortment of disposable GoPro HERO3s. The rugged miniature cameras all received firmware updates, giving them raw output and 13 stops of latitude. Hurlbut could tuck the HERO cameras almost anywhere in a shot without worrying about the footage when stunts got rough.


Director Scott Waugh with one of the film’s ARRI Alexa cameras. Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon.


“I knew I could put six HEROs into a flaming car, and when the car started flipping over, the output from all of them would be useable,” Hurlbut says. “We tested them for two weeks, driving cars over the cameras at 180 mph, and they gave us the footage we needed.”

With the GoPro firmware update, Hurlbut found he could intercut the GoPro footage with shots from the Canon and ARRI cameras.

The shoot lasted 10 months and wrapped last July. Hurlbut says one of the most challenging scenes was shot in Mendocino, Calif., where they shut down 12 to 15 miles of fog-shrouded coastal highways.

“I remember our first big stunt involved a McLaren getting taken out by a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento,” he says. “We had all our land cameras set and helo’s in the air, but Scotty and I wanted to mount two cameras on the car when it went for its flip-over. We put several GoPros on the McLaren, but what we really wanted was a couple of C500s on the rear quarter panel of the Elemento, looking forward at it. It was a radical stunt that sent the McLaren full-on airborne. The stunt man hit with such force that it embedded the C500 into a hillside.”

Director of photography Shane Hurlbut (left) and director Scott Waugh on the set of Need for Speed. Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon.

The goal of the production was to deliver a film that harkened back to the car culture films of the 1960s and ’70s, when authenticity brought a new level of intensity to the action. Seeing the quarter panel shot, Hurlbut and Waugh knew they were on the right track. These real-world images would have far greater impact than any computer-generated cars could provide.

How did the cinematographer monitor the 18 to 28 cameras regularly rolling on each stunt? Hurlbut credits James Allen Sheppard from Ocean Video for rigging up a laptop that could display four cameras at a time. “That gave us the four key camera shots that Scotty and I wanted to see,” Hurlbut explains, “and we had Benton Ward from RF Film do all the wireless HD for us, which meant their transponders and receivers became my eyes from even two miles away.”

When the crew got to Atlanta, Hurlbut’s team mounted RF antennas on a squad of minivans capable of traveling at 110 mph and keeping up with the movie’s featured muscle cars.

“I had all my monitors and waveform scopes inside as we roared down the road,” Hurlbut recalls. “It was a totally different style for making a movie. When you are just shooting actors against a greenscreen, they are not actually seeing the action as it unfolds. If the actor is really in the car, you get a lot of serendipity moments that could never happen in a studio.”


Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon.

Or another way to put it, as Hurlbut says, “It has all the can of whoop-ass that will take you out when Mother Nature bites down hard.”

Hurlbut worked with a crew that he describes as “trailblazers.” Led by Darin Necessary, the team of Derek Edwards, Marc Margulies, Chris Moseley, Michael Svitak and Jody Miller collectively built a whole new camera system around the Canon C500. They were supported by an electric and grip team led by Dan Cornwall and Alan Rawlins.

“There were no camera support systems in existence for the C500 that were suited for high-end feature film work,” he says. “We needed camera supports, power distribution, a way to turn the camera on and off remotely, and methods to energize all the monitors, follow focus and other doodads that are necessary to make a movie. Element Technica and Revolution Cinema Rentals created a power base [the Revolution C500 Power Base Riser] that was the exact size of the C500’s base and gave us, among other things, hot-swap capability, P-Tap power ports, Lemo connectors and four video feeds. It created a sort of cage around the whole camera that could hold electronic viewfinders and even our own remote on/off switch.”

“To immerse the audience in this intense, visceral energy of Need for Speed, putting cameras in harm’s way was a primary requirement,” Hurlbut says. “Using all these different cameras on an action production is going to give the viewers an experience that other car chase movies have not been able to achieve.”

- See more at: Non-Stop Camera Movement on 'Need for Speed' | c2meworld.com