Camera Car Systems: Car Stunts
Greetings, film fanatics and gearheads! Shane Hurlbut, ASC, here. Buckle up, because I’m taking you behind the wheel of one of the most exhilarating car stunts I’ve ever captured on film. We’re diving deep into the world of high-octane action in Scott Waugh’s adrenaline-pumping film, Need for Speed.
Remember that heart-stopping sequence where Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson) is T-boned and flipped in the air by Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) where his Koenigsegg flies off the bridge to a fiery fate?
Yeah, that wasn’t your average green screen magic. We pushed the boundaries of filmmaking to deliver raw, in-your-face action, and today, I’m pulling back the curtain to reveal how we brought it to life.
We faced many challenges — complex camera placement, integrating real-world effects and collaborating with a team of fearless stunt drivers. But through it all, the goal remained the same: capture the visceral thrill of the chase and the raw power of these incredible machines.
So, gear up and get ready to explore the filmmaking process behind the mayhem. We’ll be discussing the specific camera setups, the ingenious rigging techniques, and the split-second decisions that made this stunt sequence a reality. Let’s get rolling!
PRACTICAL CAR EFFECTS OVER CGI
By the time we began on Need for Speed, Fast & Furious had become a blockbuster franchise, but none of it involved actual driving. They were all in green screen stages and movers. So, it looks like they have harmonic vibration and they’re driving down the road without actually driving.
When Scotty and I conceived the whole concept of Need for Speed, we decided to send our actors to driving schools. Scotty wanted it to feel like you, as the audience members, were inside the race car and driving. So, it involved a lot of POV and helmet cams. You could see the hands on the steering wheel and pan over and see other cars. So, we wanted it to be as immersive and intimate of an experience as possible.
We wanted to do it for real. We didn’t want any kind of CGI. And there’s really no CGI done in the movie other than Little Pete on stage for the barbecue spit rig, as we call it. We put the Koenigsegg in a rotator, locked it in place, and rotated it around. Then, we put him in a white environment because it was a sunny day when we shot it.
I had a sun source and just blown-out white silks that hung in a 360-degree arrangement. So, that’s what you see when he’s spinning, and that’s truly the only CGI involved.
Ultimately, however, we wanted real stunts, real stunt performers, not done with CGI or in any kind of green screen stage environment.
CAR MOUNTS FOR CAMERA CAR SYSTEMS
With our arm car work, we didn’t want this movie to feel like anything you ever saw before. The Koenigseggs are one of the fastest supercars in the world. So, we wanted the audience to feel wowed by this just like Little Pete and Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul).
We wanted you to feel like they got into this racecar and they’ve been transported to a completely different time in their lives. So, with our arm car work, we wanted to double our speeds.
If we usually go 60-70 mph, we were bridging 100 mph with the arm car; and we were really putting the camera low to the ground. So, your point of view felt the asphalt and the yellow and white lines; we wanted you to feel like you were eating the road.
We also put camera mounts, locking them on rear tires, bumpers, and side windows to immerse the audience. With the arm car work, we also wanted to embed you with all these unique hard mounts on the cars as well as GoPros that you had really never seen in any movie before.
GOPRO MODIFICATIONS
This was 2013 and the GoPro HERO3 had just come out. I contacted GoPro and asked them to design a hack for me so I could control the shutter speeds, the ISO, and the color temp. That was a game-changer.
Now, you can control all of those functions. But back in 2013, everything was auto. You couldn’t change anything other than toggle from a wide to super-wide.
Luckily, they were able to hack the GoPros. We had 20 GoPros that we deployed at all times. There would be 10-12 GoPros on a car that we would crash. When we did the stunts, we didn’t do super big, crazy rigs, because we had to paint them out.
We wanted to be able to have our VFX artists do an easy paint out so we didn’t have five-eighths rods and all the normal stuff that goes with GoPro rigging. Instead, we turned to the prosumer GoPro suction cups.
BEST LOCATIONS FOR CAMERA CAR SYSTEMS
The other thing with our arm car work is we wanted to be able to set the camera up high and find parallel roads.
We ended up finding beautiful parallel roads on a highway outside of Atlanta where we were able to shut down three miles. This was hugely beneficial for us.
There’s also a great transition when they head toward the bridge and Little Pete and Tobey are in the lead and they’re going to win the race. So, as they blow by us, we boom up and reveal the bridge in the deep background.
CAMERAS & LENSES
We put our 14.5mm to 60mm Canon Zoom lens on full wide and pushed it right up into the grilles of the Koenigseggs. So, you felt its power and intensity.
Meanwhile, the camera car that operated with this stunt was rigged with 38 different cameras. These included 11 Canon C500s, eight Canon DCS1s (with two inside the cars flipping and pushing), 10 GoPros mounted onto the red car and white car, along with Arri Alexas and C500s long lensed and in profile.
Then, on top of all that, the arm car moved with the red car that pushed the white car into the ramp, so when it landed and burst into flames, we could track profile along the bridge.
THE BIG FLIPPING CAR STUNT
Believe it or not, we only had one real Koenigsegg when filming our inserts. All the rest of the cars were Shelby frames with 500 horsepower Cadillac engines. Then, we went to Go Studios, and they 3D printed the supercar shells and molded them onto the frames.
When we flipped Little Pete’s car over, it was actually a dummy. So, there was no engine; just the fiberglass 3D model print that Go Studios had constructed. We just added weight so it felt and moved like a real car.
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Then, we pushed the fake car with a real car onto a ramp at 60+ mph. When it hit both of these dual ramps, it was supposed to fly around 100 feet and then land and crash, bursting into flames.
Well, when working with stunts, things sometimes take a serendipitous turn. I had laid out six Canon DCS1 and steel crash camera housings around the mark. He told me where he would land, and I placed three cameras in front of the mark and three behind it.
The stuntman hit that ramp so hot — I think he was 25 miles over what he had done in the test. When he was in mid-flight, he flew over our first crash-camera housing, and when he landed, he skipped over all six of our crash-camera housings. Initially, we wanted that wonderful impact where you see the car slam that camera. However, it landed in front of them and then skipped over the top, which was actually even cooler.
ARM CAR PLACEMENT
The one thing that many people wonder when filming a big stunt is where to place the camera car. If you watch a Michael Bay film, he’s using two and three different arm cars and helicopters simultaneously as he blows things up. So, we incorporated a lot of that ‘Michael Bay spirit’ into this stunt.
When he pushed the red Koenigsegg into the white one and spun it around into a T, with how fast they were going, the momentum underneath flipped it up into the air.
Action Rooted In The Real-World
This stunt was rooted in the real world and something we had seen in several videos of accidents in Formula One racing. It wasn’t an impossible physics-defying stunt like you would see in Fast & Furious. Rather, our stunt was embedded in reality and then we would take it up by one or two notches.
Now, the arm car stays with the action the entire time. It is sunk in profile with Little Pete’s car as it’s pushed into the ramp and flies into the air. The arm car tracks with it flying into the air and hitting the ground as it spins and bursts into flames.
The stunt took place on a bridge with four lanes. So, the arm car was in Lane 1 and Little Pete’s car was in Lane 3. That gave us the ability to shoot the long lens shot with the two cars. The arm car was just out of frame, blasting down the camera right side.
In the Koenigsegg race, we have a lot of POV shots so you really feel the asphalt and the white and yellow lines. Another big arm car movement was when Tobey (Aaron Paul) dips into oncoming traffic. We shot POV, putting the audience in the action, as the oncoming vehicles veered away from us. The helmet cam allows you to see his hands and the steering wheel.
IN-CAMERA EFFECTS
In this sequence, we also used the shaker box to add the extra intensity to the shot. I’m in the car shaking it. For more on shaker boxes, tune into the Filmotechnic Camera Car Masterclass!
Even when we’re capturing beautiful crane shots, like the one where they blow by us and then we fly up in the air, I shake the box really quickly as they zoom past and then stop. So, it feels like the cars are traveling at super speeds.
Doing it in-camera is so powerful because you really feel the more organic nature of the shaky cam. Sure, you can add that effect in post-production, and mimic it very well, but this was something again, Scotty and I wanted to capture in-camera to create that authentic feel we love.
THE BOTTOM LINE: CAMERA CAR SYSTEMS
One of the reasons we really love the arm cars designed by Filmotechnic is that they can do a full 360 in four and a half seconds. Think how quickly their arm car must move to be in the front of the car and swing to the left to reveal Little Pete in the background and swing back. There’s really no other camera car that puts you in the action like Filmotechnic.
Our whole concept was to put you, the viewer, in the driver’s seat and fill you with speed that you never experienced before. Just like on Act of Valor when we were using live fire, which had not been done since 1921, we then put you inside the arm car, and a Raptor, and a Porsche with a post and a souped-up slider. Not to mention, a 900 horsepower Mustang that we literally built from scratch.
I’ve done a lot of sports films in my day. You’re going to see seven baseball games, nine drum battles, 12 games of golf, or 12 basketball games. As an audience over those 12 games, how can we give you a different perspective? How can we go inside the mind of the character? Then, that should be the experience of what the camera and the lensing feel like.
In conclusion, our whole mission with this film was to put you inside the action and travel at speeds that no one had really ever seen before in movies and do it for real. And relying on camera car systems made it all possible.
ABOUT SHANE HURLBUT, ASC
Shane Hurlbut, ASC is not only a director of photography, he’s an innovator who trailblazes new technology and finds creative ways to systematize it into the filmmaking process.
Hurlbut is one of the forefathers of the digital revolution and the first to turn affordable cameras into movie-making powerhouses!
More recently, he reimagined pre-production with the Insta360 camera during the tech and location scout. Not only was it an essential tool during the pandemic, but it streamlines collaboration and saves the production money. This is an absolute MUST for directors of photography.
Learn more about Virtual Scouting & Prep with a 360 Degree Camera!
FILMOTECHNIC CAMERA CAR MASTERCLASS
The Filmotechnic Camera Car masterclass takes you inside the arm car like never before, unpacking workflows from the perspective of the DP, 1st AC, Camera Operator, and U-CRANE Arm Operator. Then, they demonstrate two common stunts with the Porsche Cayenne Turbo — but they can also be applied to any high or low-budget project.
The Filmotechnic Camera Car masterclass is for filmmakers of all levels as it demystifies all the key insights and nuances of mobile cinematography. At the end, Shane Hurlbut, ASC showcases a DIY camera car rig that they put together using a Filmmakers Academy member’s vehicle!
Go inside the arm car today and master high-speed cinematography!
