8. Filming Metal

July 15th, 2021. Cold Start production blog post written by Richard Townsley

Welcome back to COLD START: The Road to Production. “Filming Metal” is the industry-standard term used by cinematographers for when a shoot takes place with a driving picture car. In the case of Cold Start, we had two options: one, film the racing scenes on green screen and composite in the driving footage outside of the windows of the car, or two, film the racing scenes practically. The choice was obvious for us. Practically filming the racecar, filming metal, will give us a much wider range of shots and will save on time in post-production.

Our final shooting day took place in Northern California, at the Ukiah Speedway. By far, this was the most entertaining day. We were met with some minor difficulties: fast-moving wind that blew our overhead tent down and extremely high heat temperatures- the day was so hot that a wildfire broke out a few miles out from the speedway. Luckily, the smoke didn’t interfere with the shoot. That being said, overall, the shoot went extremely well. We got 45 shots recorded by the end of the day. This brings the total shot count to 125. The racing scene was a lot of fun to use. We rented a Matthews Car Mount FREEDOM Mounting System, a suction cup mount that can be attached almost anywhere on the car as long as three solid points of contact can be made. The mount can hold 80 pounds of camera gear and easily withstood the 60 MPH that we drove at for many shots.

I am looking forward to releasing more information on the race car. In mid-December, the make and model of the cars will be revealed on our Instagram and an in-depth picture car blog post will be made detailing each car with several behind-the-scenes photos both from the race track and the garage set. Be sure to follow our Instagram for to join in on the reveal of Cold Start’s picture cars!