The F1 movie was primarily shot on the Sony VENICE 2; however, there was a lot of in-car footage that was shot on a custom camera that was developed specifically for the movie.
The camera utilized the FX6/FX3 sensor in a custom Panavised package along with a 10mm F5.6 Voigtländer lens.
The custom camera was also using a similar drop-in ND filter system that can now be found in the VENICE Extension System Mini.
Recording was done to a rehoused version of the FR7’s recording module, straight to CFexpress cards. Material was recorded in DCI 4K (4096 x 2160) at 600 Mb/s VBR in XAVC-I. The team needed to hide the recording units in various places on the F1 cars.
All up, the production used 20 custom cameras. The whole concept behind the cameras was arguably based on taking the best parts of the FR7 and separating them.
The cameras were so small that they could even be attached to drivers’ helmets.
Multiple cameras were mounted on the cars to obtain various different angles. The cameras could be remotely panned to change the framing. A Preston motor was used to control focus, and another to pan the camera.
As the camera doesn’t utilize any in-body image stabilization, the team needed to make sure that the vibrations caused by an F1 car could be kept to a minimum.
There was originally speculation that the F1 movie utilized the VENICE Extension System Mini for all the in-car shots, but that was not the case. The VENICE Extension System Mini system was only used for some shots in the Abu Dhabi section, as it wasn’t available when the production first started filming.
The movie stars Brad Pitt, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia, and Javier Bardem, and it was directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
Above you can watch a BTS on the making of the film.
