Motorsport in Motion
 

In May of 2011, thanks to the fantastic people at Turner Motorsport, I had the opportunity to get up close and personal and video document the team at the Grand-AM/Rolex Memorial Day Classic at Lime Rock Park.

The morning of the event it poured like no other, and I wasn't even sure if I even wanted to film for the sake of my gear. Luckily enough, a few hours later the sun broke through and lasted for the rest of the day, making shooting must more entertaining and rewarding. Because of this split in weather, during editing, I really wanted to cover both aspects of the day. WIth this, you see the rainy, dismal, slow-motion first half, with the up-paced, quick cutting second half. Lastly, my main idea for the video was to capture what actually goes on behind the scenes at a racing event, while still covering a portion of the racing, all in a dramatic way.

Most of the video was filmed with a Canon XF100 while the in-car video was taken with a ContourHD 1080. Edited in FCPX with some very minor color correction.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I had filming and editing it together. Please do not hesitate to ask questions, give suggestions, etc!

Re: Motorsport in Motion
 

I've filmed a lot of motorsports and overall I thought it was decent, but here are my suggestions:

- I didn't like cutting to black during the in-car portion, just looked like your camera was failing.
- The slow-mo portion was too much of the video's overall runtime
- There wasn't a solid beginning/middle/end to the video. The most successful motorsport videos are the ones that succeed at telling a story - even if it's in pictures. Which segues me to...
- Voices. I like to hear some voices: be it pit crews calling orders, fans excited, etc.
- Maybe I missed it, but I never saw the driver in relationship to the car. Even if you can't get a shot in-car, it helps viewers identify with the video if they can at least see someone at least get in/out of the car - or even sitting in the car (shot from exterior, if all else fails.) Sitting on the field waiting for awards doesn't connect the man to the car. For most viewers, he'll just be another random guy.
- No fireballs? The Mazda's shoot fantastic fireballs out of Turn 2. Not sure if the BMW does the same, however.

I've shot Grand Am at Lime Rock a couple times for Mazda (memorial day for the past two years, actually - but not this year) and I really like that facility. It has a lot going on visually and it's a relatively small track to walk around for the various corners. On the other hand, its pit row is one of the loudest I've had to record at. Interviews while the cars are running is near impossible. (My 5 minutes with Patrick Dempsey during a race was a total loss for sound because of this.)

Here's the video I shot that same day:
http://vimeo.com/rdouthit/review/32956072/31d3a6e1ce

Re: Motorsport in Motion
 

I loved both of your videos. I'm currently researching doing something very similar at Mid-Ohio.