Drones at a speed of 150 km/h! How did Gran Turismo film its racing scenes?

On August 9th, French cinemas went into overdrive with the release of Gran Turismo! The famous racing game license has landed on the big screen to the delight of fans!

Directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9), Gran Turismo plays the mise en abyme card. The feature film tells the success story of British runner Jan Mardenborough, played by Archie Madekwe.

This Gran Turismo fan was able to become a real professional racing driver thanks to his skills in video games. He participated in the GP3 series, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Japanese Super GT series.

intensive training

To be believable in character, Archie Madekwe had to learn a driving simulation and could actually participate in a Gran Turismo game. “I had to be really good at this game. To shoot the scenes in the cafe with the consoles, we practiced playing against the AI, which was difficult and I had to win. It was impressive because I knew it took a lot of time. Practice and skill to be good at these games .”– explains the young actor.

Madekeve was coached by David Perel to improve. Like Mardenborough, he was a simracer and is now part of the Ferrari team. “PlayStation sent me the simulator, the seat, the steering wheel, and the pedals. And as soon as I finished the pre-shoot, I had to practice over and over again.”– adds the actor.

“Learning to glide takes a lot of skill. You have to learn the racing lines, the turns, and feel the brakes. And once you’ve mastered it, you have to repeat the gestures, over and over again. All of this has given rise to great admiration and great respect for the pilots, because the exploits they perform in the circumstances, What belongs to them is delusion.”– says Archie Madekwe.

How do you shoot the racing scenes?

Another challenge awaited the film crew and director Neill Blomkamp in particular: the racing scenes. How do we shoot these sequences to make them soulful and mind-blowing? To recreate the intensity of the race, the filmmaker used FPV (subjective vision) drones that can fly at a speed of 150 km/h! Drone Racing uses this type of equipment and that’s where the inspiration comes from.

“But luckily for us, they haven’t seen much use in motor racing before. Our FPV drones give us the most sensory immersive vision imaginable.”The director explains.

Neill Blomkamp is especially delightful when the camera, close to the ground, is mounted on a remote control stand on the front of a car running at full speed during a chase.

“Basically, it’s a shooting car that tries to beat the main cars and overtake them. And because we’re only a few centimeters off the ground, the feeling of speed is very well expressed”– says the director.

Skilled stunts

Moreover, the cars in the film were driven by stuntmen, led by the real Jean Mardenborough. The latter also provides stuntman Archie Madekeve.

“The caliber of stunt drivers we were able to bring together for this film is truly extraordinary. Some are real racing drivers and some are stunt drivers who have been in the business for over 40 years.”reveals producer Matt Hirsch.

“I think the prospect of driving real race cars for these people over six real competition laps was just too good to pass up.”he recalls.

The scenes that take place in the cockpit of the cars driving at full speed were also a real challenge to shoot. Technicians had the idea of ​​creating a modified control car. The joysticks of the racing cars were modified there so that they could be operated by operating controls located on the roof of the car from which the stuntman was driven.

In this way, the actor could play his role from the usual driver’s seat, while operating the steering wheel, gear lever and dummy pedals. The production also had to assemble a fleet of cars, each of which had to appear in triplicate: the main car, which the camera would get as close as possible and driven by the stunt driver, the backup car in case of an accident. accident and the third equipped witness’s car.