Lights Camera Action for Silverstone F1

Rod Aaron Gammons

Published 1st March 2013


Rotolight ANOVA, the world’s most advanced LED Floodlight was recently used as the light of choice for the 2012 Autosport Awards shoot at the Silverstone Formula 1 track, produced by MAKE Television (formerly Sequence Creative).
MAKE Television produced the two-day shoot capturing six of the UK’s best future Formula 1 stars, competing head to head to win the Young Driver of the Year Award. The driver’s performance would be tested in six Formula 2 Cars, as well as the gorgeous McLaren MP4-12 and Mercedes DTM cars. Previous winners include Jenson Button and David Coulthard, and aside from the recognition, the winner claims £100,000 in sponsorship, along with BRDC membership and a test drive in a McLaren Formula 1 car.
The films were premiered at the prestigious 2012 Autosport Awards ceremony at the Grovesnor House Hotel, Park Lane. Some of the best drivers in the world were in attendance; including 3 time Formula 1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel, along with British greats such as Sir Stirling Moss, John Surtees and Jenson Button. Hollywood Director Ron Howard was also amongst numerous other high profile stars, so the pressure was on to deliver some incredible films.
The high-pressure shoot presented many challenges to MAKE Television, to ensure everything was captured beautifully, and the story of each day was allowed to unfold in the edit.
"On this high profile shoot, one of the particular challenges we faced was its fast paced nature. It often meant we only had limited time to get the takes we needed, and required something that was bright but highly portable so that it could setup quickly to deliver great looking shots" (Ben Foakes, MD Sequence Post)
The revolutionary Rotolight Anova (www.rotolight.com) is a 1000 Watt, Bi-Colour led floodlight, capable of accurately reproducing white light from candlelight through to full daylight. It uniquely features a super-wide 110 degree beam angle that eliminates hard shadows and hotspots with gorgeous soft light output and signature "Ringlight\" effect, and was the obvious light of choice.
Kevin Chapman, MAKE Television said “The use of the ANOVA’s were essential to create the right colour temperature for the final look and feel of the shoot. The versatility of its adjustable colour temperature to match the light conditions, as we moved from trackside interviews to the indoor studio, was a real bonus. The ANOVA’s are incredibly stylish and easy to place at a moments request and didn’t require an army of gaffers to re-light each time”
Mike Fisher, Director commented “My goal was to film the young drivers during their intensive test whilst still trying to capture the essence of each driver’s spirit along with the raw essence of the race cars they had to tame. The portable nature of the ANOVA’s, and being able to run all day long on V-mounts, meant we could be used them as outdoor fill for trackside driver interviews and get into studio to be quickly repositioned in a pressured shoot schedule. As well as being solidly made, but lightweight, they also look good, so we used some of the lights stylistically in camera as part of the set”
One of the other key challenges of this shoot, as with most, was time, and again the Rotolight Anova really came into its own. As well as featuring DMX as standard, the Anova incredibly also features its own in built Wifi Network allowing wireless remote control of brightness, colour temperature from an iPhone or iPad, which allows more time to create the perfect shot. Using Rotolight’s Magic Eye iPhone App, the crew were able to control all of the lights in one hand and even create custom “Designer Fades” for the perfect fade to black first time round.
“We used the Canon C300 with prime lenses to capture the driver and static car shots in studio. The innovative iPhone Control feature of the Rotolight Anova was essential to create the right colour temperature for the final look and feel of the shot. The final films were to be shown on a 60 metre long screen, which meant capturing the raw footage in a crazy 6:1 ratio on set. This was certainly a challenge given the difference in scale of the drivers, cars and a race track, whilst only having a small amount of visual area to work in during filming. Everything was captured in HD to make sure the final quality wasn’t compromised” said Chapman.
"Our end client was delighted with the finished films and I was very impressed by the Rotolight Anova, in particular how we were able to use it in environments where traditionally far more expensive solutions have been necessary. We look forward to using them again on our next production \" (Kevin Chapman, MD, MAKE Television)
The Rotolight Anova is in stock and available to buy from Visual Impact and CVP, as well as to hire from VMI, Hammerhead T and Alias Hire amongst many others. For more information on Rotolight Anova please visit www.rotolight.com.
To view the results from the shoot you can see the video at www.maketelevision.co.uk.

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