Zeno Campbell

in Bucharest, Romania
Outsider producer Zeno Campbell explains how to capture a cheetah speeding through the streets of Bucharest. He was in Romania with director Scott Lyon shooting a speedy spot for Lexus.

I'm a great believer that a good script can be summed up in one sentence. Lexus 'Cheetah' is "a Lexus and a projection of a Cheetah race across a city at night". We only had three nights to shoot this 60" script. We could have used at least four. Five would have been just about perfect.

The first thing everyone agreed on was that this had to be shot for real. The dilemma was how we would achieve this. The solution was extremely simple but also slightly mad - we would get a high-powered video projector and strap it to the roof of a fast tracking vehicle. The tracking vehicle and the Lexus would then 'race' through Bucharest.

That was the theory and also pretty much what happened.

Tech Scout
By this stage we have already tested out the projector in the UK but only up against a wall, not travelling at speed. We tech scout at night because that's when we are shooting. We've also decided to shoot on HD, largely for money reasons, but also knowing that HD can be very forgiving when used at night; that it won't blow out highlights as much as in daylight.

We meet at our factory location, a huge sprawling semi-derelict smelting factory, a potential health and safety nightmare. This is to be our first introduction to our shot-maker guys. They have travelled in from Austria as there wasn't a shot-maker that would travel fast enough in Bucharest. The first surprise is that our shot-maker can't fit the crane arm we had intended to use on it. Unfortunately we hadn't realised that the Austrian shot-maker driver would say "Ya" to any question that you threw at him. But also fortunately for us he said "Ya" again when we asked him if we could drill holes in the deck of his tracking vehicle. He hadn't slept for 48hrs so this may have informed his decision.

The tech scout pretty much took all night. This worried me somewhat. My logic being that if it took us seven hours to scout the job, how are we going to shoot it in 20 hrs?

Day 1
The plan is that we are ready to shoot as soon as it is dark, we have to maximise all our night time hours. It gets dark enough to shoot but unfortunately our HD tech, who was supplied by the local camera hire company, is struggling to find the correct settings on his camera. After all our preparation this was an extremely painful and senseless 45min wait.
When we eventually move on to the shots that require tracking with projections it is quite an impressive and somewhat scary sight seeing Gino, our projectionist, sat on the roof of the shot-maker strapped into his chair like a marlin fisherman.

As it's getting light, at 6am in the morning, we are still shooting in an underpass, using it as cover. I don't think there are many countries that would allow us to lock off the main through road into town for this amount of time. Eventually the police have had enough and we have to wrap. Fortunately we have got all our shots; the only casualty is one of the local crew who was bitten by one of the thousands of stray dogs that prowl the streets at night and also maybe the guy who was in the back of the ambulance that our traffic cops held back so we could get our shot.

Day 2
This is our most ambitious night. We are shooting right in the centre of Bucharest and shooting the highest speed, stunt intensive part of the commercial. We have an audience of over one hundred people, which is a worry as we are driving the car very fast and there are drunks and also children all over the place. In the most part (and certainly compared to what you'd get at that time of night in the UK) the crowds are good humoured and well behaved. Annoyingly we can't use a good take because one of the crowd shoots stills with a flash.

Day 3
This is to be our most unpleasant location. We are inside one of the factory buildings; a huge hangar which is full off dust. The idea being that when the dust is kicked up it becomes another surface we can project on to. Everyone has paper face masks and goggles, but invariably as our stunt driver pulls doughnuts we all get covered in black soot.

As it gets light in the morning a tent is built to use as a mini-studio and shoot some interior details of the car. Meanwhile the deserted factory location comes to life as hundreds of people use it as a shortcut to get to work. We are all covered in dust and feeling slightly giddy with lack of sleep after the night shoots but also relieved that we have achieved everything we set out to.

Despite some teething problems (and I think this is unavoidable in Bucharest at the moment) the crew achieved an incredible amount in the time given. I think emerging East European countries like Romania, even if they have a history of film making, are going to take some time to get up to speed on commercials. On a film you have weeks for the crew to get into a rhythm and hit its stride. In a commercial where you're lucky if you are shooting a few days you have no time at all and no margin for error. I'm sure I will shoot in Bucharest again but it would have to be the right project.

Back in the UK, we are finishing off the post on a DFT road safety advert. In Russia, we've encouraged people to drive like maniacs and are now trying to keep our roads safe back in the UK.