How To... Shoot a Car Commercial 1,300 Feet Underground

A career should be packed with unique experiences. Try turning a vehicle’s floodlights off to sense utter silence and complete darkness while 1,300 feet underground...

GTB’s concept - to find an alternative environment to unleash Ford’s ‘pocket-rocket’ Fiesta ST - allowed me to imbibe in my passions. Shoot stylish fast cars, work within a great team and use my experience to confront unique challenges.  I think it might not be an understatement to say that my working style might be called ‘hands-on’. With the decision to create an extreme driving experience underground, I delved into my very earliest film-making experiences (while still at art-school) in industrial films. I gained a familiarity with the constraints and opportunities of subterranean shooting in coal-mines and, very early on, learned the importance of preparation and adaptability.

It was apparent from the start that the nature of the underground environment was pivotal. A tunnel system was needed that was above all safe and workable. A coal-mine with its constricted workings and inherent fire-risks was an obvious no-no. But the practicality of getting those beauty shots was essential. A tight, narrow tunnel would necessitate wide-angle lenses that distort the shape and lines of any car. A pan-European location search ranged from underground theme-parks to secret subterranean Soviet-era airbases. But with a client request that the location was preferably within the UK, I knew that the expansive and sometimes cavernous salt-extraction tunnel systems were the answer.

Practicalities should not stifle creativity, but it was important to manage expectations. A ‘conventional’ car-commercial recce can result in the serendipitous discovery of amazing locations (“Oh wow! Look at that, we’ll shoot here”). Underground, that’s slightly different. For example, the opening straight tunnel (a chance to ‘put the hammer down’) required the laying of three and a half tonnes of electrical cable. So, moving around the tunnel complex (over 30 miles) required planning to maximise our shoot-time. Each change of location required trucks that had to move as a tight convoy. Shooting was delayed by over an hour due to one truck’s wrong turn in the inky blackness.

These challenges in terms of logistics, time and, manpower in a time of restricted budgets required creative solutions. Early on, it was decided to mount our lamps along with their dedicated generators on flat-bed trucks so that the light could be efficiently driven into position without the need for long time-consuming cable-runs. The light-design involved a golden back-light that not only enhanced the other-worldly nature of the location but also was complimentary to the blue colour of our hero car.

Another conundrum was how to achieve those dynamic tracking shots which are so necessary when shooting cars. Movement can be achieved by panning ground-based cameras and cameras rigged to the car’s bodywork. Normally I can operate a camera from another moving vehicle, but not so here. The constant temperature of 16 degrees, the dry air and the conditions within a working mine create an omnipresent thick coating of salt dust. So to avoid creating impenetrable dust-clouds that would take an age to settle (and having overcome the problem of no GPS underground), we used a drone to achieve kinetic tracking and counter-tracking shots.

I still get a rush each time I hear “turn over…”: it’s the culmination of everyone’s efforts. Annex Films has a great team ethos and this shone through during this production. The planning for the expected and unexpected elements in production was peerless. Few shoots have to cope with personnel restrictions based upon the number that can be housed in sealed underground rescue refuges! But everybody from the mine-rescue teams, camera and electrical, the car team, the action drivers, the production department, GTB and Ford pulled together, with great humour, to make this film.