Some of the most memorable scenes in the Apple TV and Warner Bros. F1 movie are the various close-ups of Brad Pitt and Damson Idris gripping the wheels of their race cars as they blast down the straights. It looks effortless on screen, but shots like this that put you behind the wheel in a race car cockpit would have been impossible without the help of a custom-built camera system.
Hollywood looks to be increasingly using bespoke rigs and purpose-built camera gear to deliver unique, immersive visuals. Danny Boyle experimented by shooting parts of 28 Years Later on an iPhone. The filmmaker made a custom rig to hold 20 iPhones to create what he dubbed a “poor man’s bullet-time effect”, which is essentially when you see the camera pan across a subject in slow motion.
