Capturing NASCAR racing action

"It's difficult to describe the feeling of driving a racecar," admits Roush Racing team driver Kurt Busch. "There are so many elements that a driver experiences during a race. When you go 180 miles an hour, the wind pushes your car down into the racetrack. It feels as if your car weighs four times the amount that it actually does because of the speed that you carry through some of the corners. And there are 43 drivers racing inches from each other and the wall."

As part of their extensive effort to capture every thrilling detail of NASCAR racing, the filmmakers scouted the NASCAR circuit and prepared to shoot race events in Daytona, Talladega, Bristol, Martinsville, California, Richmond, Rockingham and Charlotte.

Wincer and the production team also immersed themselves in Speed Week, two weeks of racing and race-related activities at Florida's Daytona International Speedway that precede the season-opening Daytona 500. "I was amazed by the sheer logistics of the operation, from the drivers and their race teams to the numbers of fans in the campgrounds to the size of the telecast, the merchandising trailers and the number of hamburgers sold in one weekend," Wincer marvels.

Once he experienced the speed and intensity of NASCAR racing first-hand, Wincer looked for innovative ways to capture these powerful elements of the sport on film. "The IMAX camera is so big, it can be very difficult to follow action that is moving that fast," Wincer explains. "But to capture the speed, I knew we had to keep the camera moving, we had to get the camera on the track with the cars and we had to find a way to get a camera inside a race car."

Indeed, it was a daunting challenge to orchestrate filming the frenetic race environment with a camera the size of a bar refrigerator that weighs over 200 pounds and requires four people to carry it. The highest-resolution image capture device in the film industry, the IMAX 3D camera takes 17 minutes to load and shoots only three minutes of film at a time. (The average 35-millimeter film camera shoots 10-minute film rolls.)

"In a lot of ways, the fact that Simon hasn't spent 20 years working in large format films was a great benefit to NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience," observes producer Lorne Orleans. "He wasn't limited by expectations of what you can and cannot do with the tools, which meant he often made really wild suggestions like, 'Let's put the camera in the car.' And we managed to pull it off."

Wincer wanted to devise a way to put the IMAX audience in the driver's seat for a more visceral perspective than those provided via video monitors mounted inside cars for televised race coverage. (Video simply doesn't provide high enough resolution and image quality for the large format; additionally, because the racecars travel at such high speeds, when they corner, it's possible for the centripetal force to cause the tape to slip off the heads of the video recorders, making the footage unusable.)

"From the beginning, Simon said 'We've got to put the audience in the racecar. That's key,'" Hylton recalls. "Everyone said 'You can't do it, the camera is too big.' When you say we can't do it, that gets all of our guys excited to find a way to do it."

With the IMAX production requirement in mind, Jack Roush and his team at Roush Racing custom built a NASCAR car with a suspension equipped to handle the 600 pound weight of the 3D camera. Constructed with removable panels to enable six different camera positions, this special rig was used to capture the driver's point of view and low angles beside the car as it rocketed around the track. The result is an unprecedented glimpse into the racing experience.

"To say that the racing community was incredibly supportive of our production is an understatement, but the team at Roush Racing went above and beyond the call of duty," Orleans praises. "The footage we got from using that car literally puts the audience in the driver's seat of a NASCAR racecar. When you watch this sequence, you feel it in your gut."

	Director Simon Wincer with an IMAX 3D camera.

To further enhance the audience's sense of being in the race, the production worked with Andy Hillenburg's (owner, operator and race car driver) Charlotte-based driving school called Fast Track, which provided a racecar rigged as a camera car that is used primarily for shooting racing-related commercials.

Once the Fast Track team modified their platform slightly to support the larger-than-normal size and weight of the IMAX camera, the NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience crew mounted the camera and remote head onto the front of the car and counterbalanced it with lead weights placed on the back of the vehicle.

Driven by a professional instructor from Fast Track, the camera-mounted vehicle hit speeds up to 165 miles per hour with the camera remotely operated from inside the car by cinematographer James Neihouse, who was able to pan, tilt and track with the surrounding race action, capturing the driver's experience from multiple extreme points of view.

"I was concentrating on a little monitor as I operated the camera," Neihouse describes. "Occasionally I'd look up and we'd be right in the middle of a pack of cars going at breakneck speed. I'm thinking, 'Can we fit through that hole? Oh, I guess we just did!'"

This special camera car setup was also used to recreate racing action in a controlled environment, in which the filmmakers could capture shots that would be too dangerous to attempt during a live race. The Richard Petty Driving Experience, a premier driving school featured in NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience, supplied many stock cars and drivers to the production for the controlled racing sequences.

"Simon carefully thought out each of the shots he wanted to get to convey the speed and sensation of NASCAR racing, using the Fast Track camera rig and the cars provided by the awesome people at the Richard Petty Driving Experience," Orleans notes. "As a result, we were able to shoot some really exciting footage that puts you right in the heart of a race."

"This footage portrays NASCAR in its truest sense," says third generation NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. "It's really exciting and really loud, which is exactly what it's like when you're inside the car."

"The racing details that are presented in NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience are phenomenal," Kurt Busch concurs. "The IMAX camera gives you a realistic perspective of all those aspects that we drivers see and have to digest during a race."

Wincer's inspiration for one of the film's most breathtaking shots came while driving around the track at Alabama's Talladega Super Speedway during a camera test. "I was doing 40 miles an hour around one of the banked turns and I felt like I was going to tip over because the banks are so steep," says the director of the 33 degree-angled turns.

"It's hard to explain how steep a 33 degree bank is, but you literally have to use your hands to climb up the track," Hylton elaborates. "When you're at the top of that bank, you're about four stories high looking down."

Wincer envisioned a shot that would be captured by a camera placed midway up the bank, set level with the flat straight-aways, as racecars barreled into the turn mere inches from the lens.

Due to concerns about the tremendous vibrations caused by the racecars, and the possibility that the cars going by at more than 165 miles per hour might blow the camera off the track, the crew bolted the IMAX 3D camera to the track. (Camera vibration would cause the image to jump up and down on the vast IMAX screens, rendering the footage unwatchable.)

"The hardest part for our rigging and grip team was getting the camera halfway up the bank," Orleans reports. An elaborate system of ropes and pulleys was created to haul the camera up the bank. Once attached, the camera was operated using a remote as drivers sped past the equipment at enormous speeds.

Equally important to Wincer as putting audiences behind the wheel was finding a way to maneuver the unwieldy IMAX 3D camera to capture the high-speed action on and off the track without interfering with race personnel or spectators. "We had to get every shot on the fly," Wincer says. "That's easy when you're using handheld cameras, but with an IMAX 3D camera, it's a different situation entirely."

To keep pace with the spontaneous race action, Wincer and company also needed flexibility in camera transportation and positioning. "We needed to be able to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible with as little sweat as possible," says Neihouse. "When the opportunity arises to get an amazing shot, you've got to make it happen."

In order to achieve Wincer's vision for dynamic camera movement and simultaneously maximize race coverage, the production utilized a device called the Shotmaker, a sophisticated camera crane mounted on a truck platform that allowed the filmmakers to move, pan and truck with the action as needed. "Using the Shotmaker was ideal because we could move the camera very quickly, reposition it, elevate it and get high angles if someone got in our way all of a sudden," Wincer says.

"The Shotmaker was key to conveying the intensity of the sport as well as a great tool for camera crew mobility and production efficiency," Orleans adds.

When filming a key race scene, the Shotmaker was positioned over the track with Neihouse astride it, operating the camera as cars zoomed toward and underneath him. Wincer sat atop the crane in close proximity during these shots, absorbing the tremendous vibration created by the thundering machines. "It's very exhilarating to be that close and yet feel safe," he declares.

Neihouse got even closer to the action during a test shoot in Richmond, where he actually lay on the track operating the camera as cars raced by, passing within inches of him and the IMAX equipment. As for the fear factor and sheer exhilaration involved, the experience "rates right up there with flying into volcanoes," says

Neihouse, who began his accomplished large format career on the 1976 film Ocean and served as director of photography on the IMAX Dome film The Eruption of Mt. Saint Helens, which was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Short Documentary in 1980.

	(l-r) Wincer; Bob Donaldson, 1st Assistant Director; James Neihouse, Cinematographer; and Dennis Zoppe, Key Grip plot the next shot.

The Shotmaker was used extensively to capture racing action like the highly detailed operation performed by the pit crews, who change four tires per vehicle, refuel the cars and make crucial adjustments in less than 14 seconds.

"When I take somebody to a NASCAR event who has never seen a live race before, the pit stop is the first thing I want them to experience because of how exciting and dangerous it is," Earnhardt Jr. reveals. "The pit crew's movements are choreographed down to each individual move that every person makes, and it's all done in this screaming, loud environment."

"Filming these pit stops is extremely challenging because the cars come tearing in and then they're gone," Hylton points out. "We captured several pit stops from the same car so that we could thoroughly cover all the activity that takes place in a matter of seconds."

"The IMAX footage of the action in the pits is as real as it gets," Jeff Gordon attests. "You're hearing lug nuts fly off the wheel. You can feel the pit crew's steps as they're running around the car. It's an awesome experience for fans. Heck, it was an awesome experience for me. I don't get to watch the pit crews in action other than from inside the car."

At the sprawling California Speedway in Fontana, the production captured Wincer's dream shot on film: all 43 racecars pitting at the same time. "It's a spectacular sequence," Wincer reveals. "It's amazing to see 43 cars ducking into an absolutely empty pit road at 55 miles per hour, then watch 43 crews change four tires and refuel in a matter of seconds before the racecars roar out of the pits."

Wincer and Neihouse also designed several aerial sequences for the film to depict the massive scale of a NASCAR event. At California Speedway, which attracts crowds of more than 130,000 spectators, merchandisers and race personnel, the production placed an IMAX camera in the nose of a Lear jet that flew in formation with a team of F-16 fighter jets as they performed a flyover during the National Anthem.

IMAX cameras were also mounted on a gyro-stabilized helicopter using a rig called the SpaceCam, and on top of an industrial crane positioned approximately 150 feet above the main grandstand.

"I remember going down the back straightaway during the race and there's a helicopter flying 80 feet off the ground coming at me head-on," Jimmie Johnson remembers. "I'm thinking 'What in the world is this helicopter doing?' Then I see the huge ball on the front that's holding the IMAX camera. As I'm going by at 160 miles an hour, I realize Oh, they're shooting the IMAX film. And they're getting pretty close!"

At California Speedway, as with every other race covered by the production, the IMAX cameras attracted attention from the crowd – including attendee Arnold Schwarzenegger, who inspected the camera and chatted with Wincer during a setup in the drivers' meeting room. "Everyone associates IMAX with big," Wincer observes.

"The fact that we were shooting an IMAX movie about NASCAR with the added element of 3D really blew the fans away. 'Wow! You hear that? Man, they're doing a movie about NASCAR in IMAX!'"

"Seeing the size of the IMAX cameras and the production crew, I knew this was going to be a big picture," says 2002 series champion Tony Stewart. "I didn't realize, until I was sitting in the IMAX Theatre, just how big the picture was going to be!"

The formidable 15/70 format requires a different composition than shooting for feature films and television, as Wincer explains: "When you look through a small camera viewfinder or you watch a shot on video replay, it's a miniscule version of the image that's going to end up on the IMAX screen. So the temptation is to shoot everything tighter than it needs to be. Shots that wouldn't look like close-ups in 35 millimeter appear incredibly close up on a screen eight stories high."

The stunning visual aspects of NASCAR as seen through NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience are complemented by a soundtrack that reproduces, in 12,000 watts of digital surround sound, the all-enveloping aural elements of a NASCAR race environment.

"Sound is a critical part of the NASCAR and IMAX experience," Orleans attests. "At a race, you feel it in your gut. Your ribcage rattles. The sound of the engines has that kind of low rumble that a space shuttle launch has. Not only will the imagery of being in the car give you a huge visceral sensation, but the sound in those moments is going to rock people right out of their seats."

"When our racecars idle, there's a distinct crackle that they make because there's 850 horsepower we're trying to contain," Jimmie Johnson explains. "So when I saw shots of the cars racing by in the film, it gave me goosebumps. This movie made me think I was actually standing in the garage. So not only does the picture give you this amazing detail that makes you feel like you're there, the audio is totally realistic."

"When the film shows Rusty Wallace making a pit stop at Daytona," adds 2000 series Champion Bobby Labonte, "a crewmember throws a wrench down, and you can hear the wrench hit the ground. Details like that are important to conveying NASCAR racing in its truest sense."

IMAX soundtracks are typically constructed in post-production, but for NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience, sound recorders were on set every day to capture as many different perspectives of car and track sounds as possible. In post, the sound is separated and individually channeled to six different key speakers in the IMAX Theatres.

"With our unique sound design, you will experience the sensation of cars speeding at you through the front speakers, then hear them rumbling past you as the sound travels to the back speakers, and meanwhile F-16 jets are blasting over your head. Your senses will tell you that you are there," Hylton says.

During a race, the sound level on the track is so overwhelming, it prompted Neihouse to rig an intercom system that he used to communicate with Wincer and the Shotmaker operators. When he was filming inside the Fast Track camera car, he utilized earplugs with speakers embedded in them that blocked out the deafening noise while allowing him to communicate with the production team.

"The mind-numbing sound combined with the speed and how close these cars are together is truly impressive," Wincer states. "It shows how amazing the drivers are. Their ability to drive at speeds reaching 200 miles per hour for three hours amid the noise and the distractions, and yet remain so focused, is extraordinary."