Inside Track: Filming

On the road: of Astons and Accords

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:54:01 GMT

cj hubbard writes:

As you may have noticed given the Saab 9-3 Turbo X vid that appeared on the site last week, our new season of video road tests is now up and running. So here's a quick on-location report from the pair we completed yesterday.

The thing about doing this is that I find myself a little concerned that at some point on some shoot I won't have anything interesting to talk about. And it was looking a little bit like that yesterday - damp, miserable weather, and otherwise everything was going pretty smoothly.

The Honda Accord wasn't exactly helping. It's a good car, very Honda, and it grows on you over time - so make sure you insist on an extended test drive if you're interested. But it doesn't exactly shout out any anecdotal idiosyncrasies to share with you all.

Fortunately, the other car we were filming was an Aston Martin.

Finished in a beautiful shade of pale metallic blue, this V8 Vantage Roadster was enough to brighten everybody's day. Even before Peter started up the engine and bathed us all in its glorious sonorous noise.

Then, of course, the roof broke.

Actually - Aston, you can put down the phone - what really happened is that it got a bit confused. We'll blame Peter, since he stopped it halfway between open and closed, and somehow the mechanism arrived in a position where various parts of it couldn't move without moving other parts first, but this wasn't possible because other parts were already in the way.

Cue a lot of serious head scratching. We even resorted to the manual - a work of art in itself - which simply said to take the key out (or rather, the "Emotional Control Unit" - this is an Aston, don't forget), let the hydraulics relax, and move it manually. Ok, done that, says Peter, why is it we still can't get it to move.

More instructions, off comes a panel behind the driver's seat, out comes a bunch of foam insulation, the battery is revealed (reassuringly enormous), levers are pulled, an allen key is located - still nothing.

We look at the manual again. Boy, it would be easier to concentrate if that roof malfunction alarm wasn't constantly binging...

At which point Peter realises he hasn't taken the key out after all.

Ah.

As soon as the ECU is removed, the hydraulics go slack, we manoeuvre the roof into the correct position, and bingo, one fully functioning Aston Martin again.

Except, for some reason, the windscreen wipers are no longer working.

These are a little disappointing anyway, as they're the old school traditional design - it's amusing to see a £90k Aston out-classed by a £20k Honda in this regard; the Accord, of course, uses the new-fangled, increased efficiency flatblade wiper design.

As you can imagine, non-function wipers when the weather's like this is not especially helpful...

However, just as some of us are starting to get all cynical about British-made automobiles (ahem, that may or may not have been yours truly), it turns out to be something quite clever. The bonnet wasn't shut properly after the obligatory V8 money shot, and the wipers wouldn't work to prevent damage. It's not the only car to do this, but still, pretty cool.

And all is right with the world. Except for the lack of sun - which, surprise surprise, arrives in all its brilliance as soon as the Aston gets back from its final filming run.

Sigh.

UPDATE: Turns out the Vantage's roof broke down again last night - only this time while it was in its fully open position. The jokes we'd been making all day about endurance testing - we probably opened and closed the top more times in the space of a few hours than your average Aston owner would do in a year - may not have been that far from the truth.

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Links:

Snapper's delight

Bogged down in barley in an XF

First Drive: Honda Accord (2008 onwards model)

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Snapper's delight

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:40:32 GMT

Dan Trent writes:

You’ll have got used to seeing tracking shots – one moving vehicle snapped from another – all over the motoring media. But spare a thought for those of us actually having to take these images. Assuming you manage to avoid attracting the attention of the boys in blue (touch wood I’ve been lucky, bar a very close shave in France one time) you then have to contend with finding a suitable location, being driven up the wrong side of the road and leaning out of any number of unsuitable vehicles facing the very real risk of falling out and being run over by the very car you’re trying to photograph.

Over the years I’ve been smacked on the head by bootlids, choked with exhaust fumes, been barged off the road by vigilante motorists, frozen half to death and pebble dashed by 100mph gravel in the name of bagging that perfect snap. I know, I can tell you’re feeling so sorry for me.

Our cameraman Nick, who films our video roadtests, has a pretty good set up in the boot of a Range Rover, securely harnessed in and filming with just the top half of the split tailgate open. Discreet, sheltered and safe it’s as good as it gets.

Or so I thought, until my visit last week to Dieppe for a forthcoming story on 100-year-old Mercedes and Benz racing cars. Mercedes was filming the event and the camera crew rocked up in the coolest ever custom camera truck – Nick will be very jealous indeed.

Check out the special platform at the back for the camera operator – nicely low down and sheltered from the slipstream. Note also the comfy leather seat on which he sits.

Pretty cool in itself. But then I heard the thing come past me and boy does it sound good. See those fat side exhausts and the V8 badge? There’s the reason.

Those are some pretty serious brakes too. And then there’s the fully pimped up interior. Yup, this is one special beast. But what are those rear lights from? My vote is Alfa Romeo 156…

Dan

Filming the Fiat 500

Behind the scenes on an MSN Cars film shoot

More filmshoot action

The MSN Cars camera truck

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Bogged down in barley in an XF

Fri, 02 May 2008 14:15:07 GMT

Peter Burgess writes:
I almost called off the whole affair the night before. A couple of years ago we'd come to an agreement with our video boys on how serious the weather would need to be before we aborted a road test shoot. Mere rain would mean too many cancelled days (and anyway we are very hardly folk) so we agreed only snow or fog would end a day before it had started.

Come Tuesday night and I am having second thoughts. It's tipping down and tomorrow, film day, looks like more of the same. But no, an agreement is an agreement. So we meet up at Hanbury Manor hotel in Hertfordshire and then drive up the A10 with Chris filming the Jaguar XF from the back of Paul's Range Rover.

It worked, and we headed onto the village of Barely out the back of Royston because I knew the roads would be good for the 'up and pasts' - stick the camera on the side of the road and drive back and forth to gather footage.

But the weather turned and by 10am I felt there was good reason to abandon it all and get warm and dry. The crew have a hard time of it standing in the driving rain and with low light and, damn it, a black XF, things were about as hard as they get. Everyone else was still up for it though, and then things got even worse.

Stupidly I reversed onto a farm track so I could turn round to get a run in the other direction. In a front-wheel-drive car I would still have had my wheels on the tarmac, but in the Jag the tyres immediately went onto some mildly slippery stuff. It looked like nothing but the XF, even with the DSC switched right off, wouldn't budge and inch. Instead the wheels spun and mud flew everywhere.

The crew huffed and puffed and pushed but nothing. The good thing was we had the Range Rover. The bad thing was we didn't have a towrope. Thankfully, the local garage had one to lend me and we lugged the XF out of the mire half and hour later.

You won't notice the extra mud when you look at the film when it's ready in a week or two. There was so much flying around that day it hardly shows.

Peter

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Blatant plug time!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:29:44 GMT

Dan Trent Writes:

Finding locations for photoshoots is always a challenge. And over the years we’ve all spent many an hour shivering in remote carparks or on windswept airfields with nothing but a tepid flask of tea to stave off the cold. Yeah, I can feel the waves of sympathy…

Anyway, it always helps if the car you’re shooting is a bit glamorous and – hopefully – reflect positively on the people kind enough to provide you with a location. Think of it as currency. And using that analogy the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 we filmed earlier this week was a persuasive bargaining chip. Even so, we lucked out big style with our location, a hotel called Lainston House near Winchester. OK, the speed bumps on the driveway caused a few tense moments in the Lambo but once in position the hotel made a perfect backdrop and the guests seemed more interested than inconvenienced.

Special mention must go to guest relations manager Raz Ali who made sure we were superbly looked after during our shoot. Our flasks of Nescafe were left untouched as trays of fresh drinks (with biscuits!) were brought out by Raz and his colleagues to make sure we were kept refreshed throughout the shoot. Never before have we been so well looked after – Raz, we salute you! And here is the man himself, getting a taste of the Lambo lifestyle. One good deed deserves another in return so consider Lainston House thoroughly recommended if you’re looking for posh digs in Hampshire.

Dan

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Links:

Lainston House

How fast does that go, mate?

MSN Cars video roadtests

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How fast does that go mate?

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:10:06 GMT

Dan Trent writes:

If I learned anything at the wheel of my first Lamborghini (video roadtest coming soon...) it's that you can forget the quiet life. Everybody, and I mean everybody wants to point, stare, snap you on their phone camera, ask you to deliver statistics (how much/how fast/how big's the engine/etc...) whether you're stationary in traffic or driving alongside them on a dual carriageway.

Given the way it looks this comes as no surprise. Is there a more otherworldly looking car available? I don't think so, this LP640 Murcielago roadster proving that when it comes to dropping jaws raging bull tops prancing horse any day.

Now that my pulse has started returning to something like normal I can think about my script for the video you'll be seeing here very soon...

Dan

Links:

Murcielago LP640 Roadster drive

The kind people who lent us the Lambo

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Notes from the road: Borg jokes on a postcard to...

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:26:23 GMT

cj hubbard writes:

Another day, another film shoot. And although this pair of stars combined doesn't even muster a third of the bhp produced by the Aston Martin DBS Peter and Henry videoed last time, it still promised to be a fun outing.

Well, what else could it be, with two of the funkiest new city cars to come to market in a long time?

The Fiat 500 and the Renault Twingo are decidedly different in character, however. In fact, we might as well be plain about it, the Twingo feels decidedly average in any company; compared to the 500 it might as well fade into the background. Which, given the grey paint and a grey start to the day, it very nearly literally did.

Anyways, let's save that sort of thing for the road test, and continue with a previous theme: Nick the contortionist.

When he's not crammed into the backseat - often uncomfortably, as with the 911 Turbo Cab - Nick the camera is crammed into the back of a Range Rover.

This might not seem too bad in practice, or from this angle. But for safety reasons the Range Rover's lower tailgate remains firmly shut whenever we're actually on the move (Nick also wears a harness, clipping him in). This, as you can work out from the picture below (compare the current position of the tripod's legs with where they will be when the gate is shut), reduces the room for Nick quite considerably.

Also helping out on the shoot this week was Joe Alexander. Joe is a budding motoring journalist, hoping to take the Coventry University Automotive Journalism MA in September. That's the same course I did - and best of luck to him. He's a big lad. Useful as a member of a rowing club, but making cars like these not necessarily the most comfortable. You'll see in the video that the Twingo is something of a tight fit - but honestly it's pretty spacious in other cases... That's him on the left in this picture.

Various clever trickery was employed for shot making this time around. But as we've seen before, the low-tech approach often works just as well. Never under-estimate the importance of duct tape - especially when the onboard camera clamp is playing silly buggers.

But also when you want to stick the onboard itself to some sunglasses. As Adrian did this time, in order to illustrate a visibility issue in one of the cars.

What do you reckon? Is it a good look?

Photo by Adrian Bourne

Seems to me like I've got a magic marker instead of a pencil behind my ear. Surprisingly comfortable, but not exactly subtle!

Photo by Adrian Bourne

We'll see if the effort worked out when the finished video is ready.

So look out for that soon.

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Links:

Notes from the road: new Impreza in the wild

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Notes from the road: new Impreza in the wild

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:28:51 GMT

cj hubbard writes:

When preparing for the ol' video road tests, one of the things we have to consider is the location. Last time we were lucky enough to have Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands at our disposal (not to mention our own tame racing driver...), but even that had its limitations. Access to quiet 'real' roads is extremely limited, since Brooklands is, perhaps surprisingly, located in a well populated, highly trafficked area of the country.

This time around, in search of something a bit different, Peter managed to come to an arrangement with Paradise Wildlife Park.

Located in Hertfordshire, you may never have heard of it (I hadn't!) but it's actually the premium 'big cat' centre in the country - with examples of everything from cheetahs and jaguars to tigers and rare white lions. All looked to be in fabulous condition, and the Park has awards attesting to this fact. You can even feed them yourself - Paradise being one of only very few wildlife parks in the world licensed to offer this, there's currently a seven-month waiting list...

We were there to film the new Subaru Impreza WRX STi, and Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet (with Tiptronic auto, natch).

While we kept the Porsche to the car park, we ending up parking the Impreza between the lizard house (or Temple of Angkor, as it's known; the hot house temperatures a balm to our wind chilled bones...) and the red panda enclosure.

Thoughts of sneaking lines like "sticks to the road like a lizard sticks to a wall' into the script have crossed my mind, but we resisted taking shots of the camels. (Something to do with giving Subaru the hump....) Made a change from lhamas, anyway.

The shoot went pretty smoothly overall - in fact we were so organised that when it came to cleaning the cars at midday (early morning rain meant they were filthy) we actually had time to put them through a nearby hand carwash.

The end result was much cleaner than we would have managed with cold water and some kitchen towel. And £10 for two cars struck Peter and I as pretty good value.

Things to look out for in the finished videos include an unusual selection of on-board shots for the Impreza (we're always trying to keep things interesting). Adrian the producer even engineered a moving onboard (inspired by a happy accident on the C63 shoot), using a bag strap and some zip ties.

And spare a thought for Nick the cameraman during Peter's pieces to camera in the Porsche. To get better sound quality we use one camera for visuals and the other for sound these days - which meant Nick found himself crammed into the 911's backseat. Obviously designed for petite blonds (or something), Nick (being neither) found conditions somewhat cramped. Especially as - again for sound quality reasons - we had to keep the roof up...

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Links:

Impreza finally impresses

Suba-dooper?

Licence to thrill

MSN video road tests

Paradise Wildlife Park

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Licence to thrill

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:00:25 GMT

Dan Trent writes:

Photo by cj, video by Dan

Off to Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands yesterday to video two AMGs – the C63 and the CLK63 Black Series. Why there? Well, the fact the facility has its very own test track and wet steering circle for perfecting sideways skills was an obvious attraction. And with rear-wheel drive and lots of horsepower both cars were ideally suited for the task.

It was just a pity the old ’ealth and safety rules meant we weren’t allowed to switch off the ESP on the track. Still, given our frankly pathetic efforts on the steering circle that’s probably for the best. The offer of a drifting lesson from one of the instructors needs to be taken up as soon as possible!

To save our blushes (and stop us pranging the AMGs) M-B World also provided us with our very own tame racing driver, who – as you will see – very much IS allowed to switch the ESP off. If you fancy seeing him and his colleagues from the Silver Arrows Display Team in action they perform regularly at M-B World – see here for details.

For now, here’s a taster...

Dan

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Links:

First Drive: Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG Black Series

First Drive: Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG

Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows Display Team

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Notes from the road: a tale of two GTS

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:28:48 GMT

cj hubbard writes:

As I mentioned briefly on Wednesday, Thursday was a filming day - but one with a bit of a difference.

For starters, it's not too often that you get two such different cars together that have the same three letters after their names. But both the Farbio and the Porsche Cayenne above (I'll let you work out which one is which) are designated GTS by their creators.

More importantly, however, in the Farbio GTS we were filming a fledgling British sportscar that so far as we can see, and its order book testifies, has the potential to do big things in the automotive world. And as far as we're aware, ours is the very first video roadtest of this car anywhere.

Since Farbio is based in Bristol, we had an unusually long trek to get to the location. So much so that the boss even decided to put us up in accommodation for the night somewhere near. Needless to say, when we discovered the light pull in the bathroom to be this small teddy bear apparently in the act of hanging itself, we were slightly concerned it might be in bad sign of things to come in the morning (I don't know about Dan, but something about accidentally smashing up a unique prototype crossed my mind...).

As it turned out, the worst thing that happened - discounting a close shave with a van (ahem. I'm sure Dan knew what he was doing) - was the weather.

Contrary to producer Adrian's assertions, the overcast grey sky that marred our opening impressions of the day doggedly stuck with us throughout the film shoot. This, and the happy distraction of an unmissable opportunity to film in Farbio's fantastic countryside construction facility - ok, it's a converted barn, but this does have advantages - meant we didn't get quite as much on the Cayenne as we should have done. But we'll make up for that early next week.

Given the colour, the Cayenne didn't have any trouble standing out in the murk. The Farbio's silver paint, however, meant it had to rely on star quality to shine in these conditions.

Thankfully, it has that in spades. I fell in love with the thing the moment I clapped eyes on it. But you don't have to worry about my emotions clouding the roadtest judgement. So hectic is the schedule on shoot that I didn't even get to sit in the F, let alone drive it. Desperate to try and get everything done, I left all that exclusive hero business to Dan. I'm pretty sure he enjoyed himself...

This shot also shows the lengths we go to in an effort to bring you all the best angles. That tube, suckered to the bodywork with a pair of glass handling clamps that Farbio lent us, has got a camera on the end. Just in case you were wondering.

You'll see the end result of our efforts within the next week or two. And with any luck there will also be a making of the Farbio factory video for you to check out. This is a carbon-fibre bodied junior supercar with a retail price of just £60,000, so it's all very interesting stuff.

But even if it wasn't you would still want to watch it. Because, damn, is this a good looking car...

[Click on all photos to enlarge]

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Links:

Notes from the road: video testing Tiguan and Works

Farbio Sports Cars

First Drive: Porsche Cayenne GTS

Revealed: Farbio GTS

MSN Cars video roadtests

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Notes from the road; video testing Tiguan and Works

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:30:42 GMT

cj hubbard writes:

Got back from filming the latest pair of video roadtests a little over two hours ago, and my face is still burning from the freezing wind. As I expect most of you know it was a pretty cold day out there.

So cold, in fact, that even Richard's nuclear orange jacket and piping hot coffee couldn't insulate him. The solution? Seeking shelter in the film crew's Range Rover whenever possible. Thank heavens for heated steering wheel rims, eh, Richard?

For the videos we were crashing Volkswagen's UK Tiguan launch (with its permission, of course), being held at Luton Hoo. A posh golf club, spa and hotel, the scenery was perfect - although we did manage to run afoul of a rather officious doorman. Apologies old chap, we were only trying to get our job done...

Lakeside backdrop was perfect for the Tiguan Escape we managed to nab from the launch fleet.

The Escape is the off-roading variant (and you thought they all were? Well, quite...). It has a different front bumper, allowing it perform tricks like this watersplash.

It's no Freelander, but it can still cope with this:

Despite only having three wheels on the decking at one point, Richard did make it out the other side.

One of the tricky things about this particular shoot was having two very different kinds of car (we do our best to avoid this with the schedule, but sometimes things are just unavoidable).

The other car on this occasion was the latest Mini Cooper S Works...

...which you can more clearly in this shot. Sitting at the side of the road, waiting for the traffic to clear, is a video inevitability.

You might be wondering what exactly it is that's 'Works' about this particular Mini. And I don't blame you - it's got the engine mods, but none of the exterior styling. Unlike this previous generation version we randomly spotted while out doing tracking-shots:

The owner seems to have gone to town on the whole package: bodykit, wheels, spotlights - and even John Cooper's signature on the bootlid and bonnet stripes...

You'll able to see the results of ours efforts in just a little while.

In the meantime, given posts like this, I'm sure you'll be glad to know that yes, even now I've finished writing up this post my face continues to feel like I exfoliated with a belt sander.

What's that? Is it a violin? Awww...

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Links:

MSN Cars video roadtests

Why this is the best job in the world, part 1