SCANDINAVIAN FOLK RACING

Client: Velo on behalf of 20ten Creative

Project: Off Grid with Archie Hamilton

Location: Oslo, Norway

Deliverables:

Part 1: 6 min episode
Part 2: 7 min episode
1 x 45s trailer in 16:9 and 4:5
1 x full lap run through
10 x high-resolution screengrabs

Dead Pixel did:

Pre-production planning
Filming
Directing / producing
Editing
Grading

Quote of the Shoot:

“When can I hang out of the back of the tracking car?"

Brief

London-based design agency, 20ten, reached out to us seeking a team with automotive experience for a new branded content YouTube series. The series explores grassroots motor racing from around the world featuring professional driver Archie Hamilton. We were brought on board to assist with the directing, shooting and editing of a 2 x part episode, plus a high-octane social trailer. Oh, and by the way, it’s in Norway.

It’s fair to say that we jumped at the opportunity.

Pre-Production

Filming abroad, just as travel opens up after a global pandemic, comes with a selection of challenges. We had to make sure all crew were correctly vaccinated, tested and happy to travel for work. We itemised all our equipment to ensure an accurate carnet was presented to the border force authorities (a document required to bring professional equipment in and out of the country).

After all of the planning, and a boatload of work by 20ten to lineup up the logistics on the ground in Norway, it was time to set the alarm ready to catch the flight out (2:30am - ouch!).

Production

Day 1. We arrived in Oslo, Norway after a transitting flight through Amsterdam. We collected the hire car and drove 2 hours north to the car garage to begin the introductory pieces to camera and to meet the rest of the team. We captured a selection of stunning landscape shots whilst driving around the fjords. Norway is effortlessly beautiful regardless of the weather

Day 2. Race Day! - After zero practice laps or Folk Race training, we dropped Archie into the thick of a full race day event. He quickly learnt the capabilities of a very heavy Volvo on a dirt track and worked his way through 3 heats. We captured the day using our FS7 handheld rig, multiple GoPros, an FPV drone and Inspire 2. As well as race coverage, our focus was to spot, facilitate and capture moments with Archie and the local community that could help tell the story.

Day 3. Race Day pick-ups - Due to the frantic nature of the race day (essentially us hijacking an actual local event) we knew we needed extra cutaways to make for a fast-paced dynamic edit. We hired the race track without any crowds or other cars, allowing us to get on track and film some car-to-car action. We rigged up the full-body harness and got to work.

Post-Production

As soon as we were back in the office and had safely backed up the 800GB worth of raw footage, it was into the edit. During production, we realised that we had enough content to split the intended one episode into two parts. There was a lot of cameras, audio feeds and setups to work through in order to develop a narrative from the content that we’ve captured.

Once we’d got the story nailed it was onto the sound design, grading and graphics. We developed the intro sting using Adobe After Effects and then it was over to the client for review.

Some ‘kind’ words from the creative agency having seen the first cut…

“F**king hell, episode 1 is sick!”

You can view the full series here:

VELO GLOBAL YOUTUBE CHANNEL