In late November I had a call from my good friend Adam Wilkins who had access for the day to an unusual replica. We agreed a location, crossed fingers for the weather and met up. It was a glorious Autumn day with clear blue skies and relatively balmy conditions. Below is the result:
Due to Adam being on the way to a photo-shoot for Compete Kit Car magazine we had only a tiny window – an hour – in which to make this video. I prepped all my gear, charged batteries and bought new ones for the other kit and made a plan of the shots. Due to this restriction there would be no time for re-takes of anything when the car was moving. Adam meanwhile was forming his impressions as he drove up from the South coast.
The film above I’m actually very pleased with. The shots from inside the car as he drives were taken on my smartphone, which I gaffer-taped to the passenger window and left running for the duration of his driving. The main camera was my trusty Canon EOS550D this time using the wonderful old manual Pentax-M 28mm f/2.8 lens I bought on eBay in the summer. That lens provides an astonishing quality of contrast and colour unrivalled by any of the more modern glass I own from both Canon and Sigma. £28…
This is Adam’s very first attempt at presenting and he’s done rather well. It was all very last minute as due to other work commitments he didn’t collect the car until the day of the shoot and he had no time to write a script, it was all off the cuff. I had developed a pattern for the shots in my head before he arrived at a location I knew well, so the cards were stacking slightly in our favour this way. Editing was tricky with the levalier mic Adam wore recording to a device that didn’t export MP3 files. I need to invest more in sound even though the sound for this was good as you’ve heard. Nonetheless the finished product is surprisingly more than satisfactory – the owner of Hawk Cars, Gerry Hawkridge, is reportedly delighted and has been showing our film to prospective customers on his stand at the AutoSport show this very weekend!
