Karmarama Hits High Speed for Plusnet

Karmarma creative director Sam Walker recently worked on a new spot for Plusnet. Delivering through production company Kream he helmed a three-day shoot at a race track with 12 stunt drivers and an old lady. Here he relays the story of the shoot.

We’re about to embark on a shoot that’s been a year in the making. Loads of cars going fast. Should be fun. I’ve been creative directing the project with my creative partner Joe de Souza at Karmarama for about a year and at points we doubted it’d ever happen but here we are.

RECCE  - 21 July

So we’ve come up to Rockingham to check out the track. It’s the UK’s only fully-blown Nascar track built back in 2001 to attract Nascar over from the States. It didn’t work and instead there’s an amazing track stuck in the middle of nowhere (Corby) not really being used. As it turns out, that's perfect for us.

We get here and it looks great, all banked tracks and dynamic seating stands. It’s perfect apart from the fact it’s in England and it’s raining. I ask Eddie, the executive producer, if we can shoot in Canada or the US instead for the weather. Nope.

TECH RECCE - 6 August

We head back to Rockingham for the tech recce with a cast of thousands. It’s reassuring that we’ve got some great crew on the job but even with this number of people on the recce, one from each department, it’s pretty obvious the scale of production is going to be big and take some wrangling by the AD.

Together with Damien Morisot, my DP, we work out how many cameras we’ll need and which kit on which day. It turns out that’s quite a few cameras and operators; we’ll be shooting with three Epics, and two C300s.

Two Epics will be with me and Damien the whole time; A and B camera, one Epic with the second unit, and the two C300s with two other units picking up details and stuff where the cameraman might die.

Bizarrely it’s sunny and the track looks awesome this time. I ask Eddie if it’d be better to shoot in Canada or the US to guarantee the weather. He says it would be. 'Can we afford that?' I ask. Nope.

PRODUCER/DP/AD MEETING - 13 August

We meet up with my producer Ted Thornton, AD Chris Kelly and Damien the DP. I’ve overboarded as I tend to do. We’ve got about 140 shots boarded which seems like a lot. Especially when you’re dealing with lots of big equipment, tracking vehicles and cars. After much discussion and my team explaining that we’ve got too many shots, I spectacularly fail to reduce it down. So Chris goes off into the night trying to work out how the fuck we’re going to do this.

By this time we’ve got most of the cars we think we’ll need. It’s a combination of ‘fast’ cars and ‘character’ cars. We’ve got a Stirling Moss style Lotus, a Nascar, an AC Cobra, a Dodge Charger, a beast of a Hot Rod, an ice cream van, a family saloon, an open-top old-style Mini for the brass band and a pizza delivery moped.

Much to everyone’s annoyance I’ve requested miniature versions of all of the cars, partly for my sanity to work out how we’re going to shoot this, partly for the stunt co-ordinator, the AD and the DP and partly because miniature cars are cool and we’re basically just shooting the equivalent of what most little boys dream of doing.

Judging by what the miniature cars look like together it should be fun and strangely seeing them all together is making it feel a lot more real than it did a year ago. Apart from the number of shots and the danger involved everything should be fine - if the weather holds out. I ask Eddie, the exec, if we can shoot in Canada for the weather. Or maybe the US? Nope.

DAY BEFORE THE SHOOT - 19 August

So, good news: we’ve got all the cars we wanted and even better, Lotus kindly donated one of their super cars in addition to the other cars we had. And we’ve got an extra precision driver as well. Eleven cars plus a moped driving round a track. The weather forecast says sun for the next three days.

I haven’t allowed myself to even contemplate the weather before now for fear of jinxing it. In fact we’ve ordered spray protectors and have been planning for rain as well. As long as it’s not flooded a la Lost in La Mancha, we’ll be OK. We’ll just have to go for the ‘wet look’.

We go to the track for one last look for camera positions and to have a first look at the cars. Everybody starts smiling when we see them which is great for the energy of the shoot. I allow myself to get cocky for a second and mention to Ted that the weather is looking like definite sunshine for the next three days and that maybe we’ll be OK. It immediately pours down complete with thunder and lightning. Fucking England.

SHOOT DAY 1 – 20 August

We wake up to some very sad news that Tony Scott has passed away which adds a surreal feeling to the start of the day.

We head to the shoot and see all of the cars in the same place for the first time. They look great together and even the car guys seem excited to have this array of cars assembled. And it’s sunny and the forecast is sunny. First problem of the day, the art department haven’t had time to dress the hoardings around the track. OK we’ll have to start one end and work our way around.

Second problem of the day, which is potentially disastrous… our leading old lady, who is 71 and of generous proportions, can’t get through the window of the Nascar which has been irreversibly branded with ‘The Old Lady’ branding. Why does a 71-year-old lady need to get through the window of the Nascar I hear you ask? Because the fucking doors don’t open as is the case with all Nascars. Yep, we didn’t know that either until the day before. Chris the AD says we’ll have to put her in a different car. Jim the stunt coordinator says there’s no way she’s going to be able to get in through the window.

But Doreen, with the help of the grips, manoeuvres carefully and delicately through the tiny window, proving everyone wrong. She is a legend and saved the shoot. There are many things that could go wrong on this shoot including people crashing and dying but I didn’t think for a second that the thing that might derail the whole thing would be the fact that Nascar doors don’t open and old ladies usually don’t go through car windows.

We get going and it starts well. There’s a positivity around the set and Chris is doing a sterling job keeping things moving. We get through a lot of the A-Frame stuff before lunch and yes, it starts fucking raining. What actually is the point of weather forecasters?

It’s not heavy so we break for lunch early. Luckily it clears by the time we start again after lunch with no standing water on the track. I’ve been shooting with A-Frames for the dialogue/character stuff because I don’t like the feeling that low-loaders give.

After much trying, we discover that we can’t get the Nascar on the A-Frame. So we can get the old lady in through the window, we just can’t attach it to the tracking vehicle. We decide to leave the problem to the grips and come back hoping it’s solved itself.

SHOOT DAY 2 – 21 August

Overnight our driving instructor character has started being very difficult and is threatening to make a very complicated shoot even more complicated. After a swift discussion he is ejected and we line up a replacement. We don’t need negative energy around today, please.

We feel like we've covered a lot of what we need on day one so we start day two with a similar positivity and overnight the grips have worked out a way of attaching the Nascar to the A-Frame. Good news. Old lady in car and on tracking vehicle. Good stuff. Then we’re on to the Russian Arm stuff with the cars going high-speed.

There’s a definite sense of excitement from everyone; the crew, the client and even the car guys. It’s usually a good sign when the people who do this every day get excited as well. We leave the slowest vehicle in the pits and I jump in the Russian Arm with Damien and start bombing round the track in various formations.

The stunt guys are super experienced and when you’re looking at the little monitor in the back it’s easy to forget that what we’re doing is actually quite dangerous. Although when the arm leans over when going round the bend, you're soon reminded. Great day though and luckily no rain today which would have screwed us. I take it all back about England.

SHOOT DAY 3 - 22 August

Third and final shoot day. Everyone feeling good. Bright, blue skies. We crack out a few scenes and shoot replacement scenes with the replacement 'driving instructor’. He’s great and we’re pleased we made the call. Everyone’s getting a little bit cocky because we’re on schedule so obviously it starts shitting down with rain. Fucking England.

OK, so now we’re shooting scheduled around the weather, having shot two days mostly without rain we can’t let this bit derail us now. We shoot interiors and close ups where we can and luckily it seems to fit together.

We get everything we need thanks to excellent work from the whole crew, especially the AD and DP. We go for a quick spin in the Cobra with a stunt driver which gives my producer a heart attack.

The driver checks the mileometer and he’s done 296 miles over two days driving which is impressive considering the track’s only 1.47 miles long. Shoot went well. And we got all 140 shots.