Art & Crafts: Under the Hood is first in a slate of custom Ankler series going behind the scenes to explore artisans’ work on movies and TV we love. Produced by Jennifer Laski, Ankler Media’s executive producer of brand experiences, Under the Hood is presented by Apple Original Films & F1.
It’s never easy for filmmaker Joseph Kosinski and Kosinski’s go-to cinematographer, Claudio Miranda. For their Oscar-nominated 2022 blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, Miranda’s camera made history as the first to go inside the cockpit of an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet while it soared through the sky. But when the pair of longtime collaborators came together to work on their Top Gun: Maverick follow-up, Apple Original Films’ Formula 1 racing drama F1, they didn’t just feel the need for speed, but also for entirely new equipment.
“What’s great with Joe is that he brings me on super early to kind of figure out a lot of technical stuff,” Miranda, an Oscar winner in the cinematography category for The Life of Pi (and among the contenders again this year for F1), says in the debut episode of Art & Crafts: Under the Hood. “What was challenging for F1 was every time I showed them the camera, it was just too big [to fit in the car], and we wanted the drivers actually to see where they’re going.”
That’s because while Tom Cruise and the cast of Top Gun: Maverick were seated in fighter jets blazing through the air, they weren’t piloting the planes; in F1, the cast — including star Brad Pitt — were actually driving cars at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.
“We needed these cameras to be able to go that fast,” Miranda says. Too bad that technology didn’t even exist. “We had to make cameras that weren’t available.”
Set in the world of Formula 1 racing, F1 is about Sonny Hayes (Pitt), who returns to the sport 30 years after a massive crash derailed his career to bring a struggling team and its hotshot new driver (Damson Idris) to glory. F1 filmed during Formula 1 races around the world and features several prominent drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, who not only co-starred but served as one of the Apple movie’s producers. (F1 was distributed in theaters through a partnership with Warner Bros. around the world.)
“You’re working in someone else’s world. We weren’t their main priority,” Miranda says of the production’s relationship with the sport. “I always just feel like we’re this kind of annoying little hornet.”
Still, any sense of being an outsider was pushed aside by an unexpected show of support from real-life race teams and drivers toward the end of production. “All the teams brought out all their cars to join in the movie,” Miranda recalls of a moment during the concluding race in Abu Dhabi. “It felt like I was operating a live CG shot, but it was all in-camera. It was really just awesome to feel the love back on that end.”
Apple Original Films’ F1 starts streaming on Apple TV on Friday, Dec. 12.
