{"id":468827,"date":"2026-02-11T21:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468827\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T21:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:26:09","slug":"the-movie-captured-real-engine-sounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468827\/","title":{"rendered":"The Movie Captured Real Engine Sounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe filmmakers of F1: The Movie<\/a> wanted to portray Formula 1 racing in a way that\u2019s never been done onscreen before. And for supervising sound editor Al Nelson, now Oscar-nominated for his work on the film, that meant getting up close and personal to the powerful cars whizzing around corners on the tracks.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI went to Silverstone in 2023 when they were first shooting, and that was the most significant moment for me in realizing what we had ahead of us,\u201d Nelson tells THR. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the thousands of people roaring, screaming and chanting, and the music and 20 cars of that caliber revving and taking off and going by you at 200 miles an hour. It\u2019s more than just a sound. It\u2019s something that you really feel in your bones. The goal was to re-create that experience. And the only way we were going to have access to that was to be there on the track and to get microphones as close as we could to those cars. Those cars are millions of dollars, so it\u2019s not like I could just rent one for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNelson crawled under barricades and over fences to place his microphones right near the tracks, and seven-time Formula One World Drivers\u2019 champion Lewis Hamilton (who was a producer on the film) was instrumental in getting him access to the Mercedes pit lane and garage for additional soundscapes.<\/p>\n

\n\tGetting to record sound on the actual cars proved to be a bigger challenge, as everything in Formula 1 and its cars is measured and weighed to the smallest degree.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were working a lot with the Mercedes [team],\u201d says Nelson. \u201cWhen they weren\u2019t in a Grand Prix and when I wouldn\u2019t be responsible for crashing a car with a microphone, we had access to the Mercedes cars, and [we placed] tiny microphones and recorders that they would weigh and say, \u2018OK, you can put that on our car.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, Mercedes cars aren\u2019t the only ones that are racing in a Grand Prix, and every engine sounds different. That\u2019s something Nelson had to take into consideration when recording sounds for the movie.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Up until this year] there are four engines: Ferrari, Mercedes, Honda and Renault, and all of them do sound different, especially when they\u2019re going slow and up close,\u201d he explains. \u201cOur [fictional Formula 1] APXGP car is a Mercedes-based engine, so any time we\u2019re on board with our car, we are hearing the Mercedes engine from our recordings. And then when a Red Bull car pulls in for a pit stop and then pulls away, that was a Red Bull that we recorded at various Grand Prix [races].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNelson and his team knew they had to get very specific. Formula 1 fans and its drivers would take notice if something \u2014 like the sound of switching gears \u2014 didn\u2019t sound right. \u201cThese cars have eight gears, and each turn, each straight, everywhere that the car is on the track represents a gear and a speed,\u201d says Nelson. \u201cAgain, Lewis Hamilton was instrumental in helping us understand what the driver hears and what the driver is used to doing and advising us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor non-track and engine sounds, sound editor Gwendolyn Yates Whittle collected crowd noises and loop group recordings like chants and cheers, while rerecording mixers Gary Rizzo and Juan Peralta oversaw dialogue and music, and sound effects, respectively. Nelson, Whittle, Rizzo and Peralta, alongside Gareth John, were nominated in the best sound category at this year\u2019s Academy Awards<\/a>. The film\u2019s sound also received nods for the Cinema Audio Society\u2019s CAS Awards, which celebrates excellence in sound mixing, and MPSE\u2019s Golden Reel Awards, which honors achievements in sound editing and design.<\/p>\n

\n\tSee more on the making of F1: The Movie and other awards contenders at THR\u2018s dedicated site for behind-the-scenes stories at THR.com\/behindthescreen.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThis story first appeared in a February stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The filmmakers of F1: The Movie wanted to portray Formula 1 racing in a way that\u2019s never been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[3042,49,48,578,49008,576,577,18744,68129,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-468827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-f1-the-movie","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-oscars","16":"tag-oscars-2026","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}