{"id":503833,"date":"2026-02-27T21:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503833\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T21:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:13:13","slug":"how-f1s-access-to-formula-1-races-helped-bring-the-film-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503833\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘F1’s’ Access to Formula 1 Races Helped Bring the Film to Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe roaring engine, the downshifting of the gears, tires on gravel, and crowds chanting were all aural elements that give Joseph Kosinski\u2019s<\/a> \u201cF1\u201d\u00a0its adrenaline rush.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe team at Formula One Media & Broadcast Center, led by Tim Bampton, Director of Content Delivery, Emma Penney, Engineering Manager, Audio & RF, Wendy Hendrickx, Head of Live Production, and Dean Locke, Director of Broadcast & Media, were vital collaborators in giving Kosinski and his sound team unprecedented access to the 2023-2024 Grand Prix season.<\/p>\n

\n\tKosinski explains, \u201cOur collaboration with Formula 1 included working very closely with their broadcast team. We integrated our recording equipment into their pipeline which allowed us to capture 4K imagery from over 20 of their trackside cameras simultaneously and uncompressed sound from the nearly 100 microphones surrounding the circuit. I would brief their phenomenally talented camera operators before a race on the types of shots and story beats that I was looking for and they would capture those moments during the actual Grand Prix.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBampton adds the collaboration \u201cwas a marriage of a big scale Hollywood movie with the pinnacle of live sports broadcasting.\u201d Kosinski wanted to place audiences inside a racing car and have them feel like they were going 200 m.p.h. That unique partnership helped bring the film to life by providing reference material and knowledge to the film\u2019s sound team.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Apple Original Film stars\u00a0Brad Pitt<\/a>\u00a0as former Formula 1 race car driver Sonny Hayes, a retired driver. Javier Bardem plays Ruben, the boss of an underdog racing team who convinces Sonny to return to the sport to partner with and mentor rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). The film picks up halfway through the Formula 1 season, and by bringing Sonny into the mix, Ruben hopes the team lands a podium finish.<\/p>\n

\n\tFormula One\u2019s Media and Broadcast Center in Biggin Hill, about an hour outside of London, is the sport\u2019s beating heart. Bampton and the team are no strangers to the twists and turns that they cover in meticulous detail week after week during the Grand Prix season for broadcast.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs engineering manager, Penny placed 150 microphones around the actual tracks. Collaborating closely with supervising sound editor and sound designer\u00a0Al Nelson<\/a>, she helped captured sounds from all three practice sessions, qualifying races and the Grand Prix races.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether they were in Silverstone, Bahrain or Hungary, the key was to be as close as they possibly could. In addition to Penny\u2019s mics, production sound mixer Gareth John\u00a0used specific DPA microphones, similar to what they use in the actual F1 races, strategically placing them on the cars, around the track and all the various turns.<\/p>\n

\n\tNelson listened to every single audio strand collected by Penny. Those strands proved invaluable to the team. \u201cWe could educate ourselves on exactly what it sounded like. It\u2019s very different from track to track.\u201d He adds, \u201cWe would find certain angles, and places where we needed to hear a downshift at this turn in this track, and we could filter in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs they played through the raw footage, they listened out for the golden moments. Each circuit, car and driver had a distinct sound, and that needed to carry across: \u201cYou try and find those unique characteristics and apply them to the drama of our film and our drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne golden moment came in the scene where Red Bull racer Max Verstappen crashed into McLaren driver Oscar Piastri at Abu Dhabi in 2024. That was an authentic moment, happening in real time, and it was pilfered from the actual F1 event, which Nelson put into the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Penny\u2019s audio strands, and John\u2019s recordings, Nelson was able to make the film\u2019s sound feel as authentic as possible. He says, \u201cSome of the microphones are closer than others, but there\u2019s this visceral feeling that we were trying to evoke. We have a lot more tools with our mix stage and what we can do. We tried to take it to the next level, was to feel like you were on top of the car, as it took the curbs, or as it accelerated off the grid. That took some time and experimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tPenny explains that crowd sounds were tricky. \u201cSometimes the fans don\u2019t\u2019 cheer as much.\u201d But that\u2019s where Whittle would step in. She would \u201ccollect crowd sounds, additional ADR, and chants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tF1 superfan and rerecording mixer Juan Peralta spent years following the sport, often getting up at 4:30 a.m. to watch races. He was tasked with putting the film into theaters with that bombastic Imax sound. As a fan of the sport, he felt immense pressure to get it right. The drivers\u2019 helmet camera footage provided by the Formula One Media & Broadcast Center proved useful. He could watch the camera footage to see what gears the drivers were on and what they were doing at certain turns. Peralta says the driver perspective helped him \u201cstay true to the sounds and what was happening with the upshifting and down shifting, and hitting the corners.\u201d He adds, \u201cIt helped a lot for me to be able to get creative with some of these sounds and put them in the room and make them bigger and bolder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the \u201cF1\u201d movie team had unprecedented access, they were also working with the Formula 1 team during Grand Prix weekends. Whether they were in Silverstone or Yas Marina, those action sequences were filmed on those same tracks. Says Bampton, \u201cWe found 15 minutes \u2014 20 max \u2014 within the schedule. We said to Joe, \u2018Once the serious business of racing is done and the track sessions are out the way, we\u2019ll find whatever time we can.\u2019 I can\u2019t underline too much just how integrated the movie became in our world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLocke adds, \u201cThere was a massive challenge around that, doing a feature movie, in a really complicated live event, was immense. Having those two drivers (Pitt and Idris) on the grid at Silverstone, one of our biggest Grand Prix, in front of 450,000 people, but framing them out was quite interesting.\u201d He goes on to say seeing the movie after \u201cwas hugely rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJerry Bruckheimer and Kosinski were often sitting alongside Bampton and Locke. Regarding the film\u2019s dialogue, Bampton says, \u201cOn a couple of things, I said, \u2018That\u2019s not a line someone would say in that way, and Joe was super open to that input.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Rizzo, that reference material was key to maintaining authenticity throughout the sound mix. He says, \u201cThe dialogue department is hugely grateful to Formula One for collaborating and providing access to that material. We studied the myriad of tracks F1 shared from practices, qualifying runs and Grand Prix to accurately replicate and depict communications between the team manager and driver as well as to recreate live event environments and PA treatments. Additionally, our Skywalker dialogue crew worked endlessly alongside Formula One to collect paddock, garage and crowd recordings which allowed us to provide a thoroughly convincing race atmosphere in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, \u201cF1\u201d roars to life, and the sound is precise because of how Formula 1, for the first time ever, opened its doors to Kosinski and his crew. He says, \u201cThe film would not have the sense of scale and level of authenticity without their vital contributions to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Apple<\/p>\n

\n\tFormula One\u2019s Media and Broadcast Center in Biggin Hill<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFormula One\u2019s Media and Broadcast Center<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFormula One\u2019s Media and Broadcast Center<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFormula One\u2019s Media and Broadcast Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The roaring engine, the downshifting of the gears, tires on gravel, and crowds chanting were all aural elements…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,201048,576,577,40573,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-503833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-f1-london-tour","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-joseph-kosinski","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503833","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=503833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}