Red Bull Racing has worked with creative production studio Final Pixel and the XPLOR team at Production Park in West Yorkshire to create Formula 1’s first ever virtual production shoot.
The car in which Max Verstappen looks set to win the Championship made the short journey to Production Park’s state of the art virtual production studio in Wakefield in January.
The resulting film, which was used to launch Red Bull’s newest car to the world’s press, showed it on a fantastic road trip across America. The shoot blended real archive footage, video plates and drone footage with Unreal Engine produced scenes, CGI and VFX.
Phil Adlam, head of XPLOR, said: “Hosting an F1 car at Production Park for the first ever Formula 1 virtual production shoot was a dream job for our team at XPLOR. We have some of the best VP and Unreal Engine technicians in the world, and it was fantastic to see what was achieved with our partners Final Pixel and Red Bull Racing.”
“It’s also great to work on a project that shows the exceptional potential of what we can deliver from our studios here at Production Park, and we are excited to see how we can develop it as a valuable resource right at the heart of Yorkshire’s creative sector.”
Michael McKenna CEO & director of VP at Final Pixel added: “Virtual Production was the perfect solution here because it allowed us to do things with the car and show it in a way that otherwise would have been totally unachievable. We took Oracle Red Bull’s RB19 through the Nevada desert, into Miami and past the Kennedy Space station – all without leaving the comfort of the studio in Wakefield.
“Not only did virtual production aid the sustainability initiative of a carbon net zero production, it also solved numerous pain points for the client that rendered the creative brief, a road trip across America, impossible. The embargoed Oracle RB19 car was of great confidentiality and had not been seen by the public anywhere, so was impossible to shoot on location. The technological advancements that we have built a business out of pursuing made the impossible possible. It is Final Pixel’s mission to open this opportunity up to the many brands and storytellers that will benefit from this craft’’
Production Park has also released a 90-second BTS film of the shoot:
