Sunbelt Film & TV
Brief
Sunbelt Film & TV are part of the Sunbelt Rentals UK family and they had a very interesting question to ask us. They asked if we would be up for spending a few days on set where Sony were testing the new Burano camera with a film that would be directed by the Oscar winning cinematographer James Friend. Were we we interested in doing this? We were buzzing.
Preproduction
This was to be a very different kind of shoot for our team as we were guests and visitors to another production. We made it very clear that we were not there to get in their way, and with our experiences across different types of our own productions, we were able to satisfy the demand of a larger shoot with our aims, risk assessments and protocols very much place from the off. We were going to be filming on airfields which we have plenty of experience of doing so, and we knew that we would have very limited opportunity to capture the shots we need to capture, our main goal was to capture as much film footage and stills of the Sunbelt equipment on the shoot as possible with it being used in a working environment. It is a very rare opportunity to have access to a live set in this way so we needed to make the most of the opportunity.
Production
It was amazing to see the crew in action and a glance at the IMDb of the various people involved showed us exactly the calibre of the people on set, and it was a real privilege to see them at work. We split into two allowing us to follow the different units on the airfield. It seems pretty obvious, but we have seen it ourselves where sometimes visitors can be more disruptive to the main aims of any shoot day and from chatting with the film team, it was pretty clear that they were happy for us to be up close and personal with them. Capturing helicopters, planes and a classic Jaguar filmed around the airfield and it was really impressive to see how the sequences were filmed. They had plenty of Sunbelt kit on site so we were able to capture the pieces of equipment from batteries through to rigs; we were able to maximise the access we had with it being a Sony launch. We were very surprised to be accosted by the product development team, who wanted to know everything we loved and everything we hated about our current Sony cameras too. As well as watching James Friend and his team in action, a key part of the shoot was The Wingman himself; Paul Bonhomme the aerobatic race pilot. We shot in two locations, one watching a helicopter chase a plane, and another where the hangar shots were set up.
Postproduction
After wrangling on set, we created a pull of our footage from the shoot days and begun to create a testimonial based around a chat with Damian Anderson, one of the films producers. The main goal from this was to highlight the support from Sunbelt Film & TV for productions and how by being a single source for pretty much anything you could want on a film set that they make the producers and crews lives easier. It was really interesting for us to make a film about a film. We pieced this together with the sequences the team shot and we had no shortage of amazing footage of people doing top level work.
Results
The film is a great piece of collateral for Sunbelt Film & TV to showcase how much of their equipment is used in a shoot like this. Capturing the availablity and and how people benefit from the customer service they offer is interesting as it mirrors the way they work with their construction clients in other parts of the group. For us having seen the footage being shot on the Sony Burano, it was fascinating to see all come together in a film, named The Wingman which featured some absolutely incredible and stunning aerial cinematography. This was a very unique and different project for us and we thoroughly enjoyed everything about it. Let's do it again sometime.
