Cars and Cinema : sources of jobs and passions

As we can see in tons of movies, cars take an important place on screen. From James Bond to the DeLorean from Back to the future, everyone remembers those iconics autos and directly links them to some cinema memories. But so as to reach this beautiful chemistry between these two type of arts, lots of actors are needed. Here we talk about every jobs which are a bit shadowed by the final rendering that is the movie itself. Indeed, from the conception to the shooting step, many different skills are required and that is what we are going to see here.

First of all, before the car even exists, the film director and his team should agree on the atmosphere of the movie. This will have a direct incidence on which car and what design will be chosen. If the film take place in a precise historic period, if it is the car of a superhero or an anonymous family, everything is put on paper to find out which car fill in the more number of criterias. In a quite dark World, Julian Caldow will take the initiative to paint the second Batmobile in a full black livery. Mr Bean, an english citizen will drive an Austin Mini. This first step is absolutely crucial because it sets a strong link between the character and his car.

Once the main ideas are put in place, it is time for the designer to jump in. It is of course the most important part in the creative process, which is kind of paradoxical because it is often the step where not much time is allowded. However, some designers achieved some miracles like Michael Scheffe, who designed the famous K.I.T.T in only two weeks. In opposite, it is maybe this low amount of time combined with a well-known franchise wich led to some forgettable cars. For example some Batmobiles are not really remembered and that is surely due to the other Batmobiles. Indeed, how hard should it be for a Batmobile designer to only have several weeks to design a car, which could stay in the memories of viewer as long as the most famous ones ? The answer is probably really hard.

Painters get their role as well. The livery they create can transform a basic car into a cinema star. A good example of that is the Fast and Furious franchise which created iconic liveries like the Toyota Supra one or the R34 of Jake Paul.

Next, engineers receive the concept sketches from the designer. Then starts the hard work. Which frame are we going to use, do we use an already existing one, do we create one, is what the designer gives us really possible to create. It is a bit the same questions that engineers from the automotive industries have when a concept car is presented to them. Hopefully, really often the designer already thinked about all those issues, because most of cinema cars are based on real cars. But the role of engineers take an other dimension after the first car leave the factory. Indeed, now engineers have to prepare copies of the car especially prepared for stunts. A stund will lead to one copie of the car. For example, 300 Dodge Charger were used for the show Dukes of the Hazzard.

After working with the designer, engineers will work with stuntmen. Of course stuntmen are really important. Who is going to make a cork after a huge jump, who is gonna drive 60+mph in the narrow streets of a city. But to make them the more comfortable in the car possible, and of course to avoid some injuries, engineers and stuntmen work together to prepare the car and make the most adequate settings. It could be the depth of the pedalier, the shifting timing, every little elements which can make the car easier to drive. But sometimes, the concept car itself led to an undrivable car like the Panther mobile where the driver cockpit is placed in front of the front wheels.

Stuntmen are really good drivers. Not in the same way as a Formula One driver. Indeed, if they are not the fastest men on Earth, they are the best at succeeding mastering really hard driving cars i really hard conditions. Remy Julienne, a french stuntmen really shows how talented and maybe crazy (surely) you need to be to become a master of stunts. He had won several motocross and car races in his career before he started working for the cinema industries. Aside many french films like « La Grande Vadrouille », he also worked for several James Bond movies, being the movie double of Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore.

In the 1971 movie « Le Casse », Julienne will drive the Fiat 124 during 9 minutes in the streets of Athenes without stopping the traffic. The chase will stop when the stuntmen was forced to crash to avoid the car of an unknown man. His life in front of the camera, as well as the one of his mates, was regulated to the millimeter, to the nearest second, otherwise « it’s up there in a pine coffin. Sometimes it would have taken very little to make it happen ». This declaration of Julienne shows how dangerous this job is.

But even if it is dangerous, some actors realize their own stunts. Jean-Paul Belmondo has done several of his stunts as an example. Before the shooting of Le Mans 66, Christian Bale trained with Rober Nagle, a stuntman and a really good driver. They spent one week at the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix, Arizona, to make the actor ready for driving both the Shelby Cobra and the Ford GT40.

This relation between cars and cinema goes further than created new scenes like car chase. It also changes the way scenes are shot, the feeling the director wanted to share. An interior framing will offer an intimicy, a place where no exterior elements can interfere.

In many of movies involving a car, we see a relationship evolving between the actor and the car world. Some actors become real passionate of cars like Rowan Atkinson for example. He is now one of the most famous car collector in the World and owns a amazing Mclaren F1 Road Version, which surely costs more than 5 millions pounds.

That led to an other aspect of movie cars. Indeed, by becoming cinema stars, their estimated price just explodes and become multi-millions art pieces. But those car are not sold everytime, they can be stocked in some hangars from the producer or exposed in some museums like in the Petersen Automotive Museum of Los Angeles.

Cinema and cars developed in the same historic period and so, they always been working together. They did not created only some iconic cars, but created jobs, passions, memories for the movie team as well as for the spectator. Those two industries do not have finished their collaboration and we are hyped to see which car will impress us in the next ten years.