A RAPID WORKFLOW FORMULA FOR A FAST PACED PRODUCTION

Directed by Joseph Kosinski, lensed by Claudio Miranda, and starring Brad Pitt, F1 tells the story of Sonny Hayes, Formula 1's most promising driver in the 1990s until an accident on the track nearly ended his career. Thirty years later, the owner of a struggling Formula 1 team convinces Sonny to return to racing and become the best in the world. Driving alongside the team's hotshot rookie, Sonny soon learns that the road to redemption is not something you can travel alone.

When it came to the workflow for F1, in demand DIT Christopher Nunn was certainly not alone. Working with an incredible team from capture to post, Chris’s job was Technical Supervisor, responsible for the incredibly unique F1 Footage Unit, capturing all of F1's broadcast cameras for use in the film as well as taking care of specially built Apple Cameras that were mounted onto the actual F1 cars in the races.

We recently managed a pit stop moment with Chris. He talked candidly about his very impressive career to date and what the future holds, his work on this immense project and how CODEX technology proved vital, and working alongside some truly great DIT Hollywood royalty.

DIT Chris Nunn alongside the ApexGP car at the Abu Dhabi 2024 Grand Prix. (image credit: Matt Oaten)

How did you get started in the industry and what led up to you getting involved with the ApexGP production (F1 The Movie)?

I studied Cinematography at Goldsmiths College in London as part of a Media & Communications degree (gaining a 1st Class Hons) and from there I went into the industry as a camera trainee. I was a 2nd AC when the first digital cinema cameras were coming onto the scene. I could see the way things were going and actively learned up on the new tech, and became an 'HD technician' working with the ARRI D20 and D21 and the Panavision Genesis and various iterations of Sony and Panasonic digital cameras.

On Fantastic Mr Fox (Director Wes Anderson), I teamed up with lot of the old Aardman crew (DP Tristan Oliver) it was their first digital animation feature (before that they shot on film with old Mitchells) and for me this was the beginnings of the DIT role. Each camera had its own computer station, and in the role of camera assistant we were responsible for camera settings, file capture and preparing the file sequences to be sent to post-production.

"I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO REALLY MAKE AN IMPACT ON THE FILM, IN A WAY YOU DON’T USUALLY GET TO AS A DIT"

While I was on that film the first RED camera came out (RED One) and soon after I became one of the first crop of DITs in London. That’s when I met Dan Carling on another racing film (TT3D) about the TT bike races on the Isle of Man. I was his data manager on that project and we’ve worked with each other on films ever since, often taking on Aerial Units, 2nd Units, Splinter Units, VFX units as well as covering him on main unit. When Dan called me about the F1 project and told me what would be involved for my unit, my head exploded through excitement but also with the dawning realisation of what an enormous undertaking it would be!

I think the first thing to say is, this is by far the most unusual and most technically challenging but also the most rewarding and enjoyable project I’ve ever worked on, it was a feature film collaboration with one of the (if not the) biggest and best outside broadcasters on the planet.

I was tasked with building a team that could capture around 45 cameras plus 128 tracks of audio per race and qualifying sessions at multiple Grand Prix's around the world, in the best quality possible, to back up and transcode over 80TBs of footage on location in lightning quick fashion, manage all the different frame rates and colour spaces with a bespoke workflow, then to jump on a plane and go and do it all again in another far flung part of the world.

Ed Valko & Robert Molholm (Apple Incubation Team) with the F1 Footage Unit, Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024

Figuring out how to do it took 3 months of R&D and testing and obviously involved a massive collaboration with F1 and their Broadcast Engineering team, who backed us 110% even when it involved changing the way they worked in a lot of cases. I vividly remember how I felt after my first R&D trip with F1 at the Bahrain pre-season testing in Feb 2023. I’d never been to a Grand Prix before, and it’s really quite an overwhelming experience being in the paddock so close to all the action with all the noise, glitz and glamour, and the media circus, but on top of that I had spoken with countless engineers to understand their set up as I started to make a plan how to execute the mission. By the end of that weekend, my brain was totally fried! 

There was so much to consider technically but also logistically - as you can imagine everything is so spread out, we had to look after the Heli Cam, Cable Cam (CamCat), the hand-held pit lane cameras (RF cams), all the track cams as well as looking after the Apple cams, which we put on the actual F1 cars in the actual races! One abiding memory of those early days was the look on the faces of the engineers I was speaking with - it was apparent I was asking for A LOT but they never once said “no we can’t do that”, it was always a case of “OK, let's figure this out together a way to do this”. The F1 team were a dream to work with, their expertise and willingness to partner on this was exceptional, they really wanted the film to be a success. I often thought to myself, if it was the other way around, a broadcast team coming in to collaborate with a feature film and asking them to change the way they worked, it likely wouldn’t have been such a happy working relationship!

Darko CamCat/Cable Cam Rigger, Monza Grand Prix 2023 (image credit: Chris Nunn)

I really want to give a shout out to some unsung heroes from F1. There were three key Engineers, who without their help we would not have been able to achieve what we did. Ian Drew, Theo McMenamin, and Matt Levene all gave outstanding contributions to the F1 Footage Unit, from the R&D stage and building our Atomos record racks, all the way through the 2 years of production. We really leaned on their technical knowledge and knowhow, and I cannot thank them enough for all their help and support!

I also want to highlight the fantastic work the F1 Camera Operators did on the film, often working extra sessions for us, there are too many to name them all here but I wanted to say that watching how they were able to frame and focus on such fast moving cars so effortlessly and so consistently was so impressive. I do want to make a special mention of Lieven Hermans, Helicam Operator and Hans Cartmell, the CamCat (Cable Cam) operator as Joe Kosinski particularly loved the shots these cameramen were able to get and used them heavily in the film. Both guys went out of their way to incorporate Joe's notes in a very busy schedule, where their main priority was the live broadcast, they were still able to get us some crucial shots we needed for the film, very often with only one go at it.

And course without the support and blessing of Dean Locke, (Director of Broadcast and Media, Formula 1), Richard Sergeant (Head of Media Engineering) and Joel James (Senior Media Engineering Manager), none of this would've happened at all, I feel honoured by the trust they imparted to me and the team, and the mountains they moved to accommodate The F1 Footage Unit and make it the success it was.

I had the opportunity to really make an impact on the film, in a way you don’t usually get to as a DIT.

I was handed this massive responsibility, I had to go away, school up and make it happen. Our footage was used throughout the film and it was so cool to see some of the extra cutaways get included that my team worked very hard to make sure we captured. We were very separate from Main Unit most of the time, so the onus was on me to co-ordinate with Dave Birchill (F1 Track Camera Director), Paul Young (F1 Operations Executive Producer) and the camera operators to brief them on what Joe (Kosinski) and Claudio (Miranda) wanted to get from each particular race. My team and I were always on the lookout for story beats in the script we needed, for example the Red Arrows fly-over at Silverstone, cars going through gravel, sweepers on the track, the crowd holding up a huge Ferrari flag, the fans doing the Mexican wave at Silverstone - all these moments that made the cut, adding texture, colour and authenticity to the film.

As I was so embedded with F1, I attended the meetings with the F1 top brass, 1st AD (Toby Hefferman), Joe and Claudio, and was able to offer up ideas and options as well as help with some of the movie/broadcast translation.

Chris Nunn and Murad Ali boarding the Apple camera in the McLaren garage, Las Vegas GP 2024 (image credit: Dan F1 Onboards)

We also filmed some of the specific Apex movie action featuring the cast, with the broadcast cameras. The final race in Abu Dhabi was the most intense and most exhilarating, Toby (1st AD) had us drilled to the max and briefed us to the exact second how everything was going to happen and where the cameras needed to be to capture all the action. It had to have military-like precision as many of these shots were one take onlys. My unit captured shots like the heli cam shot of fireworks at the finish line, angles of the podium celebration as well as the specific race action we needed. This ended up being really fun as I effectively became co-director of some of the cameras, sitting next to Dave Birchill (track director) and Hans Cartmell the CamCat (cable cam) operator guiding them as per Joe's notes and giving them timing cues.

Apple Cams - I got the unique opportunity to work directly with the Apple incubation team, the team that R&D all of Apple’s imaging tech.

I even got to meet Apple CEO, Tim Cook. Apple built us several cameras made with iPhone tech to the exact spec (weight, shape, power draw) of the broadcast cameras that F1 use on the cars, so that we could swap them on the actual F1 cars in the actual races. The footage we got from these was unreal, you can’t beat the authenticity of these images, it was one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences to be managing these cameras along with the F1 Onboard Camera Team and the Apple Techs and such a blast to see shots from these cameras in the final film.

Apple onboard cameras designed by Apple to capture footage from the F1 cars during actual races.

With the F1 Onboard Camera team, headed up with by Steve Smith and Dino Leone, we had access to all the F1 team garages, cars and even the grid where we would hit record on the Apple cams before the race, it was a total dream! We are hugely indebted to Steve and Dino’s determination to convince the teams to let us put these cameras on the cars. It was a slow and softly approach at the beginning of filming, building trust, team by team that the cameras weren’t going to impact the performance of the car in any way. Dan Tyman was our trusty F1 Technician mounting the cameras to the cars for us. Murad Ali and Tim Burton (Production Support Engineers) from Apple became the Camera Technicians for the Apple cams for the whole shoot, I would join them to set exposure and they took care of the rest (filter changes, clear film loading, data and meta data management, camera settings, slates etc, they did a really fantastic job!

The F1 Onboard Camera Team, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2023

This part of the project was an amazing collaboration in its own right, the Apple engineers behind this camera are absolutely top notch, I really hope we get to work together again on another project. I feel like this is only the beginning of Apple using their tech to enhance their film projects.

Collaboration with Editorial and Company 3.

Due to the sheer amount of data and the array of formats, colour spaces and frame rates. It needed a unique workflow to handle this efficiently - it was a joy to work with an editorial team in Stephen Mirrione and Matt Sweat (who also worked with JK on Top Gun Maverick). Both had the technical appreciation of what was involved and had the flexibility to allow us to come up with a really nifty workflow solution, in collaboration with the technical wizards at Company 3, Brett Rayner, and John Quartel.

Sound - just as important as picture.

The Apex cars were actually F2 cars made to look like F1 cars, so they sounded completely different and all the sound had to be replaced. Richard Thomas in collaboration with the F1 audio team, captured all of the live Grand Prix track audio (all 128 channels of it) plus he had the opportunity to put mics on the actual F1 cars at some F1 testing sessions, to capture the engine sounds onboard and help to give that authentic F1 driver experience. Rich came to all the races and managed his workload like a true pro, often helping the rest of us out when we were slammed. A big thanks also to Emma Penny, F1 Audio Managing Engineer for all the collaboration on this.

Personal Photography.

We had such unbelievable access, we all took the opportunity in our down time to take a few snaps (some of my favourites I’ve shared here), I fell back in love with shooting with my stills camera and I finally put my mega zoom lens to work!

The F1 Footage Unit processing data with CODEX Transfer Drives back at the hotel after the Barcelona GP 2023 (image credit: Chris Nunn)

R&D mission testing in Bahrain 2023 was key from the start. Each camera source needed its own bespoke solutions: the track cams were all fed into multiple racks of Atomos Studio II recorder units which we set up at the F1 Event Technical Centre, (the on-track broadcast hub for F1), and lots of cable! We had recorders built into the Heli Cam and the Cable Cam (CamCat) and with the help of Nikie Griedl we were able to modify the signal path to capture in 4K to our onboard recorder while maintaining an HD feed for the F1 Broadcast. F1 have since upgraded their system to 4K RF and this was all factored into the design of the modification to the system to make this possible.

Similarly with the RF Cams (the hand held pit lane Cameras), we came up with a camera set-up that allowed 4K log recording internally for us, while transmitting HD 709 for Broadcast. 'Speedy', head RF Camera operator and Ian Scholfield, Head of RF Systems were both brilliant, always open to helping us get the shots we needed for the film. The RF Cams contribution at the end of the film at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the action they captured in the pit lane, gave a real energy to those final scenes.

Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes with special edition helmet, Japanese Grand Prix 2023 (image credit: Chris Nunn)

I was also insistent that we had highly experienced DITs on the team who could deal with the complexity and the sheer volume of cameras we were working within such an extremely unusual setting. First on the team-sheet was Joe Jamieson, with all his multicam and travel experience on The Grand Tour, as well as a mega F1 fan, he was the obvious choice. I was also thrilled to have Matt Oaten and Matthew Hicks on the team, both with solid experience in so many shooting scenarios, they were both a safe pair of hands that brought some zen to the team in a very hectic environment.

How was your DIT set up, and did you have to make any customisations for the specific demands of this project?

This job was so different to any other DIT job I’ve ever done - we didn’t have carts, we had multiple mobile data crunching set-ups that would all pack away into Peli cases. We hand-carried everything, we became experts in creating nimble and powerful work stations - utilising the fastest silicon Macs available to us and we got to know Airport Customs and Carnet forms very well! We had to be very self-sufficient as we were packed up and sent around the world as a self-contained unit, making our way to the Grand Prix's ourselves. Driving in Japan was interesting to say the least!

DIT Joe Jamieson setting up Atomos Recorder Racks inside the F1 Event Technical Centre, Barcelona Grand Prix 2023 (image credit: Chris Nunn)

What were some of the biggest challenges during production?

Co-ordinating so many cameras, formats, colour spaces and frame rates, working out how to make sure we got what we needed without compromising the F1 broadcast. While there was a lot of cross-over with film, I still had an immense amount to learn about the F1 broadcast set-up, infrastructure, and workflow - it took a few months to problem-solve the whole workflow. Company 3 came up with a great way of working out a way to deal with the multiple formats and solving the retiming from various Broadcast frame rates to 24fps.

How about Formula 1 circuit locations? Did these present any production hurdles for handling digital imaging?

Always working in tight spaces, whether it be at the Event Technical Centre, F1 Canteen (while the ETC was derigged after a race) or hotel rooms, each race was different and required a different set up. The one constant was the need to be fast, mobile, and compact.

CamCat follows Charles Leclerc's Ferrari through the stadium section at the Mexican Grand Prix 2023 (image credit: Chris Nunn)

How much data did you generate on a given day and how did the CODEX Transfer Drives and Readers perform?

We knew we were going to be dealing with a lot of data, so needed very fast hard drives, large capacity, small, light and reliable but thankfully we didn’t need them to be cheap! I was super impressed by the CODEX Transfer Drives - we needed very fast, high capacity SSD RAIDs as we were generating on average 80TB of data per race weekend, and the drives really delivered. By the end of the shoot we had generated around 1.2 Peta Bytes of data from all 13 races we recorded at, just from our unit alone, that’s around 2200 hrs of footage!

"WE NEEDED VERY FAST HIGH CAPACITY SSD RAIDS AS WE WERE GENERATING ON AVERAGE 80TB OF DATA PER RACE WEEKEND!"

I love the design of the CODEX Transfer Drives and because you mount them in docks it meant the drives themselves were very small, this was invaluable as one of the team would travel with multiple drives in a small Peli case and hand-carry them from wherever we were in the world back to the UK, to be backed up to our server and Amazon S3 bucket in the cloud. We would have docks set up there ready to receive the drives. Here the bonded Thunderbolt® mode enabled us to offload a ton of data in rapid time, we used a top spec Mac Pro and Mac Studio utilising the multiple Thunderbolt ports and buses of these machines.

Chris Nunn, Matt Hicks, and Matt Oaten of the F1 Footage Unit processing data with CODEX Transfer Drives after the Monza Grand Prix 2023 (image credit: Chris Nunn)

It must have been a dream job to work alongside many of your great DIT peers on this production - Dan Carling, Joe Steel etc. How was this unique DIT collaboration?

Absolutely, I’d say without a doubt they are the top two Features DITs in the UK, it’s always a pleasure to be working with these guys, they are so experienced, so knowledgeable, so calm and so well prepared, they are also super nice people in their own right. We all started out as DITs from the very beginning so there’s a camaraderie that comes with that. Dan and Joe’s CV's speak for them themselves and there’s a reason why they get the best and biggest jobs going.

What have you done since this production, what are you working on now, and what does the future look like for you?

At the start of 2025 I was on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Main Unit, the film version of the popular Amazon show starring John Krasinski and Sienna Miller. We spent a month in Dubai and three months in London. As we speak I’m about to finish up on Neuromancer (Apple TV project based on the book of the same name that heavily inspired The Matrix films). I came on board the Tandem Unit to shoot a standalone episode.

My next project is Rings of Power (Eagle Unit) which will keep me busy for some months. I’m also excited to say that I’m soon to join F1 as a freelance contractor too. I will be working on some of their races as Vision Control Engineer, working at Biggin Hill in South East England at their “mission control” broadcast hub. The job is a bit like live grade but for Broadcast - F1 have all their cameras connected to Biggin Hill via IP/fibre no matter where in the world the Grand Prix is happening, I will be responsible for managing camera settings, exposure, and colour. I've missed the buzz of working in and around F1 and the live broadcast environment, but I’m also really excited to be reuniting with the F1 family itself, I got to know so many of the amazing F1 team really well, many I consider to be friends now, I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to continue working with them, only this time in F1 uniform!

Chris Nunn, Tim Burton, and Murad Ali of the F1 Footage Unit in Mercedes garage setting up the Apple Onboard Camera (Credit Steve Smith F1 Onboards)