How Uncommon took Formula E to new heights

If you're an adrenaline junkie looking for fast-paced thrills and edge-of-your-seat anticipation then watching Formula E might be for you.

If you still need that extra frisson of excitement though, you could just settle for watching Formula E commercials. After last year's No Turning Back, a Bondian foot race across rooftops and through dinner parties, and 2021's Change. Accelerated., which gave an envious, slow-motion glance at a speeding Formula E car, comes this year's offering. 

Progress is Unstoppable, created by Uncommon London and directed by Sam Walker, ups the excitement ante as we witness a Formula E driver accelerated his car out of an aeroplane and then plummet to earth. Of course, all is not quite what it seems but, here, Walker is on hand to take us through the details, from concept to completion and including some very impressive rigs.

Above: "I wanted this film to feel genuinely dangerous," says Walker about the new Formula E spot. 

As an agency you set yourself a high bar with the previous two campaigns for Formula E; did that make this one all the more challenging?

The biggest pressure I feel is the pressure I impose on myself, which probably isn’t healthy but that’s how my brain works, for better or for worse. We’re all super-chuffed how the first two campaigns went down, and that they were so different from each other, so our goal was to aim as high again but in a totally different way. They sit brilliantly together as a trilogy of films and it’s exciting to feel the momentum build year on year.

The biggest pressure I feel is the pressure I impose on myself.

All credit to the amazing team at Formula E for backing ideas like this. It’s impossible to make bold work without great clients, and the trust Henry Chilcott, Alex Aidan and their crew have shown in the Uncommon team once again is a special thing. 

Above: Sam Walker on location for the Formula E shoot.

Can you give us some insight into how you got to the concept of launching a Formula E car out of an aeroplane?

The initial idea came from the feeling that, through its technological advances with the launch of their Gen3 car this season, Formula E is finally being freed from its restraints and its true potential is starting to be realised. What would be the single most powerful analogy for the unshackling of the car? Deliberately driving out of the back of a plane at 21,000ft, with a driver still inside. 

The film is a metaphor for Formula E itself, the barriers it is breaking down each season.

The film is a metaphor for Formula E itself, the barriers it is breaking down each season, with faster and faster cars, and increased competition each year, it is fearlessly forging its own path into the future of motorsport. The line ‘Progress is Unstoppable’ has an irrepressible attitude. It’s the logical progression of the previous two years’ lines - ‘Change. Accelerated’ and ‘No Turning Back’ - and now ‘Progress is Unstoppable’. It’s unapologetic and self-confident and marks Formula E smashing the 200mph mark. The relentless, forwards progress of Formula E is becoming difficult to ignore for its rivals.

Opening on the iconic image of a caged bird, and ending on impact with the birds bursting free, is symbolic of the sport’s potential being unleashed. It adds a poetry and weight to the film and elevates it above the expected.

Above: The Formula E spot from 2021, Change. Accelerated., directed by Marcus Soderlund.

Once this concept had been decided how, as a director, did you approach the technical aspects of the shoot?

I wanted this film to feel genuinely dangerous and real, but also poetic and beautiful too. Art meets action was my ambition. The dynamism of an action movie but with an artfulness to elevate it from the ordinary. A kind of magical realism.

It would have been far easier to shoot this all against green screen in a studio, and a lot of the production limitations were pushing us towards that, but I really felt if we could shoot as much as possible in camera it would elevate it to something more realistic, but also something more impactful and artful too. I worked very closely with stunt co-ordinator, Leander Lacey, and SFX lead, Kobus Verhoef, to understand how cars really fall through the air in freefall. The more I could understand the truth of what we were doing the more I could craft the story and narrative arc around it. 

We designed rigs hanging from 200ft cranes to throw the full-size five metre car around in mid-air, spinning it violently with our stuntman inside the whole time.

We designed rigs hanging from 200ft cranes to throw the full-size five metre car around in mid-air, spinning it violently with our stuntman inside the whole time. My rule on cameras was that if it couldn’t have been done for real then it was wrong. Every shot we had was technically achievable in freefall and that gave the whole team a north star to follow. It’s a more difficult path to follow but I think it massively adds not just to the reality of the film, but to the danger and drama too.

All of the aerial shots are real and filmed by a brilliant team of skydivers, led by Mark Bellingham and the world wingsuit champion, Julian Boulle. I worked extensively with them to understand what was and wasn’t possible in the air; how they fly, how they steer and how they shoot. Once they’re falling at maximum speed I have no control over what they do, so the more precisely I can brief them on what I’m trying to achieve on the ground before they take off, the better chance I have of them delivering the shots we need. 

The stunt team and SFX team worked together to design a high-powered bungee rig to launch the car from the plane at maximum speed, but still in a controlled manner. It was important the car could drive out as fast as possible, but equally we needed a system that could guarantee how it was going to behave. 

Above: Rigs hanging from 200ft cranes threw the full-size five metre Formula E car around in mid-air.

How much of the shoot is in-camera and how much CGI?

The vast majority of the film is in-camera. That is to say, the car is predominantly real, and the background is almost all real too. I worked closely with Barnsley and Rascal Post to figure out a plan of attack before we started. We were totally aligned that the more we could shoot in camera the better the results would be.

The ambition with CGI is for the viewer to not know whether it was real or not.

The ambition with CGI is for the viewer to not know whether it was real or not, and which bits had help and which didn’t. Rascal did an exceptional job, as they did with last year’s film too.

Above: Most of the shoot was done in-camera, with the car being "predominantly real".

You worked with Unreal Engine on the previous campaign; was it the same here, and did your previous experience mean you could push the technology even further? 

No, this time it was more in-camera unbelievably. But both films started with the same thought process; what are the best tools we have to bring these ambitious ideas to life? The car is predominantly real, and the background sky plates are predominantly real too. I think that the best post results are always when you plan your approach from the start and work as closely as possible with your post partners. 

The car is predominantly real, and the background sky plates are predominantly real too.

Aside from shooting as much as possible in-camera, the aerial stunt team also mapped out the whole sky with a state-of-the-art 360 degree camera, which acted like our metaphorical safety net. 

Above: 2022's Formula E spot, No Turning Back, also directed by Walker.

How much do you have to change your directorial approach - if at all - when you're working on something so VFX-heavy? 

I like to build in the approach right from the word go as it gives me a set of guard rails to stay between, but also helps the entire team understand what we’re trying to do. The drop itself is constructed from four very distinct visual shot styles, all of which have to abide by strict, unwritten rules. Helicopter super-long lens shots, which give us the terrifying feeling of speed; car-mounted on-board camera rigs which relay the physical violence of how it feels to fall through the air; skydiver head-cams which are ‘perfectly imperfect’ and give a real sense of falling with the car; and ground-mounted, static, super-long lens shots which give the feeling of drama and speed as the car plummets through the sky. Each has a very specific set of visual rules that if you break you lose your audience. 

The drop itself is constructed from four very distinct visual shot styles, all of which have to abide by strict, unwritten rules.

Paul Hardcastle at Trim did a brilliant job piecing it all together. As with the rest of the team, we discussed at length the approach to the film before it was even shot so he had a deep understanding of where the film would work and where it would break. We tried to push away from traditional advertising editing conventions and find a more cinematic style, contrasting sections of self-confident, longer shots, interspersed with flurries of high energy dangerous quick cuts. The combination of the contrasting styles helps build the tension and keep jolting the audience’s attention.

Above: More behind the scenes footage from the Formula E shoot.

There's no dialogue, no voice over, just the music track; why did you make that creative decision?

It’s quite a pure, almost one line idea really, and we wanted to let the visuals do the talking. It’s singular and fully committed in its approach, which hopefully helps it stand out, not just compared to last years’ films, but against Formula E’s competitors too. 

I wanted the sound to be raw and violent and aggressive whenever you cut close to the car and the driver.

Jack Sedgwick at King Lear again did an incredible job with sound design. We talked about sound way before the shoot, and already started planning how to approach it. I’m sure he had to fight every instinct in his body when I first briefed on essentially leaning into reality and ‘bad sound’. I wanted the sound to be raw and violent and aggressive whenever you cut close to the car and the driver.

From a distance it seems poetic and graceful and then when you cut close you are reminded how dangerous it is with the wind battering the microphone. It’s quite unusual to run towards, rather than away from, flaws and imperfections. It started with the violent reality, then we built from there.