Of course no-one beleives that feature films are made quickly and rushed into cinemas, but have you ever stopped to think about how much work goes into making a Hollywood blockbuster?  Social media is giving us a pretty good insight through the eyes of Ron Howard.

The movie is called Rush, and it’s based on the true story of the 1976 Formula 1 racing season described by Howard himself in a tweet as “intense dangerous rivalry”

“@GregMVF4: This F1 story – did I read that it’s based on a true story? Any clues?” Intense dangerous rivalry during ’76 season

Of course we’re F1 fans here at EFTM so we’re delighted to get an insight into the production of such a film, but not even we had any idea of the work involved.  We’re gaining a huge new respect for movie crews and starting to really understand the reason these films cost so much to produce.

Howard has been travelling throughout Europe for months now and his Twitter account @RealRonHoward has been a real outlet for him to share production notes and personal anecdotes.  Importantly though, he’s also taking the time to reply to the public questions he’s getting.

“@ntc650: @RealRonHoward Who is shooting it ??” Anthony Dodmantle is cinematographer for Rush Hans Zimmer is scoring Peter Morgan script

 

 

We’ve seen him at location scouts looking for angles at various race tracks, with one of the most interesting aspects being that there will be a large number of tracks used, different parts of existing tracks to cobble together the 1976 track looks he is keen to replicate.

And who knew simple scale models were used to pick the individual camera angles for each and every shot:

 

And when it comes to picking a camera angle – who knew there was “an app for that”. Check out this shot of the team using “Artemis” on iPhone for shot selection:

 

Only today Ron Howard and his team are at the famous Nurburgring circuit which would have to provide some amazing locations and inspiration for the shoot.

We highly recommend you follow  @RealRonHoward if you have an interest in movies or motorsport, RUSH sounds like it’s going to be amazing. And as an added benefit, there are rumours Russell Crowe will play a role just to add an Aussie element for us.