How I made a video of the most difficult drive of my life

Driving a Lotus Eletre electric car 4,000 miles across Europe is already a huge challenge, proving to be both exciting and terrifying. But to make things more complicated, I also needed to film my own footage on the road.

I have a lot of production work to do, from writing scripts, setting up cameras and microphones in cars, to showing work to cameras while driving, while also trying to drive an average of about 7 hours a day and shoot all the stills for my written work image. As the only person on this trip, all details are my responsibility.

Here’s how I did it, with tips on how to shoot a documentary-style film yourself.

look at this: Driving Lotus’ new electric car 4,000 miles is brutal, but I love it

19:31

Planning and scripting

There was only so much planning I could do on this trip. While I knew my route had to be from Edinburgh to Barcelona and back, I didn’t know the exact path I was taking or what to expect along the way. I didn’t book the hotel until the day I needed it, in case there were unexpected delays or I wanted to take a detour.

read more: Take better videos with any phone

While this meant that my journey could be flexible, it also meant that planning the story of the film or pre-writing a script to follow was impossible because I had no idea what was going to happen before I hit the road. Instead, the film had to be more improvised, following my journey with it and my learning more about the car. I jot down notes on my phone at a charging station and then say “Hey Siri, take a note” to capture ideas and discussion points that come to mind while I’m driving. Later I would turn these into parts that could be shown in front of the camera.

It wasn’t until towards the end of the trip, when I had enough experience with the car to come to a conclusion, that I took the main shot with my camera. This includes my ending summarizing my feelings about the car and the journey.

My advice: If you know what you want to say in your film, take the time to plan and rehearse a suitable script. If you don’t, consider scripting just a few key sections and using voiceovers that can be recorded later.

devices i use

The Lotus Eletre is a big car, and as the only person in it, I knew I had plenty of room for gear. This meant I didn’t need to travel light, so I brought multiple cameras, lenses, tripods, sliders, lights, gimbals and rigging equipment so I could capture any photo I wanted.

Here is the manifest I use:

Canon R5 camera: My daily workhorse camera for my CNET work and personal YouTube channel. I own both a 24-105 f/4 lens and a 35mm f/1.8 macro lens for a variety of photos. I set it to shoot at 4K quality and 25 frames per second in Canon’s CLog3 color profile to give me more room for later editing.

Panasonic S5:A great, affordable mirrorless camera that I use for shooting all kinds of extra angles. I have a universal 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. I shot in 4K at 25 frames per second.

GoPro Hero 7: An action camera used to capture the perspective of driving a car, and attached to various points outside the car to capture a moving car.

Gitzo Legende and Mountaineer Tripods: The former for stills and quick videos, the latter as a sturdier base for use with my Edelkrone sliders.

DJI Microphone:Radio microphone to record my work on camera. The windshield is perfect for outdoor use.

rigging: Mainly a Manfrotto suction cup with a tripod ball head attached, allowing me to mount the camera from all angles in the car. These cups can be tricky to install, but are very secure once they are in place.

Additional features: Multiple OWC CF Express cards for my Canon R5, totaling about 3TB, because I know I’ll be shooting a lot of footage. I also used a 4TB Crucial X10 Pro SSD drive to back up and offload footage. I have about eight batteries for the Canon R5, four for the Panasonic S5, but only one for the GoPro. However, I also have an EcoFlow River power bank that I can use to charge my devices on the go.

I also used a PolarPro variable neutral density filter, which allowed me to darken the scene when needed while still maintaining a wide aperture. I also used PolarPro’s circular polarizer in many of my shots, as this helps reduce reflections and provide richer blue skies.

If you want to get into filmmaking and photography, be sure to check out my guide to the best cameras and best accessories for filmmaking.

My advice: If you’re traveling light, only bring what you think you’ll need. A camera with a versatile zoom lens and a lightweight travel tripod may be enough to capture the photos you want. Sliders and gimbals will help you get more creative shots if you have more room for gear, while things like shoulder gear can give you smoother shots when shooting other people.

Find my angle

I wanted my footage to look as professional as possible, so I knew I needed to switch between various b-roll shots (anything I wasn’t showing to the camera) both inside and outside the car. The biggest problem here is that I was traveling alone, so a lot of the shots you’d expect to see in a professional production – like a car driving down a road shot from the front – were completely impossible. This meant I had to get a little creative.

read more: Level up your travel photos with these pro tips

I keep an eye out for some quiet spots where I can park, set up my camera on a tripod, and get away from it safely while I drive by it, turn around and drive back to get it. Obviously this is quite dangerous – if only because my camera is easily stolen – so I only attempt this if I find a suitable rural location and feel comfortable. That’s why there’s no footage of me driving through Barcelona.

I also used some of these locations to capture “hero” shots of stationary cars in beautiful settings. I captured angles of the front three-quarters of the car, close-ups of the wheels, the Lotus emblem and any other details that I thought might be mentioned in the script and therefore needed to be seen.

While still, I also took various interior photos of the car, taking close-ups of seats, buttons, stitching, speakers, and any other details that looked like they might be interesting. I used a macro lens here to capture some of the finer details and an Edelkrone slider to push in or out of the shot to add an extra dimension.

I also need to take a lot of photos in the car while driving. This was a bit tricky as it meant I needed to find a suitable parking spot where I could park and then mount the camera in the car using Manfrotto suction cups. Some shots had the camera mounted on the passenger side window, pointing my work at the camera. Other times I mounted the camera on a skylight to give a forward view of the road ahead. Almost all of these require mounting the camera upside down and flipping the lens in post. This makes it harder to get the perfect angle.

I then had to press the record button on the camera and drive long enough to capture a lot of footage until I found a safe place to stop and stop recording, since operating a camera while driving is illegal and unsafe. This meant I had a lot of 30-minute film clips to sift through in editing, but it also meant I had a lot of footage to work with.

I used the same technique for the in-car demo portion, just hit the record and drive away. With no one else in the car and no way to read my phone or a printed script, I had to try to remember what I wanted to say and try again and again until I felt like I got it right.

My advice: A good rule of thumb in filmmaking is that you can never have too much behind-the-scenes footage. Whatever you shoot, make sure you capture plenty of other angles, including close-ups and appropriate action shots, so you have plenty of footage when editing. If you work with an assistant or a second shooter, you can more easily spread the workload and create a larger catalog of more interesting shots to work with.

If you’re presenting on camera, it’s always worth trying a few times just in case you don’t like your first take or you stumble slightly on a word.

edit

I did all of the editing on this film in BlackMagic’s DaVinci Resolve, my favorite filmmaking software. I first transcribed some of the parts I came up with and then built a broader script around those parts. This gave me a framework to record my voiceover and piece everything together.

I tried to keep things as fast-paced and well-paced as possible, keeping the behind-the-scenes clips to just a few seconds in length, and trying to spread them out over the clips I presented to help break up the scene visually. I added a soundtrack – carefully chosen to help create the necessary mood and tension – and made sure that every clip in the film was edited to the beat of the background music.

Then I started doing color editing (called “grading” in professional video), and this is where DaVinci Resolve shines. This software has become almost an industry standard for commercial productions and Hollywood films due to its color editing flexibility, and I try to use some of the same tools in my films. I’m a beginner when it comes to color grading, but I knew I wanted to create a more intense “look” rather than simply making it look like it came straight out of the camera.

I adjusted the exposure and contrast to help balance the bright highlights and lifted shadows, I used the color wheel to add cool or warm tones to the shadows and highlights, and adjusted the tones of individual colors in certain areas to get the right look I wanted.

BlackMagic’s new Micro Color Panel is my go-to tool for all my color grading, and it features physical control wheels and dials for nearly all the major color editing tools. Not only does it make me work faster, but I find it easier to try out different styles by using buttons instead of having to click through menus with a mouse.

My advice: Even if you want to be as bold as I am with colors, they still need to make sense. Trying to turn a rainy day into a sunset by simply increasing the warmth of your white balance won’t work. Instead, try to work with what you have and think about how you can use color to help add to the tone of the film you’re making.

DaVinci Resolve is free to try, including an excellent iPad version, and only some of the more advanced features require a paid Studio upgrade, so it’s a great software to try without paying.