F1

Joseph Kosinski’s F1 follows the story of Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) as he navigates his nomadic racer-for-hire lifestyle in the years following the tragic racing accident that nearly ended his career. When a former teammate, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) approaches Hayes for his help lifting a failing Formula 1 team, Hayes has to face new teammates, including Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), as well as his past.

ILM’s work on the film was largely centered around invisible work, including for the crucial opening sequence of Hayes’s crash, in which the effects team had to match the look and feel of early video recording and playback from a VHS tape. The team ended up lifting glitches from real source material, and had the compositing team work to mimic the lower resolution and color grading in order to match the tape footage perfectly.

Other work included changing the look of F1 cars shot from the legacy circuit, Brands Hatch, to better fit the era of the early 90s, adding logos back to the cars that had been reinstated for authenticity, and the crucial shot where Sonny’s car loses control and crashes into the guardrail. Though it looked to be shot entirely in camera, the sequence was actually made with computer graphics. This required replacing the environment to show the car going airborne and flying into the guardrail, replacing aspects of the car, like the wheels to make them appear as if they were vibrating out of control, and even animating Sonny’s hands on the steering wheel to more sharply depict the struggle of regaining control.

The ILM team was led by ILM visual effects supervisor Eric Leven, executive visual effects producer Jill Brooks, and production visual effects producer Brian Holligan, in partnership with production visual effects supervisor Ryan Tudhope. The work was completed at ILM’s San Francisco studio, and was recognized for a Critics Choice Award for Visual Effects.

F1 is available to watch on Apple TV+.