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Hi, this is Jim Mangold, director of 'Ford v Ferrari.'
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As we begin this sequence, we're
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at the top of the third act of the film,
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and Christian Bale, playing Ken Miles,
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is walking out about 10 minutes before the race
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begins to prepare to start a 24 hour race at Le Mans.
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My camera kind of tries to set up
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what this place looks like in the stands, and the spectacle
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of it.
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We've seen it earlier in the film
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empty, but never seen it in this moment in full flower,
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packed with crowds and about to go.
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The point for me, or the strategy here,
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was to kind of show the calm before the storm.
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There's a lot of pageantry and everyone's tense.
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Here's Matt Damon, who plays Carroll Shelby, joining
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Christian, looking over the Ferrari cars as they go by,
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which are their chief nemesis in the race and the most
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brilliantly engineered cars that exist at that point,
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"Looks flash, don't it?"
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"Eh, looks aren't everything."
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Enzo Ferrari in the stands watching over them.
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For me, the goal in this sequence
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was to show the kind of stress that everyone is living with,
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but playing down, going about their tasks,
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getting ready to start the race.
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"You can take 'em.
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Four minutes, Ken.
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Four minutes, buddy."
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"Live from Le Mans, France--"
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"Mom!
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Come on."
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"--it's the world's most--"
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- Alright, coming
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"--brutal, torturous automobile race."
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Here we see Ken Miles' family back at home in Los Angeles
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watching.
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For all the characters you see, these Ford executives--
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that's Jon Bernthal is Lee Iacocca, Enzo Ferrari--
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all the characters brought to this point in time
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with the fate and their future at stake in this race.
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That's kind of the reason the whole film is building
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up to what becomes an almost hour long race
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of many chapters and many adventures,
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and the lead trading many times.
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Beautiful tradition at Le Mans that's long since passed
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is that all the drivers start on the opposite side
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of the road from their cars.
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I thought this was a really unique opportunity
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to stage a kind of start of a race in a different way
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with each driver uncontained by the shell of their car,
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just left with their own thoughts
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standing there on the side of the road moments
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before they have to leap in the cars, turn the ignition,
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and begin what will be a 24-hour endurance test
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for them in the vehicle.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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[ANNOUNCER SPEAKING FRENCH]
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This next shot was a bear to get,
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but one I really wanted to get in one piece, which
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is feeling all the drivers leaping in and pulling out.
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What makes it difficult?
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Well, we shot with real cars, not digital ones.
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So getting 25 expert drivers to drive
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vintage and semi-vintage cars pulling out all in unison
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from the stands with 400 extras, is a challenge.
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And of course, the light's beautiful.
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We waited for the right moment to do the shot.
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All of that to create a kind of moment of expectation
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as this race begins.
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"What happened to Miles?"
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[MUSIC PLAYING, TIRES SCREECHING]
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One of the very true and kind of interesting
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facts of the race that I wanted to very much replicate
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was that Ken Miles in his very first lap
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had a malfunction immediately with the door of his car.
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He couldn't shut it.
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So he's driving in excess of 150 miles an hour
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on a track with a door that won't shut, and is already
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after--
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preparing for this race and preparing this car
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for so long, running into trouble in the most mundane
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of ways.
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You might notice that I'm shooting this sequence very
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much from the point of view of the driver or very close
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to the road.
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My goal was to somehow tell the story of an auto race,
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but not emulate the coverage you see on sports shows,
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but to put you much more behind the wheel
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and on the track so that you're feeling much more what
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these drivers feel.
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Not only the harrowing nature of the speed and the thrills
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and the danger, but also the adrenaline and the excitement
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and the sense of even a kind of perfection
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that they're chasing when the driving is going right
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for them.
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"Where the hell is Ken?"
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"I don't know."
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The actual work of the visual effects team in this sequence
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is much less about the cars and much more
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about the stands.
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We built about a football field length of grandstand,
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but obviously I couldn't afford
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to shoot every day with 20,000 people in the stands,
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so the work of our many visual effects people
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are extending our backgrounds to the horizon
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and also populating the stands.
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"The bloody door won't close.
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All right, all right."
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I kind of saw this movie as a 'Saving Private Ryan'
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in reverse.
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It's much more of a drama, I think,
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than many people expect when they
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see the film for 3/4 of the film,
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and we put almost all our resources
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into giving you kind of pretty intense action sequence
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at the third act of the film.
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"Go, go, go."
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[TIRES SCREECHING, ENGINE REVVING]
