McLaren F1.
digital
All sound design and music by Bent Ear.
4'40" Promotional film for McLaren F1 and SAP about the role data plays in achieving "The Perfect Lap". One of three films: 1:Engineers, 2: Drivers, 3: Team. This is film no.2
Directed by Mr Richard Oliver for Wing Films.
Produced by Viv Jaspers
Our brief was to capture the intensity of F1 and the team's technical mastery of data to enhance F1 performance, culminating with the idea of "The Perfect Lap" - and to represent that using sound.
We used multiple techniques for this, including recording Lewis Hamilton's F1 car whilst it was "on bricks" in the engineer's pit at the Norman Foster Mclaren Headquarters. We also recorded hours of atmos and machinery at the high tech McLaren 12C + P1 car manufacturing plant.
We were also given access to the telemetry readouts of F1 data, which we were then able to convert using sonification + audification techniques into audible sound. We used this together with our new acquisition, Symbolic Sound Kyma, to create a soundscape representation of the flow of data during lap testing.
For the music, we took influences from Spacemen 3, MC5 and the Stooges to create a minimal, driving, psychedelic rock track. This was juxtaposed with an experimental, reversed piano melody recorded by hanging microphones inside an upright piano. We shoved the piano from the outside during recording so that the microphones swayed around creating a swirling effect.
Many thanks to the Mclaren team and engineers for letting us make a nuisance of ourselves.
The Motorsport.com article and alternative versions can be seen here.