Working With Porsche and Microsoft

A little over three years ago, I had the chance to work with a producer out of Charlotte, NC. His client, a marketing firm out of Milwaukee, did a lot of work with Microsoft. At the time, X-box was debuting a new racing game, Need for Speed: Shift, featuring several Porsche vehicles.

To promote the launch of the game, Microsoft and their marketing team scheduled a demo with legendary race car driver Hurley Haywood. The Porsche Sport Driving School at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL opened their doors for the game's launch event. The producer hired me to head up a production team for a two-day shoot out at the race track to cover the launch.

We spent two days on location, shooting footage of the Porsche vehicles on the race track and on the Barber test courses (including a wet track). We had cameras placed at low angles next to the track, inside the vehicles, and up in scissor lifts. For the actual game demonstration, we pre-lit a Porsche driving school classroom where we could get footage of Haywood as he raced other drivers on XBox Live. To conclude the shoot, we shot a sit-down interview with Haywood as he gave us his impressions of the game. 

Here's the finished video: