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MOVIE FEATURE
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Geri Halliwell (AKA Ginger Spice) plays Jann Mardenborough’s mother in Gran Turismo . DYK?
HESE
NEILLY MADE T
Archie Madekwe as Jann Mardenborough
Blomkamp’s auteurist, sci-fi realism style sets him apart from other filmmakers, and has put him at the helm of some very big Hollywood properties throughout the years. Films he almost made, but which fell through for one reason or another, include Alien 5 , an adaptation of Halo , and RoboCop Returns . It’s hard to comprehend a director better suited to these films, and how they never came to fruition is beyond us!
If you think that Gran Turismo is just another video game movie adaptation, then you are sorely mistaken. Words Glenn Cochrane G ran Turismo is based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, the British professional racing
explaining: “Outside, you get this amazing water and dust hitting the windshield, and reflections and everything else. They put you undeniably on the track. But if you want to get intimate and be in the cockpit without using this device, we would genuinely have had to rebuild the entire race car.” “You don’t have to love racing to love Gran Turismo ,” says David Harbour, who plays the former professional racer turned mechanic who reluctantly becomes GT Academy’s senior trainer. “What you’re really watching is a feel good sports movie. “Jann is this kid who has no understanding of the real racing world apart from the video game,” he says of the film’s central character. ”It’s a movie about trying to achieve your dreams, and everyone is counting Jann out, saying he can’t win”. As for the man whose story
driver who beat 90,000 entrants in a PlayStation and Nissan-funded Gran Turismo tournament to earn a career as a professional racing driver. The tournament, known as GT Academy, was devised by a Nissan marketing executive (played by Orlando Bloom in the film) with the aim of testing the skills and merit of video game racers - or “race simulator participants,” as Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe) reiterates in the movie. The film’s biggest selling point, aside from its iconic title, is director Neill Blomkamp, best known for his grunge science-fiction films District 9 and Chappie . His appointment here not only lends integrity to the project, but also solidifies him as a master craftsman. Cut from the same cloth as Days of Thunder (1990), the movie is unlike anything he’s made before, and with his background as a special effects artist, he's applied his skill to the story in a way that few others might have envisioned. Shooting real race cars on real race tracks, and driving at real speed, his dedication to authenticity proved problematic for his cinematographers. “Very clearly, the vision from Neill was that he wanted this movie to be very real,” says cinematographer Jacques Jouffret. “The big challenge was how to shoot something with cars going at full speed: two hundred miles an
David Harbour as Jack Salter
hour. The challenge was finding the technology and the means to go about it.” Blomkamp admits there were some hurdles. “It literally isn't possible to put cinematic level 6K, 8K sensors into the LMP2 race car’s cockpit, unless we
we see unfold on screen - Jann Mardenborough himself - he’s clear about his life’s motivation. “Racing is all I ever wanted to do, but it seemed so out of reach,” he explains. “You need money and connections, and you need opportunity, and I had none of that. Then Nissan and PlayStation started the GT Academy, and suddenly I had a shot. I was young, I was fearless, and I wasn’t thinking about the danger. If this wasn’t my story, I don’t know if I’d believe it.”
had the Rialto,” he says, referring to a unique detachable camera rig attached to Sony’s Venice camera. The complicated equipment involved a network of fibre optic cables that were woven through the car into a very small, compact camera unit, which allowed the team to capture the real in-car action. “We were super specific about being inside the cockpit, versus outside the cockpit,” adds the director,
• Gran Turismo is out Nov 15
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12 NOVEMBER 2023
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