125 YEARS IN MOTION
A private collection of Gulf-liveried icons, and three days to film twelve of them. So we brought the robot to the cars.
A private collection of Gulf-liveried icons, and three days to film twelve of them. So we brought the robot to the cars.
To mark 125 years, Gulf didn't want a montage. They wanted the cars filmed like the icons they are.
Gulf's history lives in a private collection of race cars: Porsche 917s, a McLaren F1 GTR, Aston Martins, a Ford GT40. Every one wears the blue and orange the world knows on sight. For the brand's 125th anniversary, we were brought in to turn that collection into a hero film.
We took our motion-control rig on location and spent three days among the cars. Twelve of them went on the track, each given a precise, repeatable camera move designed around its lines: passes, orbits and reveals no operator could hold by hand. We shot it, lit it and cut it in-house.
The finished edit anchored Gulf's 125th celebration, then travelled: recut for a run of social pieces, and playing across Gulf's retail estate.
125 Years of Gulf · the anniversary film · shot on the rig
the milestone the film was made to mark.
the private collection, front to back, all in full Gulf livery.
the rig lived among the cars, battery-powered, no studio.
You don't move a collection like this. The cars are irreplaceable, the livery is the whole point, and the room they live in is part of the story. So we brought the rig to them: ten metres of track laid through the collection, our own camera and lighting, the whole thing running on its own battery so there was never a mains cable snaking between priceless cars.
Up and moving in about an hour, then filming for three days straight.
The robot repeats the same move to within 0.04mm, every take. That buys shots no operator can hold: a slow travel down the length of a car, an orbit that lands on the badge, a rise from a single wheel to the whole silhouette, all matched, ramped and repeated until it's exactly right.
Twelve cars, each with its own designed move. Frame it once, and it's yours to keep.
On set across the three days · tap a frame to enlarge