Goodwood Estate embraces the dark with BURANO

The Goodwood Estate is famous for its annual events, and the Festival of Speed is the biggest. While it’s the highlight of the year for many motorsport fans, members of the Goodwood Road Racing Club also have their own members-only event. And the ‘mystery guest car’ for the 2024 edition intrigued Jonathan Scrivens so much that he had to make a film about it. Enter the CanAm Shadow.

On researching the Shadow Racing Cars team, Jonathan was swept up by stories about this remarkable car and the team’s enigmatic owner in the 1970s—not to mention the striking appearance of the Shadow itself. He decided to film a short film with a lightly spooky atmosphere to promote the rare chance to see a Shadow at the upcoming Goodwood members’ event.

Having used the FX9 as the primary camera for the Goodwood video team for several years, Jonathan spoke with the Sony team and leapt at the chance to try out the BURANO cinema camera.

When the shoot day rolled around, the practical appeal of their new cinema camera- the BURANO quickly became clear.

“Within the first hour of using the BURANO, it was like I’d been using that camera all my life,” says Jonathan. “And that meant I was able to just get straight into filming with it. I automatically knew my way around the menus and settings.” Other camera operators were taken aback by how easy it was to operate the BURANO, with even a junior FX3 user finding they could quickly master the BURANO.

It wasn’t just this immediate usability that made BURANO a perfect fit for the Goodwood shoot. The compact form factor meant that Jonathan – one of two principal camera people – could just as easily tuck it under his arm as carry it on his shoulder for tracking shots. And it was more than light enough to shoot comfortably while he sat in the back of a 4×4, filming the Shadow as it drove around the Estate at 50mph.

Here the BURANO’s in-body image stabilisation (IBIS) was invaluable. Jonathan found he could zoom in on the driver’s face at 200m and still get clear, smooth shots. This was helped even more by shooting with a range of Sony G Master lenses including 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm primes and a f2.8 70-200mm zoom. Given the impressive stabilisation, and the compact design, future shoots may even see Jonathan mounting the BURANO itself onto the front of cars: “The IBIS really blew me away, delivering silky smooth results with very little stabilisation needed during the edit process.”

As if there wasn’t enough to consider on the shoot day, the rain turned out to be almost constant. But with hardy Sony cameras, Jonathan wasn’t concerned about losing shots or being delayed by a slightly damp camera:

“I’ve used Sony cameras enough to know they are robust enough to fight through the elements. When the latter half of our day was plagued with the worst rainfall of the year, the Sony cameras powered on without any issues. At no point was I worried about the cameras not being able to hold up in the severe conditions.”

Throughout production, the BURANO was supported by Sony FX3 and FX6 cameras. The super-compact FX3 was easily mounted to the front of the Shadow, for fixed shots of the Shadow’s driver. Meanwhile, aerial shots were covered by a drone-mounted FX6, ensuring that the Goodwood video team came away with a wide variety of shots.

When all of the footage arrived with the editors, the 8K X-OCN files from BURANO were easily colour-matched with the FX6 and FX3 shots, making it easy to maintain the eery aesthetic Jonathan was looking for. And the post-production team found that they had even more colour space and latitude to work with than they’d expected.