When production company Berrox set out to make immersive documentary Quarkus, the subject already had the ingredients of an immersive sports production: a new French supercar, an early test session at Le Mans, and a driver pushing the vehicle at close to 200km per hour.
The film follows the Quarkus P3, a supercar developed by engineer Damien Alfano, from his workshop to its first test sessions at Le Mans. For producer Jeanne-Rose Tremski, using Apple Immersive Video made sense because it could put the viewer inside the car.
“It was an early test at the famous Le Mans race circuit, when the car was still revealing itself,” said Tremski. “That gave the whole shoot a certain tension and it’s what made the project so compelling. Inside the headset, you feel the speed and acceleration, the closeness of the asphalt and the tension of real-world testing.”
The film opens in Alfano’s workshop, where Quarkus was conceived and developed, before moving to Le Mans for the first test sessions. “We wanted to begin with the person behind the project, offering an insight into the intention behind the car and allowing audiences to explore the environment where the car had taken shape. In the workshop, Damien talks about his vision, the philosophy behind Quarkus and what makes the car distinct. Only after that does the film move from storytelling to experience.
“The workshop was easier because we had space and could work from a tripod. In the car, we had to fit the camera around the driver, the cockpit and the safety requirements, while still giving the viewer the right point of view.”
For the shoot, Berrox used the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive, a camera developed for Apple Immersive Video that combines dual 8K sensors with a fixed stereoscopic lens system for 180-degree 3D capture. It gave Berrox the point of view the film needed, but fitting it into a race car cockpit required careful planning. It gave Berrox the point of view the film needed, but fitting it into a race car cockpit required careful planning.
“It’s an extraordinary camera and gives us a completely different way to think about point of view,” said Tremski. “But it is also a relatively large one, and the inside of a race car doesn’t give you much room to work with, so integrating the camera into the cockpit without obstructing the driver or compromising safety required adaptation.”
“In immersive work, you can’t treat the camera as just another camera position,” said Tremski. “Where you put it is where the viewer is going to be, so inside the car we had to think carefully about height, distance from the driver and how close the viewer would feel to the track.
“That becomes even more critical once the car is moving. In immersive production, movement has to be handled carefully because even the slightest abrupt motion can quickly become uncomfortable. That is true in any immersive piece, but in our case we were traveling close to 200km per hour.”
“Vibration, acceleration and changes in trajectory were all part of the material itself. We could not remove them because they were part of what made the subject interesting. But we did have to control how they reached the viewer.”
Berrox worked through mounting and damping options to keep the camera as stable as possible in the cockpit. The question of comfort then carried into the edit, where shot duration became as important as the cut itself.
“In immersive work, pacing is not just about keeping the film moving,” said Tremski. “You have to give the viewer enough time to read the shot and understand where they are before you cut away.”
Berrox tested shot lengths, transitions and pacing in DaVinci Resolve Studio, reviewing the results in the headset as the edit developed. “That whole process made clear that immersive editing asks very different questions from traditional editing. It was no longer just about whether a cut worked, but whether the viewer had enough time to orient themselves in the space and inhabit the shot before being moved elsewhere.
“We often preferred the shots where another car was visible ahead. It gave the viewer an anchor in the scene and helped them read the speed and movement of the car.”
Sound also became part of how Berrox managed the viewer’s sense of speed and direction.
“On Quarkus, that meant paying close attention to gear changes, the engine building through the rev range and the sonic variations linked to acceleration,” said Tremski. “All of that contributed to the sensation of speed and intensity, but it also helped the viewer understand what was happening around them.
“In immersive work, you cannot force the viewer’s gaze in the same way you can in 2D. You need other ways of helping them know where to look. Sound is one of the best tools for that.”
“Our decisions about coverage, duration and even the interview structure had to be more intentional due to the volume of data involved,” said Tremski. “With the sheer amount of data being captured, you cannot just leave it rolling for long periods, as sometimes happens in 2D. Every take had to be considered and justified.”
As with many early immersive productions, some of the learning happened after the shoot. “To be completely transparent, we didn’t really monitor or review the takes directly on set,” said Tremski. “Much of the footage was discovered properly later, once it had been imported and viewed in the headset during postproduction.”
Finishing was also a learning process, with export settings, metadata and presentation choices all affecting how the film played back on Apple Vision Pro.
“This is a medium whose best practices are still being established through making,” said Tremski. “Export settings, metadata, presentation choices and image ratio handling all had a direct impact on the final Apple Vision Pro experience, and many of those relationships became clearer through experimentation during postproduction.”
