PC Behind the Scenes
Cold Hatches was the big idea. I was to get together a collection of hatchback cars most famous for their hot hatch brothers and try to prove that they were just as good. Tricky? No, not really.
Organising any photoshoot can be a fraught affair and it’s one aspect of producing a magazine feature that you probably haven’t thought much about.
Finding the cars we need, in this case cars with very specific trim levels, and then getting them to meet at the same location, at the same time on the same day with the minimum of inconvenience to all concerned is not easy.
Pitch into that the need for an ice rink to drive on (cold hatches, geddit?) and then you’ve got a real beauty of a situation. Fortunately, phoning around various ice rinks led me to the lovely folk at Planet Ice Group, who couldn’t have been more helpful. They didn’t flinch at my request to drive the cars onto the ice, and even offered me a choice of locations across England. It isn’t usually this easy - believe me.
The cars themselves were also surprisingly easy to find, thanks to their respective and excellent owners’ clubs. The early Renault 5 owned by Paul Hopkinson is one of only three or so known to survive by the club, and he kindly took a day off work to bring the car down from Derbyshire.
The Peugeot 205 has been owned by Paula Buck for several years and is her only car. Its excellent condition is a real credit to her and it simply doesn’t look like a 150,000-mile daily driver. She also took the day off from work to join us.
David Watson’s gorgeous Golf came to me quite by chance. As I was phoning around ice rinks an email landed in my inbox titled – Golf 1.1L for Your Cars section. And there it was. The model I needed and in the perfect contrasting colour to the other two cars. A quick call to David and it was all arranged. Brilliant.
With a choice of venues up and down the country, I decided to plump for the Sky Dome Arena in Coventry as it was the most central point between all of the owners. David is based in London, Paula in Coventry and Paul in Derbyshire, so no-one was more than two hours drive away. Plus, as a resident of the city I knew several locations ideal for us to shoot at.
We only had a two-hour slot on the ice from 10 to 12 on a Wednesday morning, which is usually reserved for ice maintenance. Unfortunately, David had a hospital appointment booked for that day which couldn’t be changed, so I picked the Golf up from his house the day before. It was a real shame David couldn’t join us but I am massively grateful to him for letting me borrow his precious unrestored Golf, especially as it had been in his family since new.
Driving on the ice was a surreal affair but surprisingly grippy thanks to the grooves left by the pro ice skaters that had occupied it before us. I would have liked to have got some sideways driving shots on the ice and everyone was game, but we simply didn’t have time.
The need to get the opening shot for the feature was too important so despite also having arranged to get members of the Coventry Blaze Ice Hockey team to skate around the cars - which would have made for a great shot - we simply didn’t have time to achieve it. I'm not complaining mind, I still can't believe Planet Ice let us drive on their rink!
The car-to-car driving shots were taken in the Canley area of Coventry, and the panning shots were taken on the road between Stoneleigh Park and Royal Leamington Spa. The detail shots were taken in Stoneleigh Park itself, so thanks to the security team who let us in to shoot on a quiet corner of the grounds.
All in all, it was a great day’s shoot, albeit a bit chilly. Thanks again to Paula Buck, David Watson and Paul Hopkinson for bringing their cars along, and special thanks to Rob and Sarah at Coventry Planet Ice Arena for making us so welcome.
See: www.planet-ice.co.uk for your nearest venue.
Just before our first tentative drive onto the ice...
The tyre tracks tell the story - setting up the initial shots.
Rory shooting some tests for the opening shot. The positioning is to accommodate for the gutter - the magazine's centre fold.
The opening shot was lit from different angles, with several shots later being merged into one during post production.
Ice Ice Baby - this headline was proposed by Art Director Lisa Marie Johnson.
Front/side/rear shots also taken on the ice.
Interior and dashboard shots.
More of the same.
The ice was resurfaced after we'd finished, but we were allowed to continue the shoot to the side by the lockers and skate hire booth.
Paul and Paula enjoying the show, as several skaters fresh back from the Winter Olympics take to the ice.
The shoot continues.
We managed to squeeze all of the cars in front of the hire booth, involving several many-point turns.
Orange lockers proved to be the perfect backdrop for David's Lemon Yellow Golf.
Eventually it was time for us to leave the kind people at the Planet Ice Skydome Arena and head out for the driving shots.
Bizarrely, I ended up behind and exchanging pleasantries with a facelift MkI Golf and an MGB on the way to our car-to-car shot location.
One of the shots that wasn't used. Not only was the colour combination great, it also highlighted the similar dimensions of each car. Plus I thought it looked like the treatment What Car? gave to its Seventies road test features, but we didn't have room in the magazine, despite gaining an extra page for the feature after it had been shot.
Posted: 1:53pm, 21 April 2010
Words: Neil Campbell
Images: Neil Campbell
1 comments on PC Behind the Scenes
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"This was a great feature, with 3 great cars. Gotta say though, to keep things more together timeline-wise, maybe a Peugeot 104 instead of a 205? Another seriously underrated little car!"
Posted by:Date: Monday May 10th, 2010, 7:40 pm