Dan Flinter is a commercial DOP and the owner of UK-based Depth of Field Media. He and his automotive team were tasked with capturing a series of high-speed tracking shots for the brand-new CUPRA Born. Shooting from a moving vehicle, with seconds to get it right, they needed a setup that let them see every detail as it happened. “We’re always looking for ways to tighten up our monitoring. If we can see more, we can make better decisions,” Dan says.
Dan had previously been working with 5-inch Ninja and Shinobi monitors, mounted on magic arms and suction cups suspended from the roof of the car. It worked well, but reading fine detail at speed was a challenge. “The industry standard for this type of tracking vehicle is typically at least a 12-inch monitor,” he says. For the CUPRA Born shoot they switched to two Sumo PRO-19s, each with a bright 19-inch display, full monitoring toolset, touch-to-focus and camera control. Rather than hanging them, they built custom brackets onto the headrests, placing both displays exactly where they were needed. “It creates a much larger and more practical monitoring setup,” Dan adds. “Smaller monitors can handle the basics, but having a 19-inch display in the back of the tracking car gave us a completely different level of visibility.”
