William Helmuth spotted the perfect subject right next door: a neighbor’s 1950s Bel Air. With a Tilta Hydra car mount and its electronic suction system, he rigged the car in record time before the afternoon light slipped away. A bit of smoke haze from nearby fires actually worked in his favor, diffusing the sunlight into something he couldn’t have planned better.
The shoot mixed handheld work with car-rig shots, and Helmuth paired vintage Zeiss Contax lenses with the Blackmagic PYXIS 6K for its compact, mountable form factor. The camera’s size and balance made it a natural fit for the Hydra rig and a Ronin Pro gimbal, which he’d tested the day before. He ran Contax glass through an EF adapter with internal variable NDs on the camera’s L-mount.
Not everything went to plan. Helmuth had a run of sunset tracking shots mapped out, but the Bel Air wouldn’t restart and had to be towed. Some of the best footage, it turns out, came before anyone tried to turn the key.
