Making Senna (Senna por trás das cameras)

I kept looking at myself,

searching for Senna inside me.

Thus, the importance of this deep dive.

This search for the essence of Ayrton.

I'm lending my body, my emotions,

to tell his story.

It's very important that we make a pact that,

during those six episodes,

I will be Ayrton.

Da Silva, a world champion…

Why is it that, amongst so many extraordinary drivers,

F1 has only had one hero to date, and that hero is Ayrton Senna?

Go, Ayrton, go.

This series gives the audience the opportunity to get to know

the man behind the myth.

Many race drivers refer to Ayrton as an unrivalled race driver.

I knew more about Senna than I did about Prost.

When we talk about Ayrton Senna, we're talking about a force.

The guy filled this country with joy.

Champion!

Suddenly, we saw ourselves as a powerhouse,

as someone who could succeed.

There was a feeling of being Brazilian

when watching those victories.

It was impossible not to get goosebumps, we still do even now.

This heroic force, his determination,

all that creates a character that goes beyond

those who are simply Formula 1 fans,

motorsport fans, or Senna fans.

I refuse to walk away from the fight.

One of the biggest challenges we had

was telling an international story

without going to all those places.

We wanted to create a production strategy

to cover this variety of sets,

the variety of places around the world.

We are in Derry pretending it's England.

It's the first scene, when they arrive in the United Kingdom.

Action!

The cars are very important to portray an era.

So we dial back to 1981 and 1983,

and later today we'll redo this scene,

switching a few vehicles, making some more modern,

to show the passage of time.

We had to come here to portray this atmosphere,

the distance from family, friends,

the loneliness that he experienced here.

Wow, it's freezing!

Whose idea was this?

It's not that cold, I'm going for a swim.

She's lying down, and then sits up.

What if we lived closer to my parents?

There's always two sets running at the same time, at least.

Last week someone said we were filming three different countries at once.

The project as a whole is impressive.

It's a big challenge.

It's war logistics. I remember looking at the filming schedule

and I'd never seen anything like it.

I knew it'd be confusing to speak three, four languages at the same time.

And it really was.

When I arrived at the set, my impression was,

"Wow! It's a huge production!" You know?

We have a huge set here.

Huge. I've never been to a set with so many people.

I think it was a good idea to shoot

most of the exterior scenes in Argentina and Uruguay,

where we were able to replicate places where he lived,

in and outside of the race tracks.

In terms of architecture,

we were able to shoot many European scenes there.

We found these race tracks frozen in time.

And we turned those race tracks,

in a way, into our studio.

With a lot of visual effects work in post-production,

we turned those places into race tracks all over the world.

Action!

So we made Suzuka, Ímola, Estoril.

English race tracks.

Six different countries in the same race track.

It was crazy.

It takes a lot of engineering to build the race tracks and the races

in a way that the viewers don't see any of what I'm talking about.

That these are secrets they will only find out later.

We had go-kart training two, three times a week.

More than learning how to drive a go-kart,

it was to get used to the experience,

get familiar with this feeling

of being in the race, the tracks, the car and everything involved.

The adrenaline,

the danger, fear, accidents, spinning around.

We have amazing cars that have been reproduced,

that people are gonna look and wonder where we got these cars from

and how we were able to do these amazing races with them.

We built 22 replicas of the cars

that Senna used to drive.

His main rivals' cars,

from Formula Ford to Formula 1.

The exact McLaren of Senna and Prost, it was insane…

Like, the exact car, there.

I know they'd said, "Oh, we're building these cars."

And I was like, "Yeah, cool."

And there's an actual Formula 1 car there.

It was very exciting,

because we were there looking at the car Senna raced in.

Tulio Crespi and his family

did this phenomenal job recreating these things,

and they performed so well.

We had the possibility of making a Formula Ford car,

then we concluded we could make a Formula 2 car,

then a Formula 3 car,

then we could make a Formula 1 car.

The cars became the stars of the series.

The design was born out of a great challenge,

which was being able to place the engines, the bodies, the chassis

in a car that would transform throughout the filming.

Several cars that transformed into others over the years.

Besides the replicas, we created digital cars,

so we adopted a method we called "naked."

We removed what we called the "bubble" of the car and left just the chassis,

full of stickers so the post-production would have references to track.

That way, it was possible to use any car in any race.

The race scenes were shot with stuntmen,

because of the big risks, obviously.

It was very dangerous for us, actors, with no experience

driving race cars, let alone F1 cars

with all that structure, wings.

We shot a lot of scenes in the rain,

with the Toleman, on a really wet track.

We were able to go full throttle on the curves

and really experience something unique.

For those who know the cars, the sounds,

they'll be pleasantly surprised to see that we were careful

to make things really faithful to how they were at the time.

We had to find those period cars

and record their sounds.

Record the car rolling, speeding, slowing down.

Right here in Patience,

he'll have to downshift another gear

and then start his longest straightaway.

And it's a very specific technique, I had to microphone it,

so I took out the car frame, placed mics in the cockpit, near the engine.

It's a very specific and complex process.

- Oh, yeah. - It's nice.

- It's clear. Super clear. - Yeah.

Wow, that's amazing.

What kind of lens are you using?

We decided to split it into four different stages,

and in each one we decided to implement a different cinematography style.

The Brazilian phase, the family, the affection, the loving care,

conceptually speaking, this requires warmer tones.

When we go to the lower categories,

this second phase is the English phase.

Unlike the Brazilian close camera,

we wanted shots that showed a bit…

of his loneliness

in a world where he didn't belong.

Then we go to the F1 phase.

We wanted to use a light that conveyed a certain hostility.

Everything shines, the cars shine,

all the teams had bright uniforms.

It's a very stimulating world, everything is a bit artificial.

And the last phase, which is Ímola,

is when he went to Williams.

Everything turns blue and white.

And we decided to adopt that look,

a little bit more whitish, more icy.

As if the image was already a little more ethereal.

The research really impressed me.

The historical, artistic, and building research.

And the details.

This level of care to portrait that era is impressive.

We had to reconstruct, through photos, objects that no longer existed,

but that we knew had to be in the pit wall,

inside the tents, in the boxes.

And everything is made from scratch.

The reconstruction was an immense job.

How do you define which period you're in?

Costume design, makeup and hair are extremely important.

We had the 1970s, '80s and '90s in several countries,

with a severe winter,

and from there we jump to Brazil, which has tropical summer climate.

We made around 120 or 130 overalls.

We had to look for fireproof materials

to make, not only the overalls,

but also the shoes, the gloves,

helmets, everything was fireproof.

We were committed to making everything identical,

everything exact.

They thought of every detail, every accessory.

You see clothing references,

and everything is perfect to the last detail.

There's the right birth mark.

Micro details, Martín was amazing.

Here she comes, look.

Our actress, our star. It's her, the wig.

There were 12 wigs handmade by Cris and I.

I watched him prep.

I'd walk past the room and would see Cris with this enormous magnifying glass,

doing, like, hair by hair.

The characterization team is impeccable.