Articles
Introducing...Extreme E Unfiltered
date
10/08/23
author
James Smith
In our new 'Introducing' Series we get under the skin of a unique Aurora product.
In this edition, Editor Producer James Smith explores a brand new content format for Extreme E: 'Unfiltered', which provides an authentic look behind the scenes of the championship.
A sport like no other
Racing at the foot of glaciers in Greenland, along the beaches of Senegal’s stunning Lac Rose and across the barren landscape of Chile’s Atacama desert. Extreme E really is a sport that has to be seen to be believed and capturing its beauty and also its raw reality is an awesome challenge.
A unique perspective
Two years after the launch of Extreme E, we were looking at ways to innovate for season 3. The main aim was to increase fan engagement in the sport. We had just learned that the audience figures for the series had grown 30% from Season 1 to 2 and we were looking to keep pushing on and find new ways to capture the attention of motorsport fans.
The key for us was capitalising on the access we already had on the ground at each race. We developed the idea of a single film for each stop on the championships global journey that would truly show the unique nature of the event and the drama of the racing itself.
"Extreme E Unfiltered provides a raw, authentic look behind the scenes of the championship, giving fans an intimate insight that they haven’t seen before."
More content, more access
Each short film is formatted to fit within the longer broadcast magazine show, Electric Odyssey; as well as being a standalone digital proposition for Extreme E. Put together in a vlog and documentary style, this format brings out the personalities of the drivers and presents behind the scenes footage, not previously shown in the longer magazine show.
“Chaos is normal though, that happens every round”
Being everywhere, all at once
We developed the idea as a way of maximising our output from the race weekend, harnessing otherwise unused footage and telling new stories. In addition to this, the raw nature of the film means that everyone in the paddock with a phone is able to contribute. With stories developing all over the race site across a packed weekend, one of the big challenges of this format is to plan and decide which stories to cover.
We have had instances where we have rushed to cover the cancellation of a race due to fog followed by a team’s joy at qualifying for a final whilst simultaneously another’s agony at missing out, all with a small number of crew on site, but when you capture of moment of real emotion, that makes it all worth while and is truly what viewers want to see.
