Rally
Also known as: rallying, stage rally
Motorsport on closed public roads run as timed stages, where spectators and filmers choose a corner and wait for cars to arrive one at a time.
Updated
What it means
Rally is point to point rather than circuit racing. Cars run individually against the clock on closed roads, which means a filmer sees each car once and then waits several minutes, closer to Fixed-camera recording than to covering a session.
The surface changes everything about it. Gravel, tarmac, snow and mud all appear in one event, and the car behaves and looks completely different on each of them.
The spectator position is part of the sport. Official viewing areas are chosen for safety rather than for photography, and the footage everybody gets from them looks broadly the same.
How it works in practice
One corner covered properly is the whole plan. There is no second attempt and no second angle, so the position chosen before the stage starts is the footage that will exist.
A long lens does more here than anywhere. Compression from a safe distance keeps the car large in frame, where a wide lens from the same spot produces a dot crossing a hillside.
Audio is worth recording on its own. An Engine sound approaching and receding carries the drama of a stage, and a separate recorder away from a crowd captures it far better.
What to watch out for
Dust and gravel reach everybody. A car on loose surface throws stones a surprising distance, and a camera on a tripod at the outside of a corner is in the path of them.
Waiting produces nothing to film. Most of a stage is empty road, so a card fills with Dead time unless the camera is started deliberately for each car rather than left running.
Light in forest stages is brutal. Dappled shade and bright gaps swing exposure constantly, and anything on Auto white balance produces a clip that changes colour as the car passes.
How RawClip handles it
A card of one car per corner with long waits between them reduces cleanly, since the waiting is filtered out as dead time and each pass is scored on its own. The audio is normally replaced, because what reaches a camera microphone in wind is mostly noise.