Behind the lens: James taylor / continuum films
@continuumfilms via Historika Porsche
Welcome to the second instalment in our ‘Behind the Lens’ features, where we go behind-the-scenes with automotive creatives to see what makes them tick, learn a little about their process, and discuss the highs-and-lows of working within the automotive industry as a creative. This time, we’re joined by James Taylor of Continuum, a production company that not only produces some of the best automotive video to come out of the UK, but also works in fashion, music and commercial videography, all of which is produced to the same mind-blowing standard.
For many of us, photography seems simple enough - in its most basic element, it is point, shoot, edit, post* - but unless you work within the industry, videography and cinema are often seen as somewhat of a ‘dark art’ by other creatives, requiring masses of (very expensive) gear, a team of creatives, and a willingness to adapt and be fluid in a way that often isn’t required by stills photographers.
Therefore, it was as much of an education for us here at SHIFT as it will be for you, the reader, for us to sit down with James and discuss life as a director behind the lens.
The Continuum team. From left to right: James, George, Edward, Samuel.
[SHIFT] Thank you for taking the time to be a part of our behind-the-scenes interviews with brands, creatives and individuals within the automotive scene. To start off with, tell us a little about yourself - who are you, what is Continuum Films, and what do you do?
[James] Hello I’m James, one of the Co-founders of Continuum Films. We are a London based production company specialising in commercials, specifically the automotive sector, as well as fashion, extreme sports and music videos. We manage each project from start to finish including concept creation, filming, editing and distribution.
[SHIFT] How did you first enter the world of professional filmmaking? Was Continuum always a group venture, or did it start off with one or two people and then grow naturally as your projects and client list expanded?
[James] Continuum has four Co-founders ; Samuel, Edward, George and James. We all met at Met Film School in 2019 during our BA Course in Practical Film-making. Before Continuum began, it was just 4 best friends at university, but over time we discovered working together came naturally. The 4 of us began to work on low budget music videos and passion car films to build our portfolio together. Often skipping university lectures to go and film a classic Porsche 911 in Notting Hill for example. Perhaps our teachers weren’t too happy, but we were certainly enjoying it!
We decided to put our collection of films under a brand name. CONTINUUM was born. Getting to work with your close friends and filming cars that we only dreamed of seeing as kids, is the perfect job.
“Who knows where a passion really starts? Perhaps building a small Lego car on Christmas day or gazing out of the school bus window and seeing your first E-type Jag.”
[SHIFT] Looking specifically at the automotive side of the business, have cars and automotive culture always been a passion for you, or was it something that you ‘fell’ into from a profession standpoint?
[James] Cars and automotive culture have always been a huge part of our lives ever since growing up. I think all our fathers are big petrolheads so a love for anything that has wheels and goes fast is something we shared. Who knows where a passion really starts? Perhaps building a small Lego car on Christmas day or gazing out of the school bus window and seeing your first E-type Jag. I always like to think those tiny moments in life injected petrol into our blood and we never looked back.
Still from ‘Refraction’ - Continuum Films x Whitelines Snowboarding
[SHIFT] As your work spans a number of different genres, do you feel that this enables you to look at a brief/challenge differently to a production company that specialises in one particular niche within the industry?
[James] Even though we love the automotive sector we believe working in fashion and music has huge benefits when it comes to filming cars. Everything connects and overlaps, so any skill learnt outside of the car world is tremendously useful. Even filming a model for a fashion commercial, you learn good angles and composition to emote feeling in the viewer. Then you can transfer those skills when you film a race car driver. It’s very easy to question whether we should specialise in just cars, but we believe variety and job diversity is invaluable for growing knowledge in the world of film-making.
[SHIFT] Continuum do a lot of work with the likes of Sam Hancock, Historika Klassik, and other high-level automotive brands, with much of this work being shot at tracks such as Goodwood, Donnington or Spa. What would you say are the biggest challenges - both logistically and creatively - that come with working in such environments, as opposed to working with a contained ‘clinical’ set or location where you have complete control over your surroundings.
[James] A massive part of our car films is shot at tracks like Goodwood, Spa, Silverstone and Donnington. Our biggest challenge on track is capturing a car in real time, with no ‘cheated’ camera angles or sounds. Everything is live in a way, so if an LMP1 car is heading out for a 30-minute race at Silverstone we have a tight window to capture the track footage. Meaning there is absolutely no room for mistakes; every GoPro mounted to the car is triple checked, microphones are mounted in different areas of the car, audio levels are set and camera operators are out on track ready for the race to begin.
A day’s preparation often comes down to a 30 minute session and then it’s over, so when the car leaves the pits or start line the pressure hits and it’s an adrenaline fuelled 30 minutes. Even though it’s a massive challenge we love the atmosphere of track days, the start-up of 20 plus cars revving, a throbbing heat from hot exhaust pipes and the smell of burnt rubber and petrol. It’s hard to beat!
“Even though it’s a massive challenge we love the atmosphere of track days, the start-up of 20 plus cars revving, a throbbing heat from hot exhaust pipes and the smell of burnt rubber and petrol. It’s hard to beat!”
[SHIFT] Going back to the video for Historika at the Spa Classic, the opening stages of the film have a palpable feel of tension, drama and emotional impact for the viewer. When it comes to creating such films, is there an extensive amount of storyboarding and planning that takes place prior to filming, or is a lot of the story left to naturally form throughout the event, and then pieced together in the desired way in post?
[James] With projects such as the Spa Classic film for Historika Porsche we focused on making the intro engaging and emotive to capture the viewers’ attention. These more detailed scenes in our car films aren’t usually story boarded or too planned out. We have in depth treatments and visual references so we and the clients know the ‘look’. However, with things like race weekends it’s so hard to plan and predict what will happen, so being adaptable and creating new sequences on the spot is something we have learned. These sequences are then shaped and refined in the editing process.
Another example is the Goodwood Revival 2023 film we made for Custodian Club. For that there is a rough brief and the aim on the day is to capture as much engaging content as possible. Overall if it’s an event there isn’t as much storyboarding/script writing, it’s more about capturing the moment. However, with feature pieces on specific cars there is have extensive planning with shot lists and so forth.
Still from the Duke of London Porsche 911 RSR commercial - Continuum Films x Duke of London
[SHIFT] Have you ever had a situation where you’ve gone into a shoot - whether that is automotive or otherwise - with a specific plan or story in mind, and ended up having a complete change of plans due to circumstances beyond your control? If so, how do you deal with such eventualities?
[James] Absolutely. We shot a commercial for the car dealership ‘Duke of London’ on a yellow 1973 Porsche 911 RSR that was for sale. We planned to have some moody night shots of it blasting on an underpass of the A4 in West London. We had a detailed plan and already scouted locations but due to unexpected road works on the night our location fell through. In these moments it’s about being proactive and thinking on your feet. So we ended up shooting the commercial in a private multi story car park that we had connections to. Sadly the Porsche couldn’t get up to high speeds in the car park but our driver Algy McCormack got some pretty cool power slides on the higher levels. The dark tube lighting in the concrete multi story gave a Batman like aesthetic to the scene. The film ended up better than we had imagined and it proved out of something bad comes good.
Still from ‘IL SERPENTE VERDE’ - Continuum Films
[SHIFT] Having now worked with a number of high-profile individuals, brands and organisations across a variety of projects from documentaries to music videos, commercials and editorial works, what would you say is the single proudest moment that you’ve had with Continuum?
[James] Our single proudest moment at Continuum is when we were asked to showcase our automotive work at the ‘Sleeping With Art’ event alongside incredible artists, engineers and brands such as Lotus, Magneto Magazine and Polestar.
[SHIFT] Following on from the previous question, what are your goals for the year ahead, or do you have any ‘dream’ shoots that you’d love to tick off the professional bucket list?
[James] Continuum’s goal for the year ahead is to continue expanding the company and meeting new people and clients along the way. We would like to grow all aspects of the company but right now our focus is taking our automotive films to the next level.
One of our dream shoots we constantly talk about is to do a cinematic feature piece focusing on a classic Italian car and its owner in a region of Italy. I’ve always imagined a Ferrari 250 GT SWB or a Lamborghini Miura restored by a charismatic Italian owner who drives it through the winding roads of Tuscany.
Still from ‘DRIVEN | Group A Rover SD1’ - Continuum Films x Sam Hancock
[SHIFT] Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to sit down with us for an interview. We only have two questions left… the first is this; for anyone that is either in the early stages of their filmmaking career, or for someone that is looking to break into the world of professional film production, what is the single most important piece of advice or quote that you could give them?
[James] Our single most important piece of advice for anyone in the early stages of their film career is to keep the passion alive. If you are ever in doubt, remember why you first started this and keep going.
“Keep the passion alive … remember why you started this career and keep going!”
[SHIFT] Finally, share the love - shout out three people, individuals, brands or artists that have inspired or supported you along the way.
[James] Here are 3 people that have inspired and supported us:
Tom Shaxson for helping us get a foot in the door in the automotive industry.
Sam Hancock for enabling us to work alongside incredible historic race cars.
Type 7 for their philosophy and aesthetic that has inspired us on our film-making journey.
With thanks to James Taylor of Continuum Films for taking the time to carry out this interview for SHIFT. Please, do yourself a favour and head on over to YouTube to watch some of Continuum’s work - it truly is an absolute benchmark for any automotive creators in the UK.
Website: continuumfilms.com
Instagram: @continuumfilms_