The film that tells the story of Sony and Nissan’s 2008 coup in the world of motorsport is in theaters: the GT Academy.
Fifa, Pes, NBA, NHL, Colin McRae Rally: the years between the old and new Millennium were characterized by video games whose constant was sport in virtual format (and very often arcade), which later became a symbol of pop culture modern. In the motoring sector, in addition to the aforementioned CMR, the Gran Turismo series changed the approach to motoring forever.
In addition to being a digital encyclopedia and therefore helping to disseminate automotive culture in Western countries, one of the purposes of the real driving simulator was to teach users to drive, to drive on the track. GT licenses have gone down in history as have online endurance races that lasted up to 24 (real) hours.
Without a doubt, however, the most extraordinary project born from the Gran Turismo video game was in the early 2000s with the birth of GT Academy. It is no coincidence that the film adaptation talks about this incredible story.
Why not try, given the exponential technological development of hardware and software in driving simulators, to select racing car drivers through an online competition, done with your own copy of the video game at home, and thus make motorsport accessible to (almost ) everyone? This is the question that came to mind for Darren Cox in 2005, then marketing manager of Nissan Europe. A simple yet brilliant idea, but a real revolution in an extremely complex, elitist and expensive world like car racing.
The idea immediately struck another of the protagonists of this story, the Japanese Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of Gran Turismo and founder of Polyphony Digital, as well as Sony vice-president. The meeting of these two wild and brilliant minds gave birth, in 2008, to the GT Academy. Gran Turismo is none other than the story, reconstructed and not too fictionalized, of Jann Mardenborough, winner of the academy in 2011.
The film simplifies, in the initial stages, the period of about a month of online selection is very simple. Cars, track, tyres, equal conditions for everyone, the top 20 classified went on to the next phase, a national final (the academy is European and the first phases of national selections) in which the first 2 of each registered nation obtained the ticket for Silverstone, home to the next phase, the real driver academy.
Here the contenders were tested in every area of the professional driver, from physical to mental-psychological fitness, from the ability to relate to the media and, of course, speed. Jann wins the Academy and becomes a driver for Nissan also sponsored by Sony. Hence the story of a dream come true, the underdog adventure of an enthusiast catapulted from virtual to real pilot in just a few weeks.
Beyond the script and the sometimes somewhat flat writing, the story of Mardenborough and GT Academy in general has allowed the production of a racing movie that is finally relevant. A young, modern but no less epic and fascinating motorsport story.
There is the democratization of a sport with insurmountable barriers to entry, there is the talent, will and courage of a boy who has a passion, not anachronistic but rather vital in a digitalized world.
A truly inspirational story, far from those aspirational fairy tales that are so fashionablea story of real sport, in a world that increasingly sees the presence of digital and virtual reality hybridizing with real reality and underlines the opportunities.
It adds to this a quality of photography that had never been seen in a racing filman exciting, engaging and immersive montage, seasoned with sounds and augmented reality in constant reference to video games, capable of attracting audiences not belonging to the motoring niche but above all young people.
A film that therefore tells us about the motorsport of the 2000s, bringing out today’s charm and therefore going beyond the museum nostalgia to which we are too often accustomed. A motorsport that recalls the metaverse, which transfigures traditional feelings, emotions and ethos thanks to Jann’s storya non-son of art who for this very reason manages to bring new epic into a tired environment tied to past patterns and who perhaps needs precisely this to rekindle his passion.
2023-10-04 15:48:41
#Gran #Turismo #story #revolution
