Making of Pagani vs Lamborghini: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit

You've seen the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit video - Pagani vs. Lamborghini, now you can red read how we made the video.

Part of the launch preparation for any Need for Speed game is to select cars that will do some of the marketing heavy lifting for that launch – cars that exemplify the gameplay, style and tone for that particular game. For NFS Hot Pursuit, two of those cars were the Pagani Zonda Cinque and the Lamborghini Reventon interceptor – and these made it onto the cover of our packaging.

In the course of our partner meetings with Pagani and Lamborghini we came up with the idea of doing a live-action shoot with these amazing supercars… to bring life to art, then art back to life, if you will, in the context of the Hot Pursuit experience. That was the genesis of this film project. Re-create our packaging, exemplify the cop vs. racer social competition of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, and create something for our fans and auto enthusiasts around the world that they had never seen before.

Task one was to source these exclusive cars. For the filming, Pagani built a Cinque prototype out of their workhorse development Zonda – a process supervised entirely by Mr. Pagani himself, who was involved in the project from start to finish. Creating the Zonda’s exterior was only half the challenge. Replicating its trademark banshee wail – one of the most unique and remarkable engine notes in the automotive world – was done meticulously.

Lamborghini provided us a beautiful LP640 Murcielago. Originally a slate gray, we sent it to Lamborghini’s official body shop in Modena, Italy, for cop lights and to be wrapped in its black-and-white Seacrest County Police Department livery.

We shot in the Dolomites; the alps in Northern Italy. Not only was this good proximity to Pagani and Lamborghini headquarters, but it provided an absolutely stunning backdrop for these supercars and actually resembles parts of our fictional Seacrest County in Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.

Behind the wheel of the Murcielago was Marc Hennerici, and piloting the Zonda was Marc Basseng. They are both race car drivers but they’re also known as two of the best stunt drivers in Europe. Them actually knowing each other was really important because of the communication and trust they needed to have to pull off some of the really aggressive moves in the video.

For this project, we got one of the few production houses on the planet with hands-on Zonda experience, Runimation Studios, and director Robert Eder, who shot the official ad for the Zonda R earlier this year. And having seen his work, we knew he was the perfect guy to capture a true Need for Speed project.

The people who work on the Need for Speed franchise all share a huge passion for cars. Every car in every game is thought through and put there for a reason. Working with Pagani and Lamborghini and being able to bring this expression of our packaging art to life was unbelievably cool, and I hope our Need for Speed fans and automotive fans worldwide enjoy this piece. …And the next best thing to stunt-driving at our shoot is to pick up Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and get behind the wheel yourself!

Watch The full NFS Hot Pursuit Making of Pagani vs Lamborghini video on EA.