Chris Szwedo Productions was commissioned to create three short films for The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s 2005 headline exhibition--Speed, Style, and Beauty: Cars From The Ralph Lauren Collection.

The show quickly became a major attraction in the Boston area. It featured Lauren’s most significant cars and the three Szwedo works of the cars in action as they passed through impressive natural settings.

“Getting the opportunity to film such a wonderful collection is a rare experience. Every car has a unique personality to be inspired by. Each one gets your visual senses charged up”, notes Szwedo.

Four of the cars were filmed at the European-style 2000-acre Crane Estate, in Ipswich, Massachusetts in late September 2004. They included a Bugatti Atlantic, Bugatti Type 59, Mercedes SSK, and a Mercedes Gullwing. The filming was completed three weeks later with collection curator Mark Reinwald on easternmost Long Island, where the bulk of the sports and racing car collection is cared for.

“We were basically up and running on Long Island from pre-dawn until dark. It’s a bit of a surreal experience firing up Ferraris and Jaguars that raced in anger at Lemans, and driving them at the moment of first light in a public place, and there’s this open stretch of road where we really let the Ferrrai TR 61 fly. Most folks would never have an appreciation for the way such a car feels as it roars and passes a few feet from you, and as the sound rebounds out of the nearby forest. There’s a chance that we woke someone up out there! Production assistants were calling friends on their cell phones and holding them up to share the experience.”

“The opportunity to work with the Museum of Fine Arts on such a project is enormous, and challenging because you’re creating a work that’s in a show with high expectations. It has to have an abstract, or impressionistic feel, and at the same time remind people that not only are these cars extraordinarily beautiful, but they also breathe fire. They are meant to move, and to be appreciated for the way that they move, and our product in the show hopefully gave folks the chance to do so.”

Speed, Style, and Beauty: Cars From The Ralph Lauren Collection
appeared at MFA/Boston from March 6- July 3rd, 2005.