Previs presented different challenges on his show.

"Going into previs, we knew we would need certain equipment," Peristere continues. "We went with Alan Padelford and he has a car called a Caddy-Cam. It's a Cadillac Escalade with a jib on the roof and it has the ability to reach all the way down to the ground and go way up high at high speeds. It can do swings and moves because it's built for car commercials and action films. We put that in the previs because we knew that camera was going to be our eye, but at a certain point, we knew that would fail. Why? Because we would come up on a car and as we would rise up on the actor, there would be a stunt person," he laughs. "We also want to see that person and then move into the car. We wanted to leave [the Caddy Cam] behind and go into a controlled situation with actors. So we knew we would move from the open road to the stage where we would have our actors in the same cars lit to match the location time of day. They would act and then there would be a point they would leave or see a racer pace them, so they would step on the gas and we would move away from them."

How do you make the transition? Peristere explains, "Basically what we ended up doing was that we started at location with real cars going 65 mph and we transitioned to greenscreen stages with cars on air casters, these six foot scaffoldings that support the car rigs and they float on air like hydrofoils. These rigs allow a grip to push the car with their hand and it shoots around like it's on ice so we can have it move like a car. We transition from the Cadillac moto-arm to a Technicrane on set where we would use a switcher to match size, scale and location as we saw them out on location until an acting lead needs to get back into the race."

"The next big complication in the process is what do you see out the window when you are in the car?" Peristere poses. "Here's the trick, so now you have to, with absolute continuity, match exactly what you saw with the moto-arm, peripherally and behind. You also can't have a locked plate; it needs to be moving around. So what do you do? That was our next invention we had to figure out. When they did The Matrix and they did all the virtual cameras, they used the still camera which gave them a 360-degree field and that worked for them because of the nature of their shots, but our shots are moving. So we looked to technology from Disneyland's World Theater, where it's like a 360-degree movie and asked how do they shoot that? We figured that as long as we do the action twice on set, we can split the timing to match. It also meant the camera didn't have to be locked off; it can move around outside the windows because it's on a nodal point. For the pilot episode, we used a poor man's version of what they had and then we found the guy who built that rig and used it for the next episodes. His rig is called, "Circlevision." We mounted seven cameras that shot into mirrors, which gave us a 220-degree field of view that we used to create our backgrounds. Old to new!"

Another important aspect of the cross-country race is that the audience gets to see the real-life landmarks and landscapes reflected through the windows of the cars for a semblance of authenticity. Peristere says that for each episode, they collect plates for background context. "It's been really laborious upfront, but now that we are on episodes five and six, it's like we are accumulating backgrounds like a huge stock library. When we schedule a second unit, I'll go out, direct them and work with the second-unit team to shoot the plate that leads up to the action. Then we redo the action using that rig and then we have the background. Then we go to stage and now we have our lighting matching and we work with Chris Manley, our dp, who sets the lights to match exactly where the highlights are on each vehicle using this elaborate grid that he built on a giant, greenscreen at the Santa Clarita studio. We shoot the interior the way we want in action because we have already shot the action outside. Then the director can come in to do dialogue and performance as he needs to make it work. Now we have a working composite, and we've been comping in After Effects on the stage as we go, so we can see it and because this is all based in practical photography, we can see a rough version of what is going on. So we have a couple of key cameras that we can throw in the comp and then we can move on. We do a temp comp and we look at it so when we get back to Zoic, and we work in the Flame with Steve Myer, we know he is going to be able to stitch it all together nicely. All those cameras blend in together either in Shake or Combustion, depending on the time of day, and it's like a giant, single cyc that the guys use."

The cyc was actually the one element that made Peristere the most nervous. "We were really worried about it because it's impossible to create a true nodal cyc. In order for it to exist it had to be shot with a wider lens and now there is lens distortion and improper depth of field. We had to go in like surgery and re-recreate depth of field based on the lens. We then had to hand rotoscope and animate depth of field. I'll never forget we were in this meeting and a very talented compositor said, 'It's impossible. It will not work.' I was scared to death!" he laughs.