Filmmaker Casey Neistat and Mercedez - Benz do n’t pair well in people ’s mind . One ’s aYouTube turncoat , the other is the manufacturer of cars you ca n’t afford . And yet ! They team up and made an ad . The consequence is as surprising and uncanny as you ’d expect it to be .
Yes , this is by all odds a car commercial , but it ’s not a stodgy luxury car plug by a mile . It ’s fun , it ’s frenetic , and it ’ll probably rick you on in that room that movies about renegade hack and underdog football game team make you want to fall in hooey . This advertizing does n’t make you desire to be rich — it makes you want to have play .
For the last decadeNeistathas built a calling out of telling personal stories about whatever he want , both on YouTube and on an HBO series . In unretentive , he symbolizes all of the optimistic hope of the free Internet combined with a maker ’s will to get it done . So how the the pits did he end up doing a commercial for stuffy ol’ Mercedes ? In telephone exchange for his lettre de cachet with The Youths , Mercedes localise him loose with a car , a mess of cash , and entire freedom to do whatever he wanted .
https://gizmodo.com/the-wildly-functional-studio-of-video-wizard-casey-neis-513828366
This new ad for the ( low-cost ? ) $ 30,000 Mercedes CLA is actually the conclusion of the four - part “ CLA - project , ” which follows Neistat through the entire operation of making the video . We had the chance to verbalise with Neistat about the whole task . Here ’s how he shred tires from the Utah Salt Flats to Times Square , all in the name of getting you excited about a car .
Gizmodo : So what ’s the tarradiddle of these four videos ?
Casey Neistat : We started withvideo 1 , which was about describing the why , you know , why would I do the crusade and what does Mercedes - Benz mean to me personally?Video 2is about us actually learn the car . video recording 3is following us discovering and creating this commercial message . Video 4is the commercial message .
Giz : Did you pick out the Salt Flats because they look nerveless ? Or as a contrast to New York ?
CN : So many railway car commercials are dart in the Salt Flats and so much bully mental imagery comes out of that plaza , but I ’ve never been there and I ’m odd . Plus it was one of the only places in the humankind where I knew I could drive around and not break apart the machine into anything else .
Giz : Did you have anything in brain — did you have a storyboard when you go out there ? Or were you just run into what it would look like when you got there ?
CN : We did n’t have a storyboard .
I sense all these production that we do are adventures . We went out there with an idea , and we did n’t know the upshot , and we went out of our way to make indisputable we did n’t know the outcome . So we went out there with all these goal and all these approximation , and we made trusted to squeeze whatever obstacles that come our way .
The adult obstacle was that rainwater . If you type Salt Flats into YouTube , you ’ll find 100 amazing videos that were shot out there , but you wo n’t find any that were shot in the rain . We had a 2 daylight frivol away out there , and it just pour the entire meter . And after 5 moment of debating what to do , we were like “ make out it , let ’s just go shoot in the rainwater and see what happens . ” And that was a prime example of us embrace something … a lot of people would say “ this is going to cost us our shoot ” or “ we ’re die to have to push back a couple of 24-hour interval until it stops rain . ” Instead , we made that apology a part of our narrative . All the salinity on my face , spraying up all over the elevator car — that awing looking at , the glossiness of the Salt Flats , all that was because of the rainfall .
Giz : It looks crazy . It almost looks like coke on the Salt Flats .
CN : When I first posted a picture on Instagram of the Salt Flats in the rain , there was just this huge negotiation about “ Where is that , ” “ What am I bet at ” , and “ Is this Photoshop ” because it just looks like the people of color ’s floating upside down in ice .
For the record : We had to steam pick this CLA no less than a dozen meter to get all the table salt out from under the car . It also wreck two cameras and one of our monitor . It ’s the most toxic liquid you could ever shoot in . It made my cutis feel amazing the next day , but it ’s like the gnarliest stuff ever . We smack it , and it was like toxicant .
Giz : Is that important to you , that your process be incorporated into your body of work ?
CN : There ’s a huge insecurity on my part that my audience might perceive this as : this is something a troupe is directing , or this is a company that want to be something else , or this is something that a company is promote in a certain direction . So by revealing so much of the discovery — which is how I see these productions , is us sic off not knowing what we ’re going to regain out and then name it and revealing that find on camera — we’re lease the viewers decide just how authentic this is by fundamentally showing you what cards we ’re hold . We ’re not making this shit up , this is really what ’s going on .
Giz : Can you address to technical stuff ? When you rig the tow line of business to the back of the Mercedes , how did that work ? How do you ensure you do n’t kill yourself when you ’re doing that ?
CN : Well , you just ask two very different doubtfulness . How you do n’t kill yourself is mostly just dumb portion . I see myself to be a very good skateboarder but the difficulty when you ’re being pulled behind any car when there ’s only a 20 foot pedigree , is that you ca n’t see the potholes .
But the technical stuff , and I ’ll speak direct to your Gizmodo audience right now : I had my lead cinematographer focus on these liberal beautiful shots , and have my lowly photographer figure out how to seize what was really drop dead on . What that intend was that I had an A squad and a B team . And the A team is operating all sorts of expectant appurtenance , so we ’re shoot on Canon 5D tick IIIs with big right steady photographic camera , and locked off camera , and shots that are set up .
And then our B team is shooting entirely on point - and - shoots . I consider we shot mostly on Canon S110 cameras . And the reason for that is because , with the gravid lenses and with the 5Ds , we screw they ’re still quick and easy to maneuver , but at the same fourth dimension they ’re buy the farm to capture beautiful broadcast - tone double . Our B squad needs to have point - and - shoot because most of the time , their handwriting are worry , so when we see something that needs to be captivate , they can slash out a stop - and - shoot and capture it .
Giz : How much of the B team footage made it into the final stinger ?
CN : Just about zero . The last edit of the video that you ’re looking at is all the clean stuff .
All the shit that land on the press cutting way floor , all that garbage footage , that ’s the footage that has to make up video 3 . Tell the tale using that garbage footage . And that was a big vault for us . All we require to do was show a silky shot of me being pull behind a car , with Celeste behind the wheel and I ’m on a skateboard , and we ’re racing through Times Square waving an American flag . But we had to prick our cheek and be like no no no , how do we get people excited for that without showing them what we ’ve got .
CN : Can I ask you what you thought of the American pin ?
Giz : I sort of made an presumptuousness . It has a super strong connotation when you see a flagstone being flaunted in that fashion , believably some of the connotation you were endeavor to give it . In a side - eyed direction , it ’s patriotism but not in the cosmopolitan sense . It ’s a little macho ; it has a little scrap of that vibe .
CN : What the masthead represented for me — along with Celeste ’s American flag two-piece and all that kind of American iconography — it ’s just an idea that exudes through all of my work , and specifically through this entire CLA project , which is this estimation of American arrogance . And that ’s something I determine very narrowly and very specifically , and something that I think of as really positive .
But American arrogance is a full term I apply to sort of describe this generation that ’s just like one - one-half a multiplication young than you and me . So it ’s something I practice to describe the nestling that are figuring shit out right now , Kyd that are puzzle out of high school powerful now .
I was raised on Nirvana and tweed shirts and Rage Against the Machine , and I sort of identify my youth as rebellious and always fighting the organization . And the youth that ’s coming up now , the generation that I just described , is total can - actor .
And that arrogance , that theme is to me what constitute so much of the CLA project and this experience that has been the last 5 month of my life with Mercedes Benz , which is just like fuck it . Grab it by the horn , grab it by the steering bicycle , send away the hammer and just do it . We do n’t fuck what this commercial ’s going to be , let ’s image it out . We do n’t know what this video ’s go to be , let ’s go to Germany . We do n’t get laid how to spud this thing in the Salt Flats—-whatever , let ’s just get the elevator car render . It ’s pouring rainfall out ? Fuck it , let ’s do it .
squad Mercedes : Casey , can you talk about the railcar ?
CN : ( Laughing)It ’s been fifty minutes and we have n’t even spill about the gondola … It ’s a totally fucking weed car . What ’s the feature forebode , when you have the cruise ascendency that hasten up and slow down down depending on the space of the automobile in front of you ?
Team Mercedes : Distronic Plus
CN : Whatever that matter is , when my Thomas Kyd and I discovered that on I-95 , we blend in from our house in Connecticut to Manhattan without touching the gas treadle or the brake pedal . I sit down Indian - style the entire clock time . I do n’t bang if you ’re supposed to do that , but when we finally got to the metropolis and I turned that thing of my kid was like ‘ pop , I detest the way you drive , you do n’t drive anywhere about as well as the machine drive . ’
Casey NeistatMercedesYouTube
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