Reflections on making a commercial with no client, no brief, and thirty people who showed up anyway.

The Conversation That Started It

Armin and I had known each other for a while without ever having worked together. We finally sat down at the beginning of this year, and it was one of those full-circle moments that's hard to explain unless you've had one.

I'd just left my marketing agency job and wanted to get my reps in again as a director. I needed work that would test my ability and my competence against where I'm at now as an artist. When I met with Armin, he mentioned he'd been in conversation with a few brands and floated the idea of making something together with no client attached.

At that point in the conversation there was no idea. I didn't even know what brand we were going to make it for. I said yes anyway. I knew that a commitment would produce an idea, and that having someone like Armin championing it would push me to follow through. I want to be honest about that part, because a lot of people wait for the idea before they commit, and the commitment is usually what produces the idea.

There was no brief. No brand deck. No round of revisions where the thing you loved most gets cut because someone's boss saw it on a Tuesday and didn't like the color. The sandbox was completely open, and Armin built an environment where we could actually play in it.

Finding the Concept in a Song

Music informs almost everything I make. I'll usually find the track before I find the shots, because the track tells me the shape of the thing. It gives me a sense of pacing.

I don't remember how I stumbled onto Code Race by Ryan Lott, but the moment I heard it, I knew. It's futuristic, but it has this grounded, textured quality that I really enjoyed. And structurally, it does exactly what the concept needed. There are these beautiful meditative stretches that open up space to breathe, and then it builds into crescendos that lead you into action.

Slow down. Speed up. It was already in the music, and it gave me the foundation I needed to write.

That's a practical tip more than a philosophical one. I find that if you're building a self-initiated piece with no brief telling you how long it should be or where it should turn, you should find your track early and let it be your outline. It'll save you a week of arguing with yourself about structure.

One Location, Three Setups

Here's the constraint that shaped everything.

We had three athletes, limited time, and a crew donating their days. When people are giving you their weekend for free, you owe them a plan that respects that. Which meant one location, and it had to be big enough to hold three completely different builds.

Matt Browne has been my first AD on a lot of projects over the last few years, and he's also one of the project managers and client liaisons at XVP, which has this insane 5,000+ square foot cyc wall space. I called Matt, told him about the project, and asked if he wanted to go on another wild ride with me, and he secured us our location and AD'd for us!

From there, we had to actually build it. Wheel in a treadmill. Wheel in a cycling trainer. Rig the bag for Jordan. It was three setups with three different lighting builds, because the easy version is to light the room once and drop each athlete into the same template, and that version looks like exactly what it is the second you watch it. We wanted each setup to have its own taste.

It was a lot of coordination, and everybody involved was juggling other projects at the same time, so it kept getting solved in fragments. Honestly, it didn't fully come together until the pre-light the day before.

That's the thing I'd underline for anyone doing this. The pre-light day is mandatory on a project like this. It's the only day where nobody is waiting on you, and you can be wrong for an hour without it costing anybody anything. On a paid job, you fight for that day. On a volunteer job, you need it twice as much, because you cannot burn your crew's goodwill figuring out a look while three athletes stand around.

The Part Nobody Tells You About Volunteer Crews

Thirty people drove out from the city to Lincolnshire to work on this.

It started with pitching Armin, who believed in it first. Then Joe. Then it built outward from those two, and people poured real sweat into something with no budget behind it. I don't take that for granted.

I'd like to think the people who showed up wanted to be a part of the idea and to try something new. There's a privilege in doing client work, and it's what we all work toward at the end of the day, but there is something so sweet about creating something and being a part of something for the love of the game!

For people to be as invested in an idea as you are, you have to be so clear about it that you can articulate it in about ninety seconds. From there, it's about being organized so you're not wasting their time or their energy. Armin and I both understood that the moment a volunteer set feels disorganized, you start spending your relationships, and that's a much more expensive currency than money.

Which is why the one-location call mattered so much. We could easily have turned this into a multi-location, multi-day production. Every version of that plan asked more of people who were already giving us everything for free.

The commitment runs for both crew AND talent, and it will surprise you.

Jordan cut weight for this. Nobody asked him to. It was our first time working together, and he wanted to look and feel his best for a project. He told me his philosophy is to say yes because you never know where an opportunity takes you, and then he backed it up.

Lesly ran her heart out on the day and gave it her absolute all, after already training that morning.

Kai donated his entire cycling setup and trusted us to transport it to the set. He cycled for an hour and a half on camera, then literally rode his bike back into the city.

That level of commitment from athletes I'd just met genuinely surprised me, and it raised the floor for everybody on set.