Hellooooo again Canada, you frigid, beastly, beautiful domain of friendly folks. Once again, I’m shooting for Mercedes-Benz Vans Canada, except this time we’re hitting Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta within 2 weeks… during winter. Never have I felt such cold (thanks Quebec City), but then again I’ve lived in South Carolina and California for most of my candyass life.
Previous Mercedes-Benz Canada assignments:
2014 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Campaign
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 4×4 Retouching
The scope of this assignment was to shoot stills and video (Will Keown) of 10 selective business owners’ across Canada. From tour guides, a board shop owner, glass replacement specialist, to even a fascinating landscape photographer that looks eerily like myself… we got as much covered as humanly possible within two weeks.
The main focus, and most of our time was dedicated to the van business owners, however on the final day of production we got to play around in the middle of the Rocky Mountains near Banff. The wide open country and steep mountains framed these two rumblin-tumblin Sprinter 4x4s perfectly:
And as mentioned before, this assignment centered mostly around the diverse business owners that utilize Mercedes-Benz vans for their everyday work. Will Keown‘s video production took priority, and I was floating around as quietly as possible nabbing documentary shots.
Since a camera was in my hand for nearly every minute of these 2 weeks, there are equally as many BTS production shots… maybe more! The stereotype is true about Canadians being excessively nice and easy to get along with… still trying to figure out why a hockey team is called the Maple Leafs. LEAFS ISN’T A WORD!.. however it’s much easier to google search. More than a few pictures by assistants Jeremy Alan Glover (Montreal) and Mike Boldt (Calgary).
The scenery in the Banff region is absolutely gorgeous, so it turns out most of the locations within the frame were used for the final brochure edits. Of course, that’s always the goal. It just goes to show how epic the landscape is in the remote Rocky Mountains. Location, location, location.
We worked with a pretty lean and mean production crew. Thanks to my Canadian buddies Andrew Milani, Jeremy Alan Glover, Mike Boldt, Trevor Tsuji for teaching Will, Tommy, and I how to speak the language. Who would have known that fries, cheese, and gravy taste pretty damn amazing when mixed together. Genius.