The Freise Brothers Drive Us To The Future

Car adverts are part of the regular landscape of the advertising industry, with their cultural and social implications helping to influence the allure and selling-power of certain brands. Relatively recent to join this party of automobiles vying for our attention are Tesla and their eco-friendly, no-emission cars. Despite a ‘no paid advertising policy’ they have managed to build an identity which attracts both thousands of loyal fans and buyers worldwide, and a growing number of unsolicited spots including this latest one by the highly talented and creative directing duo The Freise Brothers.

Having been made on a shoestring budget, this eulogy to the future of environmentally-friendly transport stands out for it's stark dual messages of hope and warning. Part advert, part brand-mythologising, entirely slick, it's hard to find a spot as punchy as this one regardless of budget. With a number of questions brimming over in our minds we caught up with these multi-talented brothers to hear more about their ecclectic backgrounds and to hear what it's like meeting Elon Musk. 

This is such a beautifully shot and made ad! Is Tesla a brand you both identify with?

NF:  Thanks, and absolutely.  Elon Musk and Tesla Motors are changing the world and how we think about electric cars.  I also believe that if you're going to do a 'free advertisement' or spec ad, why not do it for a company who is working towards the greater good and doesn't do any advertising of their own.  

Considering the popularity of the product and it’s loyal following did you feel any pressure in representing such an iconic car?

NF:  Yes, we definitely felt some pressure, we knew the fans would be critical, but we also wanted to impress Elon.  We wanted to get to the heart of the brand and create something that resonated deep within the entire philosophy of the company. We were never setting out to make a typical 'car porn' style commercial of countless beauty shots.  It had to go beyond surface value and beyond showcasing the technology of the car. We wanted to pull in elements of history (the Nikola Tesla narration) and also an idea of the future, where the car is going and what it is doing for people.

AF: We felt a huge relief and knew it was going to be big for us when Elon tweeted it.  I was just lying down for bed at about 12:30 am, when my phone began a nonstop chirp-a-thon.  We only have about 5 Twitter followers, so I knew something was up.  When we saw that Elon had shared it, we were beyond ecstatic.  Needless to say, this did the job of getting it noticed by lots of auto, tech, & advertising sites.  We were even invited on a tour of SpaceX & met Elon in person. It was all pretty surreal.

Tesla notoriously doesn’t commission paid advertisements. Why did you guys take on the task of creating some for them?

AF:  Beyond creating a spot for a company we admire, we made this as aspiring directors.  For the past 2 years Nathan & I have been with a great commercial production company, Biscuit Filmworks.  We are now moving on & looking for / creating new opportunities and projects that fit us as directors.

We were fully aware of Tesla’s stance on advertising & that is actually part of what encouraged us to make it.  The fact that they don’t create their own ads means that when one is created, people take notice & want to know how and why it was made…like you guys!  Also Tesla is a unique brand.  Even if the moment does become right for them to create mass advertising, I don’t think it should be done in the traditional way.  They have been very smart & actually just plain honest about how they portray their car to the public. It’s truly impressive in reality, so glorifying its features does little to further the image of the brand. The car speaks for itself, so relating its milieu to the public seems more impactful.

Did you have any communication with Tesla beforehand or was this entirely your script and concept?

NF:  There was no talk with Tesla beforehand, just a lot of research. This was actually the 2nd script/concept Adam and I had developed. Originally, we had storyboarded an idea that was on a much grander scale, involving elaborate period sets, epic camera moves and Jack White playing Nikola Tesla.  However, once we decided we were making the piece by ourselves, we went back to the drawing boards and distilled the concept down to is essence and something that we could achieve on a small budget.

Was this spot self-funded? 

NF:  Yes, it was entirely self-funded. Approximately $3,000 total budget. The main cost was renting the car for 2 days. We also rented some camera equipment and props/wardrobe. The female actor is my wife and the male is a good friend who graciously worked for fish tacos and whisky as payment. Thanks Giles!

You seem to have taken on most of the production tasks yourselves, including direction, story, post, sound and part of the cinematography. Could you tell us a bit about your (presumably eclectic!) backgrounds and how you came to directing?

AF:  We both went to school for architecture & worked in the field doing computer-modelling & 3D for a few years thereafter. We would spend hours and hours doing animation & experimental short films in our free-time & eventually came to focus on commercial directing as a viable career.  Perhaps our passion for all things design has made us control-freaks but helps us to always keep the overall vision of what we are making in mind.

Do you generally prefer to take on the majority of production tasks yourself or is it more from necessity?

AF:  I wouldn’t say that we always prefer to tackle all the production ourselves.  On this spot, we worked with a handful of creative friends who are more specialized in areas that we're not.  For instance, Christian Evans, an incredibly talented DP friend of ours really brought a lot to this spot.  Our vfx & production knowledge is limited but we never let that limit our idea.  We are constantly learning on the job how to do things we’ve never done before, be it how to avoid location permits or how to rig a simple donkey-pump in 3d, we end up spending a lot of time that honestly could be spent on other things.  However, I think that the trade-off is having that complete creative control of what you are doing.

How much does your knowledge of VFX, post and the entire production process affect both the story and pre-production of this and other shoots?

AF:  Early on, we try not to let any of our technical knowledge effect the process.  At first, it’s all about arriving at a concept that we both strongly agree on.  This takes lots of back & forth conversation & the occasional fist-fight, but when we get to something that we are both feeling, we couldn’t be happier. That said, on a self-funded spot like Tesla, knowing what our abilities/limitations are from the get-go really helps to ensure that we build the story in a way we are capable of executing ourselves.  If we love an idea but it sounds ‘too expensive’ we take some time to figure out what makes that concept tick & reduce it to its essentials.  Many times this ends up working to the benefit of the piece.

Was it a challenge balancing both the visual appeal of the Tesla car and the post-apocalyptic landscape?

AF:  Great question! It was indeed tricky.  We wanted the spot to feel foreboding but not to the point of becoming depressing, overly dramatic, or cliché.  Visually, we wanted the car to be very tangible & relatable, so avoided the typical over-lighting & dramatic camera moves found in most car ads.  As beautiful & high performance as a Tesla is, its design is actually wonderfully understated. The apocalyptic landscape we created, however, is a bit overstated as a contrast.  It’s a world that desperately needs the Tesla. And I think that’s kind of the point with advertisement -you have to build a narrative that makes people question more than just the product itself.  And actually with this one, it doesn’t feel like too big of a stretch of the truth at all. Climate change is real & Tesla is a small but powerful part of the solution.

The sound and voice-over for this spot is incredibly powerful. How did you come across this speech by Tesla and how much did it shape the narrative and imagery of the piece itself?

NF:   A good friend of ours, Jonathan David Dixon, really did his homework for the narration, referencing speeches by Charlie Chaplin and others.  We've had a couple people ask us if this is actually a historic recording of Nikola Tesla himself, which is a great compliment to Jonathan's talent.  In terms of arriving at the actual script, I had recently read Nikola Tesla's autobiography which led me to dig deeper into news and journal articles he published.  There are tons of them in various online archives, and our final narration was a bit of a hybrid, drawing primarily from 2 speeches/articles.  We wanted the narration to complement the visual while also adding another layer of depth to the piece as a whole.

How did the shoot go? 

NF:  The trickiest aspect of the whole shoot was getting moving shots of the car.  Obviously we didn't have luxuries like a Russian arm or equivalent, so we improvised a bit.  This involved in a lo-tech (and mildly dangerous solution) of sitting me on the hood of Adam's car holding a 5D mounted to a homemade steadi-cam at about 45mph on a dirt road. Good times.  We also found that if you deflate the tires of the camera car by about 25% you get a smoother shot.  

Another issue was the battery life of the car.  Shooting in the middle of nowhere, we had to be very aware of our mileage so we wouldn't run out of juice.  We got pretty strict on how many takes we were doing of the car so that we wouldn't unnecessarily drain the battery.  In the end its' really just simple math.

Where was the location and did it require any set-dressing? 

NF:  We shot most of it outside of a remote desert town called Twentynine Palms, in the Mojave desert.  The abandoned structures were old military training grounds and didn't require much additional 'set-dressing'.  We scattered a few oil cans and other debris around to make it feel slightly lived in.  The color shots of the Tesla were filmed in nearby Joshua Tree; nice clean roads and little traffic.

How long did this spot take you to make from pre-production to post? 

NF:  We spent 3 days shooting in the desert and about 2 months in post/edit/vfx/sound.

AF:  Things got really interesting when my first son was born a month early, right in the middle of production!  The sleepless nights became even more sleepless, but the motivation to finish became stronger. It was one of the hardest months of my life, but also one of the most rewarding.

Would you consider yourselves automobile directors? 

NF:  We would definitely do more!  First and foremost we want to work on projects that have a strong narrative concept with a unique visual element.

Finally, what does the future hold for the two of you?

NF:  Adam and I have been developing some short film ideas and would like to push those as far as we can, whether on our own or with the assistance of a studio.  

AF:  We are also seeking commercial representation across the globe & currently meeting with quite a few studios.  The Tesla piece was a great way for us to introduce our work to productions companies & reps.  We are now hoping to join up with a like-minded team that supports our film endeavors & helps us find the right opportunities.