Professional stunt person. Do not attempt on your own. Always wear proper safety gear when riding any motorcycle. Getting back to the so-called professional stunt person at hand: He’s good, but he’s not that good. Fact is, he had been out of work for a while and was willing to come down a bit in his fee, which worked for us because we had to adhere to a very small, very restrictive budget to shoot and produce this advertisement. But seriously, I’m telling you, he showed up on the set smelling of Irish coffee and cigarettes and was clearly dealing with recent heartbreak. But damned if he didn’t nail this on the first take. Which, I guess, if you think about it, is the definition of the consummate professional.
Results may vary from market to market. All investments carry some degree of risk and should be discussed with a qualified financial professional. For instance: I, the copywriter for this commercial, was a multimillionaire for all of about nine months before finding out venture capitalists were running scared from tech companies, the market was tanking, and I was in the hole to the tune of eight hundred grand. I drank alone for a month before even thinking about taking a shower, and that’s all I have to say about the year 2000.
Professional driver on closed course. Which, yes, is to say that you should not attempt this on your own, but I’ll tell you what: If I were you, and I were behind the wheel of a BMW 745 with even three car lengths of open road ahead of me, I’d push it a little bit, you know what I mean? What’s the sense of having this thing if you’re not going to feel it? Now, you put me in that same car on Highway 1 between Stinson Beach and Point Reyes, like this stuff we’re showing you here? And I’ve got a goddamn helicopter tracking me, some director hanging out the side door with a movie camera stuffed with 35-millimeter film catching every turn at a dramatic, overcranked, heart-wrenching 48 frames a second, and the color’s going to get saturated to the point of ecstasy in postproduction? Hell yes, I’m going to attempt something. Count on it, man. A professional driver I am not. But you will see some driving, my friend.