Day One: Monday Morning. NYC.

It was 30 degrees and sunny at 7 AM in New York.  I’d flown in from the West Coast the night before and after a few precious hours of sleep tried to adjust my internal clock not to think about the fact that it was really 4 AM in California.

 
After bundling up in 5 layers (capilene, fleece, tee, vest, coat), I pounded an Emergen-C, ate some leftover crackers from the airplane “Snack Pack” and headed down to the hotel lobby to hail a cab to Soho where the Decon guys were packing the gear for the shoot.



By the time I arrived, they had most everything loaded up already.  A few stray props were scattered around the office – a fake beehive, a talking gnome and a couple of empty grenades among them.  I walked into the conference room to check out the notes on the wall from yesterday’s production meeting:

I knew at that moment that this was going to be one of the more interesting shoots I’ve ever been on.

Jason, Rob and Dan piled what remaining empty seats weren’t packed with gear in the big white 15 passenger van I remembered from the B1 shoot in January.  Peter, Kavi and I had a couple of other missions to accomplish before we met up with the others at our final destination in the Catskills.

Pit Stop #1: Chinatown Fish Market



Goal: Purchase the biggest catfish we could find!

A true New Yorker, Peter does not believe in parking – only stopping briefly in the right hand turn lane when you need to make a purchase.  “Dude. I was only inside for like 2 minutes.  I’m here now! I’ll move the car right now…” Here is Peter and his $115 orange parking ticket for impeding the traffic flow in Chinatown.

With fish on ice in the back, we began our journey out of the City toward “the forest” as Peter refers to this part of the state.

Responsibly, Kavi took the wheel so Peter could work on his laptop and I could try to take a nap (with the catfish) in the back.  All seemed to be going well as we cranked up the music and headed out of town.

About an hour into the trip, we stopped at a toll booth.  As we were paying, Kavi’s phone rang.  “Jason, is that you?” Kavi said to the other van.  “Where are you guys?”  “No, go right past that exit,” he continued to give directions as we pulled away from the toll booth and accelerated up to the posted speed limit.

This was my vantage point of the “Long Arm of the Law” when we got pulled over not two minutes later.  “Sir, are you aware that talking on your cell phone while driving without a headset is against the law?”

Kavi, truthfully, told the officer we were giving directions to a friend who was lost.  He was a lot more sympathetic than the Chinatown parking cop and let us off with a stern warning.  Already, this had been a bit more excitement than expected BEFORE we had even shot a frame.

With an hour of the drive still to go, we turned up the volume and locked in the cruise control.  I fell fast asleep and didn’t wake up until I was surrounded by “the forest”.

And this guy: Gavin McInnes.

You never know where, when or who might show up with a good idea that can change the way we think about a product launch entirely. 
 
For the last few months, I was convinced that Teva needed to build an iphone application to support a new hiking product we have coming out this July. I called developers, phone companies, and friends who had built mobile apps., widgets, and tricked out websites.  One day, after many months, meetings and conversations I found myself on the phone with Decon, the agency we work with in NY, plotting out some details for the launch of our new B-1, a multi-sport shoe that hits stores April 30th.
 
“What do you think of the iphone app. idea? We’re launching this hiking shoe with an app that will track all the hikes you do, you can share it with your friends, post it to your profile with a facebook app, etc.”
 
“Yeah, I guess that’s cool,” said Decon’s VP of Strategy, Sebastian, a friend I had started working with after we met at the Teva Mountain Games three years ago.
 
“Well, do you have a better idea?” I said.
 
On speakerphone from their conference room, we kicked some ideas back and forth.  Nothing was really sticking and just as we were ready to throw in the towel, a *comedian Sebastian had been working with on a Netflix promotion walked in. 
 
“Hey,” Sebastian said to the *comedian.  “Do you have any ideas for a promotion to launch a new hiking shoe for Teva?”
 
Three weeks later, the iphone app was dead, and I found myself deep in the Catskills of New York shooting this:
       

*Check back next week and I'll reveal his secret identity!!