Everdream Pictures, an advertising agency started by recent college grads James Khabushani, and RJ Collins, produced, edited and released a commercial titled Modern Spaceship for Tesla Motors. While the electric car company has spent nary a dime on advertising, the Los Angeles-based creative marketing duo took it upon themselves to invest their own money on the production of the commercial seen above. Though it offers up some notably professional filmmaking and storytelling, according to Ad Age, Everdream notes that the commercial only cost them $1,500 to produce. But can that really be the case?
The way Everdream has justified this claim is by noting that their out-of-pocket expenses to make this commercial came out to that miniscule amount. So, the $1,500 only factors in hotels, gas and food for the 15-person crew brought in for filming. The commercial was shot at Khabushani's roommate's father's house (who owns the Tesla used) and the team apparently already had all of the equipment needed to shoot the advertisement.
Anyone looking to hire Everdream (or any other advertising agency) shouldn't expect such a tiny rate for such awesome work. You see, that price tag doesn't figure in any kind of post-production work like visual effects or pre-production development, both of which could have been handled by Khabushani and Collins. Likewise, equipment and software costs (even if already owned) would need to be part of the costs, but there's no mention of cameras, lighting, microphones, computer graphics software or music production in that $1,500 price tag.
Though it might sound romantic to say that the killer commercial barely cost anything, that's all it cost Everdream itself to make the piece. No reasonable business owner should expect to pay a similar amount for anything remotely close in quality. That being the case, Evergreen's Tesla advertisement is far less for the car company than it is for spreading their own name. And, unless Khabushani and Collins are willing to work completely free, that'll be the last $1,500 commercial they ever make. Especially since Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted at a future collaboration with Everdream on his Twitter account, writing, "I'm confident that Tesla will do something with them."
