Starsky Robotics was founded with a monumental mission: Use robotics to revolutionize the trucking industry. The success of this mission would bring not only enhanced safety and efficiency to “driverless” trucking but, ultimately would provide a more balanced life for truckers worldwide. Director Ben Strang’s journey with Starsky began on the eve of their first unmanned robotic truck test — when he was invited to capture the event and tell the company’s story — and became a relationship that would continue through many more storytelling projects to come. A few short years after their journey together began, Strang creative directed and produced this short spot as a recruiting tool for the young tech firm.

Its goal? Tell a warmly human story about a technological wonder that would bring an incredible life-style change to the trucking industry.

Brought on to write and creative direct the campaign, Strang kept his sights set on the way Starsky made him feel as a storyteller;  “both the awe I felt when seeing a truck drive itself down an open road, and the inspiration I experienced hearing the company’s founder talk about his incredible vision for the future of trucking.”

The project posed immense production challenges. Among them: How do you film a remote-controlled big rig truck on an active highway?  Accomplishing that, this spot makes use of footage captured over the course of three location shoots in Tampa, FL. where the team executed extremely ambitious shooting boards, filming everything from intimate lifestyle scenes to high-speed car-work on endless open roads.

In the end, this piece proved to be a demonstration of brilliant editorial-based creative direction and innovative small-crew location shooting.