Biden Time is a short film we shot and edited for Peters & Associates Inc. A few months ago Peters & Associates, a luxury real estate firm in Charlotte, contacted us requesting our services for a Digital Short style commercial. They currently are the listing agents for a 4.5 million dollar house in Waxhaw, NC. I (Drew) took multiple tours of the house during the summer and had a number of creative meetings with the realtor who would be producing the video. The concept of making a mini-film to show off a house came from Neo Properties, another luxury real estate firm on the Gold Coast in Australia. Their videos are edgy, provocative, have millions of views and help sell houses. My idea was to take the Neo Properties concept of a mini-film and make something of our own that was unique to Charlotte, NC.
A high profile event occurring at the end of the summer was of course the Democratic National Convention. Public figures with well known personalities and stereotypes we could play off of were the President and VP Biden. We decided that the relationship between the two men is always fraught with embarrassment as the ever cool and collected, Obama is eternally frustrated by Biden’s callous Scranton gaffes. I talked over plot and lines with a number of people but ultimately the best script was written by my cousin, Todd Hardy, a young screenwriter in South Carolina.
The realtor in charge, Amir R. Behdani, is a very connected guy in the Charlotte area. He negotiated for us to use SilverFox Limos for a presidential motorcade, he had all kinds of props because he also dabbles in club promotions. His friends in private security volunteered their time and expertise to act as a SWAT team. They were awesome too and brought all of their own very real gear. I asked them a couple times if their guns were really not loaded when they were pointing them at me while I was filming. We ended up also pulling strings and were able to shoot at the Concord Airport and The Presidential Experience. Concord provided us with a nice tarmac set and jet stairs. The Presidential Experience is a traveling exhibit that found success at a previous Democratic convention in Denver. They have a replica of the Oval Office and a fuselage of a 707 made up to look like Air Force One.
We found our Obama from a contact at CPCC. Julian Ireland was perfect. He looked the part and had a deep, authoritative voice.