My name is Michael Lasanta and I’m a Swedish creative director, DOP, photographer and motorcycle enthusiast living in the South of France.
Long story short (you’ll find the longer story further down..) : I love your brand and would like to create content for you around the coast and mountains of our beautiful Cote d’Azur.
In order to show you why that’s a great idea, me and my buddy @justcallme_ao borrowed a KALK for an afternoon to go play around Monaco & a nearby mountain. As the sun was setting and we only had about 1,5h to shoot we didn’t have time to get much footage, but here’s a quick and quirky glimpse of what the area (and we) have to offer.
The long(er) story.
For the past 11 years I’ve been running my own production company, shooting a wide range of projects worldwide – spanning from extreme sports / outdoor to studio fashion shoots and documentary work for the BBC.
With motorcycles (and extreme sports) being a big passion of mine, I’ve been drawn to shoot more 2-wheeled action and have managed to find a good group of people around the Cote d’Azur who share the same passion for riding, shooting and exploring the surrounding areas.
We regularly do trips to the nearby mountain areas where we set up camp, create content for partnering brands and hang out – in other words a great setting for professional and UGC style content creation. I’ve followed your brand since day 1 and needless to say I’m a huge fan of the project. Besides running the production company I’m also the co-founder of a Swedish CO2-positive baby brand called Skogen Baby where I’m acting as the lead designer and AD, meaning I’m constantly following new sustainable projects across all markets.
Here’s a couple of pictures and a short clip from our last camping trip to give you an idea :
So, why work with us?
The location.
With us being based in the Cote d’Azur, we have access to all kinds of locations, from urban city spots to mountains, lakes, forests, seaside beach sites and ski resorts. All year round (well, maybe not the snow).
The shooting style.
I’m coming from a background of skateboard, snowboard and ski cinematography, meaning one of my USP’s is being able to shoot from basically anything that moves, in high speeds, in very narrow spaces. Now that really comes in handy when shooting 2-wheelers in urban environments on tight budgets. All urban tracking shots seen in the CAKE-video above are done using an electric skateboard, going about 50km/h next to the bike.
The community, reach & UGC.
We’re a tight knit community of content-aware riders in the area with a fairly big combined social reach within your exact target audience. Basically everyone in this group has a passion and eye for content creation and will always ride with their camera gear. And they’re all great riders on top of that.
Basically I’m looking at this as a passion project where I would love to get creative with your products in an environment and with riders that I know suits it well.
In exchange I would love to find a solution where I could pay off a KALK with content, alternatively find a setup where we borrow several bikes for a period of time to shoot. Either way I’m sure we could find a solution that works out great for both parts!