The Family that Models Together...

What happens when you mix Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” and “The Model?” Probably something along the lines of this photo and video shoot. Although Liam and Isaac have both had unpaid internships already at the tender ages of 14 and 10 respectively, their first paid gig was as models for Neato Robotics.

Although they made it look easy, in reality, this was spread across four long weekend days a couple of months apart, shooting with two different crews. Part of the great attitude they had in modeling for Neato was their interest in robotics, but more importantly, that the shoot location was at their friends, Sam & Ben’s, house in Montara where they have spent many play dates enjoying themselves. It likely also helped that their dear old dad was the creative director on the project and their lovely stepmom (a bonafide professional model in her past life) were modeling right along with them, together with Sam, Ben and their new puppy. Adding to this roster of familiar faces and locales, for the second weekend, the DP was their friend Kayley’s dad, Adam, all the way from SoCal.

The game of Monopoly was engrossing enough that the cameraman all but disappeared

I can't speak for Ren, but I didn't have to act in love here.

Liam watching and learning from his StepMom.

The goal of the shoot was to capture a casual California coastal aesthetic, and with the help of my fantastic team at Neato, we were able to stage everything to look relaxed and effortless even though a lot of effort went into making it look so. Unfortunately, Neato ceased operations in May of this year, meaning that the finished spot that the boys modeled for will never see the light of day. Nonetheless, we're happy to share the working draft below.

As a reward for being on the seeing-end of the camera, the boys even had a chance to film the robots themselves on the last day of the shoot. Isaac especially liked teaming up with Sam to get the robot-level perspective on one of the robots as it cleaned the master bathroom.

This was one of the final creative assets I was able to put together for Neato before they closed up shop. I worked with a very talented in-house animator on this and hope to work with him and others from the former team Neato again before long.

To infinity and beyond!