Since its start in 1903, Harley-Davidson has been engineering more than just motorcycles. They’ve been crafting a remedy to the increasingly-claustrophobic effects of life. The more you turn that throttle, the more your worries dissolve, the more your mind clears, the more you exist in the now - connected to nature, to your body, to the road. In today’s world of phone-dependency, tidal waves of technology, and never-ending news cycles, everyone could use more of that feeling. So we created a film that showed in a digital world that’s always ‘on’, it’s the ‘off’ that people are craving.
The film celebrates the adrenaline rush of a ride as a cure for the modern condition. Because having your hands glued to a pair of handlebars, rather than your phone, is healing. Directed by Jaron Albertin and shot on 16mm, a Harley-Davidson rider races to outpace ‘the voice of technology’ that gently instructs him to stay connected. As the rider begins to leave the connected world behind, gentle instructions give way to desperate commands, until he bursts out onto the open road, where the constant drip-feed of updates and alerts cannot follow.
Filmed in and around Prague in the wee hours, the anonymous rider’s high-speed jaunt through the narrow streets represents the suffocating feeling of being tethered to tech. Part of the thrill of a bike is how it bends on the corners, how it shudders, and how close you feel to the road. We wanted to bring people as close as possible to feeling like they were in control of the bike in the film. So to recreate the exhilarating urge of going fast we designed a special camera rig, mounted to the bike inches above the ground, that gave the feeling of life at 80mph.
The film dramatized why many of us need ‘full-throttle wellness’, as we make our way through a world where technology dominates every waking minute. Not only are we showing off the performance of the bikes and the excitement of the ride, but we’re also highlighting the transcendental qualities of the experience. Simply put, Harley-Davidson offers those who ride, a way to leave it all behind.