As some of you may know by now, I'm a commercial photographer that gets some great opportunities to shoot epic movie and tv cars. Honestly, most of my paid shoots are portrait-related, but I just love all things cars and my clients know that. Last year, I came across a rad company called Flash Rods that makes custom memory storage (hard drives and thumb drives) based from 1:18 scale models and matchbox cars, including movie and tv cars like the Ecto1, Back to The Future Delorean, and A Team Van to deliver my files to clients.
Mercury 1:18 hard drive I used to deliver project files to my creative director at Discovery ChannelI've been using these hard/thumb drives as promotion gifts to deliver files to clients (mainly the affordable flash drives). Sometimes I will have them make a custom full size hard drive to deliver project files after an advertising shoot (aka bigger budgets) as a gift to the client. It leaves a memorable impression. The Mercury drive above was used to deliver files to Discovery Channel after we shot a print ad. I hid my logo and website via stickers in the trunk where you plug in the USB and on the back license plate.
The Back To The Future 3 Delorean drive I use at the office. Matches the photoshoot I did with the real car well!The quality is great. I'm having Dave over at Flash Rods make me a beautiful custom Mad Max Interceptor that will sit on my own desk, which I am pretty excited about.
Even if you aren't into cars, I'm sure this may give some of you ideas about how to customize your thumb and hard drives to deliver files to your advertising and editorial clients in a memorable way in this digital age.
If Flash Rods doesn't have something listed on their site, message them about what you'd like and they will give you a quote about what it would take to make a particular custom drive for you.
Check out: http://www.flashrods.com/
64 gig flash drive
Back to the Future Flash DriveBelow are on-set examples from my Instagram account that may explain why I may love using Flash Rods so much:
Awesome way to leave a great impression.
my clients have been leaving them on their desks because they look cool :)
Will any of the last of the V8 Interceptors make it to general production?
dont think so. its no longer made and very rare and expensive
My latest wedding client has an Acura NSX that is his baby, and we did an engagement session around it. i might have to find a hot-wheels version...
message the guys at Flash Rods, they may be able to help!
I know it is on a much smaller scale, but I shot a high-end 1st birthday party for a little princess and found this awesome little tiara to deliver my images on. The mom talked about the drive as much as, if not more, than the photos!
https://store.customusb.com/shop/miss-america-crown-usb-flash-drive/
oh thats really cool! thanks for sharing
Hey, Douglas, love the whimsy here, these make me feel like a little kid again playing with my Hot Wheels. One question, though: I'm wondering what % of an client billing you feel comfortable spending to deliver this sort of bling back to the client. For example, if you're just starting out and your routine client is paying you $100-200 to shoot a birthday party, or a house for sale, or a pet, how much of that revenue would you spend on a novelty delivery method, when you could do cloud delivery or a CD/DVD for under a dollar? Essentially you're marketing back to an existing client hoping for subsequent work or referrals, so what level would be a good business practice, percentage-wise? I'm thinking no more than 2%, meaning it only makes sense financially to use a $30 novelty drive if you have a $1500 gig, for example. What are your recommendations?
Normally reserved to advertising clients that require project files to be delivered. Ill only charge them $75 for the cost of a normal drive, but will upgrade them to one of these and take it out of my own cut from time to time to do something memorable
Awesome product, terrible website.
Cool! I really like the last picture when they set the trail on fire, and the cars look really awesome.
http://www.convertus.com/