It was November 2012, and I had just moved from New York City to Los Angeles. My girlfriend and I were walking down the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, CA, and I noticed the Tesla retail store.

I’d heard about Tesla, but seeing the car in person…I was floored. Beyond the car itself, Tesla was creating a network of free, solar-powered Superchargers in partnership with Solar City. This was the future of transportation.

As I looked around the store, my eyes wandered to plasma screens showing footage of the Model S. Frankly, I wasn’t impressed. Where was the cinematic flair, the story, the emotion? I knew I could do better.

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.

Then I thought, what if I engaged a Model S owner in the project and created a document of the driver’s first long-range journey in the vehicle? To begin the search, the internet seemed like a good place to start.

The first website I visited was the main forum for Tesla owners, teslamotorsclub.com. Amazingly, one of the first posts I saw was from a father of two who had travelled to the Fremont, CA factory to pick up his Model S. Check out the post that started it all:

Then Tesla became Motor Trend’s Car of the Year.

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

As life’s agents, it’s on our shoulders.

A key element to the piece was the voice over script. The narration not only needed to tell the story of the journey, it had to explain the technology of the Superchargers and create an emotional connection with the audience.

For the task, I commissioned an incredibly talented author and advertising copywriter, Kathy Hepinstall. Kathy was intrigued about the idea of a car being fueled by sunlight, and came up with the phrase “Gallons of Light.”

I visited a number of Tesla’s Supercharging stations as I planned the logistics of the shoot. This Supercharger in Tejon Ranch, CA is located at a busy rest stop, an oasis of clean energy amongst the surrounding gas stations.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

New stories are necessary to change the world.

All of the hybrid SUVs were booked, so ironically we ended up following the Model S with a Suburban. Bring on the Model X, Mr. Musk.

Normally I work with an editor in post-production. But given the limited budget for the project, it was on me to edit hours of footage down to a perfect 60-second commercial for Tesla. So I stared at a screen like this for days and days on end…no pressure, right?

There are many talented people who haven’t fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it, or they were too cautious, and were unwilling to make the leap of faith.

You might be asking, “what’s next?”  It’s quite simple: I have a burning desire to use my talent as a storyteller to further the evolution of humanity. There are three projects I have in mind, one for each of Elon Musk’s companies: SpaceX, Solar City and Tesla.