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Is David Ortiz’s autonomous flying snack tray in viral video real? Yes and no.

WATCH: Could this flying snack tray actually be real? – Sep 27, 2016

A viral video advertising a snack-carrying drone that follows David Ortiz around has caused lots of speculation as to whether it is real or not.

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Thinkmodo co-founder Michael Krivicka says the JerkyBot is “100 per cent real.”

The marketing agency was contacted by Chef’s Cut, the jerky company which Boston Red Sox hitter David Ortiz part-owns, and was challenged to create an original ad.

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“We were brainstorming at the office, went out for a few beers and that’s how the idea for the flying snack tray came about,” said Krivicka.

In the video, the JerkyBot follows Ortiz around his house as he does various tasks, such as shaving or mowing his lawn.

In reality, the JerkyBot isn’t fully autonomous yet and can only fly for about five minutes before the battery dies (less if the snack is heavier than a few pieces of jerky).

Krivicka, who directed the spot, admits to taking some creative license.

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“Full disclosure, the JerkyBot that you see in the video was in every single shot was operated by a remote control,” he said. “Where we are standing right now is the experimental stages with the autonomous thing. It’s certainly something that is part of the process now.”

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After lots of online speculation about whether or not the video was a product of clever CGI, Thinkmodo released a behind-the-scenes video to show how the device evolved.

“That [making-of video] shows the imperfections of this thing and that we framed things in a certain way to make it look like it does what it does,” said Krivicka.
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Krivicka admitted that Thinkmodo was behind some viral ads that were hoaxes, but that some of their recent work featured real products that were engineered to be fully functional (like this jet pack/golf cart or this automated selfie-stick).

But unlike those products, which were created just for the ads, Krivicka said Thinkmodo plan to take the JerkyBot to market.

“We felt that [the idea] was unique enough. There’s nothing like it out there,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s going to take months, even years, to get it to the point where it’s the way it’s presented in the video. But that’s the ultimate goal: to make it a consumer product.”

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