On Set with The Mercenaries
Surely you've seen their film work.
They're French and they go by Mercenary Production, but you probably know them better by their names Arthur De Kersauson, Clément Beauvias, Thomas Vignali, and Mike Valentine. Le laddies are notorious for directing and producing really top stuff on 16mm film. Films that make you feel something.
Six years ago, pre-Wheels & Waves and before the cyberized firmament around the planet of Earth was saturated with lifestyle motorcycle films shot on DSLRs by aspiring filmmakers (oh yes, we've made a'plenty too), they came out with Riding September, an art piece of effortless French coolness. Then a few years ago they brought us The Greasy Hands Preachers, a feature length documentary that revealed the thread that weaves this global custom bike community together, of which Deus Ex Machina is honored to play a part in.
But recently they've stepped far beyond the two-wheeled culturemongers and have been shooting Dior's Tales of the Wild campaigns narrated by Johnny Depp featuring compelling stories of passionate people like Jakob, a Gaucho in Argentina and even included one of our surfers Harrison Roach. It was along this vein that found them back on set in the desert of Southern California and why we were there with them — One of the Deus America fellers may or may not make a very brief cameo in an upcoming Dior short film by Mercenary Production to be released in 2018.
Ok, enough beating around the Joshua Tree: These photos are here to advertise how suave these Frenchmen look in their Deus Ex Machina threads they picked up at the Venice Emporium before heading out to their shoot in the desert!
Special thanks to Rancho V for the spectacular location setting for such creative work to happen and the entire crew who was cool enough to let us snap a few B Roll Behind-The-Scenes action!
Clément wears the Barmy Deck Jacket
Thomas wears the Sunbleached Canggu Tee
Arthur wears the Elias Camo Jacket