YouTube filmmaker Casey Neistat has won Christmas with an epic holiday-themed video that features him as snowboarding Santa who ditches the sleigh and replaces it with a human-flying drone. The footage was shot in Finland at a small village and ski area that looks like it pulled straight from your grandmothers Christmas card. It’s worth a few minutes of your time to watch Neistat and his high-flying holiday madness.
The highlight of the video is the massive drone that pulls Neistat up and over everything in his way. There is no commercially-available drone capable of flying a person, so Neistat and his team both designed and built the drone from the ground up. With its eight rotors, the octocopter has the power not only to pull Neistat on a snowboard up a hill but also to lift him hundreds of feet into the air. There is no two ways about it — this drone is a beast.
Neistat and cohort Jesse Wellens of PrankVsPrank fame pushed the envelope with the video using the human-powered drone along with cutting-edge 360-degree cameras to capture the stunning footage. Neistat doesn’t shy away from the extreme, going “far and high” with the drone on multiple occasions .
The most exciting segment of the video featured Neistat snowboarding up a slope while other skiers and snowboarders come racing down the mountain at him. It’s like watching a driver go the wrong way down a highway. Also impressive are the flight segments where Neistat flys through the air attached to nothing but the drone. You’ll be on the edge of your seat, shaking your head in dismay as you watch the insanity of him flying by drone.
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