How a group of friends reads as real: prep day, fitting and a shared dinner

The spot depends on us looking like old friends. The truth is: none of us had met before. Five people sitting at the same table for the first time in the morning do not look like a group that has been hiking together for ten years. That is why the day before is not a luxury — it is part of the work.

In our case, fitting and getting to know each other happened a day earlier, on 12 May 2025, with proper time budgeted for it. In my experience that day decides more about the result than any direction given on set:

• A prep or fitting day should be paid. It is about the job and about a good performance, not a pleasant evening out. Booking that day as unpaid travel means saving money at exactly the point where the chemistry is created. Why day rates and usage rights belong in separate columns is explained in the article on the model buyout.

• A shared meal belongs to it — and the production should cover it, so that talent does not sit alone in separate hotel rooms. In practice, thankfully, that never happens. People get to know each other, and good chemistry appears very quickly.

• It matters most when a relationship has to be played — a couple, for instance, who supposedly have known each other for years. Familiarity cannot be directed, only enabled.

The second factor is who leads the set. Director and DoP set the mood, for everyone. I have been on shoots where the two clashed — it radiates through the whole team immediately, creates unrest and stress, and delivers visibly worse results. Here everything fitted, and you can see it in the material. If you want to know what I deliver as on-camera talent in this kind of setup and where the line to doubling runs, read the comparison of sport double and stunt double.

The most delicate moment: 60 to 70 metres straight down, on every side

Nobody on that day was allowed to have a fear of heights. As a cast group we stood on a rock that dropped 60 to 70 metres vertically on every side. One wrong step would have meant death — that is not dramatic phrasing, it is the plain geometry of the place.

And still the task is to stay relaxed and keep a loose expression. You are meant to embody a feeling of freedom, not concentration. That is the real performance in this scene: sitting on the stone as a group of friends, then standing up and toasting, means constantly making sure you do not get careless and do not misplace a foot — while your face tells the exact opposite story.

Beyond that, the situation was calmer than it sounds. Not many hikers were out that day, and the mountain rescue blockers were in position. There was no moment where things got chaotic. That is precisely the difference between a risky shoot and a dangerous one: the risk was real, but it was organised. Which sports I cover on camera, and where the same principle applies, is in the overview of my disciplines.

The most mundane challenge: a 45-minute walk to the toilet

And then there are the problems no treatment mentions. Portable toilets existed only at base camp by the car park — roughly a 45-minute walk away. Not at the rock, obviously. Saxon Switzerland is no comparison to the Alps, but things like this still have to be planned, otherwise they cost you half a shoot day.

When an entire set needs the toilet at once, it is uncomfortable for everyone and fatal for the schedule. So it took good planning and good timing: which shot gets filmed when and at which spot, when the group is descending anyway, where the break sits. It worked well — but it worked because somebody thought about it in advance, not because it sorts itself out.

I tell this at length because it is the most honest answer to the question of what makes a mountain shoot hard. Not the climbing section. Not the weather. It is the sum of mundane things that stand three metres away on a normal set and 45 minutes away here: toilet, catering, spare wardrobe, charged battery, cold beer.

The B-roll with the fog machine — and the director's cut

The most beautiful moment of the shoot never made it into the spot. We had B-roll in a gorge with a portable fog machine. The sun came through the leaves in places and threw individual beams onto the hiking trail that suddenly became visible in the fog. An incredible mood, created by the effects team, with an effort you cannot see in the image.

That is probably exactly why it did not make the final clip: it looked almost too unreal for a campaign about genuine effort. On top of that comes the hard economics — on a TV campaign every second costs a great deal of money: production, edit, airtime. There is always the question of what goes in and what does not, and the answer rarely favours the mood shots.

There is, however, a director's cut of the whole situation that contains far more of this material than the broadcast version.

The beer face: why I got to hike for a beer brand a second time

One observation that still amuses me: the payoff scene looks very similar to the one for Bitburger. Same basic idea, same choreography — a group arrives at the top, someone hands out the bottles, everyone toasts, and in that moment a face has to express precisely what the brand wants to sell.

Apparently I have a beer face. I cannot explain otherwise why I was booked for a beer campaign a second time, both times in nature, both times for an alcohol-free product. What actually sits behind it is less funny and quite practical: casting for spots like these looks for people whose activity beforehand is believable. If you look like you really walked up there, you sell the reward more credibly. How the same thought was executed at Bitburger — there with one face instead of three doubles — is in the case study on the Bitburger 0.0% cinema spot.

What a brand should take away from this

My main point from this shoot: get the maximum out of a day like that — and then pay for it.

The plan was to capture several social media clips alongside the TV spot. In the end the schedule did not quite hold and it got hectic: individual cast members were repeatedly pulled out of the main set and filmed by a separate, external camera team for single social ideas. More stressful for us, but workable — and efficient for the brand, because the crew, the location and the light were standing there anyway.

In the end, though, not all of those clips went online, because the production did not want to pay overtime for the models. That is a legitimate commercial decision, and I understand that every hour on a day like that gets calculated. My position is still a different one: when a full team is already standing at a location this hard to reach, it is worth spending the few extra euros and taking significantly more output home. The travel is paid, the permit is paid, the mountain rescue team is there, the light is there. The most expensive hour of a shoot day is the one where you stop while everything is still standing.

The ideas were good. Not much of them is visible now. For the next campaign that means planning social content as its own block with its own time window and its own budget line — including the additional fees that go with it. How to book talent sensibly and what is possible directly instead of through detours is in the article on booking a model: agency or direct.

Planning a commercial in the mountains, or an outdoor campaign with talent who actually walk up the hill? Send a booking enquiry.

FAQ

Where was the Radeberger commercial filmed?
In Saxon Switzerland National Park in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, with Bad Schandau as the base — roughly an hour's drive from Dresden. Part of it was filmed directly on a rock plateau that drops 60 to 70 metres vertically on every side. The location was deliberately real: the campaign is about a demanding hike rewarded at the top with an alcohol-free beer.

Who is in the Radeberger commercial?
A group of five friends hiking together and toasting at the top. One of them is me, Tobi Deckert, sports model and on-camera talent. We had not met before the shoot — the familiarity you see on screen comes from the prep and fitting day the day before.

What year is the Radeberger commercial from?
The spot was made in 2025. The prep and fitting day took place on 12 May 2025, with the shoot immediately after. The campaign promotes Radeberger alcohol-free.

Who produced the Radeberger campaign?
The agency was Ogilvy GmbH in Berlin, the production came from Bears Calling. The regional mountain rescue team handled safety and access control on set, and the crew also included a dedicated beer stylist for the product moment.

Was the rock shoot genuinely dangerous?
Yes — the risk was real, but organised. The rock dropped 60 to 70 metres vertically on every side. The mountain rescue team inspected the site in advance, several blockers closed off the location, and the camera crew in particular worked with via ferrata harnesses and rope protection. The reason: anyone looking through a viewfinder while walking backwards for a zoom move cannot see where the edge is.

Is there footage that did not make the spot?
Yes. The biggest loss is the B-roll in a gorge with a portable fog machine, where individual sunbeams became visible through the leaves. It did not reach the final clip — on a TV campaign every second costs a lot of money. There is, however, a director's cut with considerably more material from the shoot day.

Credits

Cast: Tobi Deckert (@tobi_deckert_sportmodel) · Liene H. (@liene__lien) · @mawy.c · @frederico_music · @juanmariafederico
Director: Paul Gerwien
DoP: Mathias Schöningh (@mathias_schoeningh)
Photo & social: Sven Jacobsen (@svenjacobsen69)
Casting: Julia Todorow (@todorowjulia) · @bloomcasting
Agency: Ogilvy · Production: Bears Calling