Casey Neistat Shares Backstory, Behind-The-Scenes Glimpse At Viral Snowboarding Stunt

Casey Neistat’s holiday video — which features a custom-built drone towing him through the snowy Finnish mountains — has gone crazy viral in the days since its launch, and now Neistat is providing a glimpse behind the curtain about how the spellbinding clip was helmed

First, unlike many of the pranks and stunts that have proliferated across YouTube in recent years, Neistat dispels the notion that any of the video was faked. “There were some assertions online that I never actually flew or that it was CGI,” he says in a new vlog titled World’s Largest Homemade Drone. “Have you ever seen anything computer generated that’s that good? I saw Star Wars yesterday and I could tell what was fake and what was real.”

The mega-drone that toted him across the slopes and then into the air in several awe-inspiring circumstances is a 16-motor hexadecacopter that was custom-built over the past year, he adds. The device comprises 16, 31-inch carbon fiber propellers powered by 16 individual motors. The drone is a total of 10 feet in diameter, it weighs 165 pounds, and is described by Neistat as a “true commercial machine” that has more horsepower than the average motorcycle.

A lot of viewers also wondered whether Neistat was rigged to the drone or whether he was merely holding onto the tow. As a safety precaution, Neistat explains that he was strapped in — but only while flying. “I did not want to be able to let go or rely on one freezing hand to lift my entire body weight up,” he said.

For more about the video, which was shot over five days and which Neistat says he pitched to sponsor Samsung over a year ago — initially as a surfing-themed expedition to be shot in the Caribbean — check out his behind-the-scenes vlog right here: