I interviewed Danny almost 2 years ago in 2014 about “How the ridge was filmed” a spectacular feat of biking and innovative filmaking from Cut Media the company who produce Danny’s videos.
CUT Media “Let’s set the context first, the last two major films myself and the Cut Media team worked on with Danny were Red Bull/Christie HQ’s Imaginate and then The Ridge, so setting out on the journey with the success of them and on our shoulders is a fairly daunting task. Nevertheless earlier this year, I’m guessing Feb/March but not sure, during a few conversations Danny and Red Bull began to mention a new project, that seemed to be very quickly followed up with ‘what the hell do we do?’
Danny has covered a lot of creative ground in the past when it comes to riding edits: amazing trials riding – check, epic backdrop’s – check, crazy height/exposure – check, unique derelict locations – check. From my side I’m always a believer in not trying to top what has gone before, I don’t think we can even if we wanted to. The plan is just to come up with something different, creative and then execute it as well as we always do.
©CUT Media
So….what could we actually do that is new?.. Well as usual it begins with a constant flow of conversation and texts with Danny and his thoughts on new riding and tricks. It essentially always begins with Danny’s incredible talent on a bike and mindset for coming up with tricks and then builds from there. What initially came out was his desire to ride the mountain bike and perhaps something that based around trail riding… One thing we felt we learned from The Ridge was how people responded to the barbed wire fence at the end, not just the scary trick itself but we always believed that it worked particularly well because everyone can relate to it, we have all leaned on/climbed over a fence like that so the impressiveness of the trick is multiplied by the fact that we can all fully relate to how impressive and hard it is. So from that we came to the idea of Danny riding a mountain bike but then make it specifically relatable by basing the film around a fairly standard mtb ride somewhere… The actual initial working title of the project was ‘Wild in the Woods’ as that was the very first thoughts around Danny’s riding ideas; Danny riding an MTB trail in the woods but interpreting obstacles, nature and surroundings in a different way. From that point our development process took it further on though; away from just one trail and more towards being based around a fun day out in the British countryside but the beginnings were always about Danny wanting to bring some creative new tricks and our focus of wanting to make it relatable to everyone viewing the film.”
Taken from CUT Media’s blog post here if you want to read the rest of the post…http://www.cutmedia.com/the-wee-blog-about-dannys-day-out/
Danny’s ‘Wee day out’- I just love this video. Everything seems to work beautifully – videography, pacing, music, location and of course Danny, who is a super – talented guy.