Must watch the film -“The Ridge”: On the edge of cliffs
The Ridge was filmed on Danny MacAskill’s home island, the Isle of Skye, the video shows Danny tackling a ridge that has never before been ridden on a bike. Conquering epic terrain, riding death-defying cliffs, and climbing up the heavenly peaks, the clip has it all.
Capturing the stunning shots in the video above presented some challenges for Stu Thomson and his team at Cut Media: “It was certainly one of the most demanding locations we’ve ever filmed, but a rewarding one at the same time. Danny and I are very proud of being from Scotland, so it was great to be able to show off the amazing landscape along with Danny’s incredible riding.”
Danny MacAskill’s technical riding skills shine through the gnarly terrain with rocks the sizes of small cars, unforgiving lines and huge cliff drops so close to the trail. You might find it somewhat strange seeing Danny on a full-suspension mountain bike but for him, it was a long-term wish to explore the Isle of Skye: “Ever since I was a kid growing up on Skye I have always dreamt about riding a bike up on the Cuillin ridge! The project took a lot of planning and was probably one of the most physically demanding films I have ever worked on! It was definitely a labor of love though as I wanted to show off the island for how it is and make everyone who lives there proud to be from this amazing part of the world.”
Behind the scenes – Stu Thomson: The Ridge
“Crew was fairly minimal, Scott and I were on cameras, Lec piloting the drone with myself or Scott on Gimbal. Then we had Matt from Skye Adventure guiding and assisting with climbing/rope access when needed and our two mules Smail and Alan (Smail was also chef for the week…a vital role!!). On top of that, we had 2 guys (Chris and Paul) following for our BBC Scotland Doc that we’ve directed and co-produced with IWC Media and their own guide (John).”
“There is plenty of ‘behind the scenes content to come so I won’t go into loads of details of each location, but in a nutshell, we had to hike a minimum of 900m most days to get up to the Ridge and generally 2-4 hours hiking (plus the same in return so 4-8hrs slogging each day – oh joy!). This is where the team really pulled together helped by a portable boom box, various action movies quotes (Predator was the main theme), and a mix of some pretty dodgy songs #wreckingball”
Sources:
- https://youtu.be/xQ_IQS3VKjA
- https://www.bikemag.com/videos/video-danny-macaskill-ridge/
- https://www.pinkbike.com/news/the-ridge-danny-macaskill-video-2014.html
- https://www.cutmedia.com/blog/2018/4/11/behind-the-scenes-danny-macaskill-the-ridge
- https://www.santacruzbicycles.com/en-US/stories/2014-danny-macaskill-the-ridge
- https://us-east-2.console.aws.amazon.com/polly/home/SynthesizeSpeech
About Author
