If you’ve ever been on a shoot with a mountain bike photographer or videographer, you’ll know communication between athlete and lensman is paramount. The most important communication is when the athlete should drop into their line. Some shots can take hours to set up and even months to plan, with drones in the air and the soft light hitting the ridge just so. The last thing anyone wants to hear on these complicated sets is the rider at the top of the mountain yelling: “Wait, did you say no? Or did you say go?”
The filmmakers at Anthill Films learned that a long time ago, which is why no one in their crew ever says “go” when it’s time. They say “anytime.” It’s also what they called their latest mountain bike feature film, which was a partnership production with Red Bull Media House. ANYTIME premiered during Crankworx this summer in front of a fervent crowd at the Whistler Conference Centre, and the film is set to release for streaming Sept. 20 on Red Bull TV.
I caught up with director Darcy Wittenburg to chat about Anthill Films returning to make what they love most, working with a new generation of riders, the amazing year that women of freeride are having, and action sports films being about action again.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Pique: You had just come off making two big documentaries (Long Live Chainsaw: The life and legacy of Stevie Smith and The Engine Inside: Using bicycles to build a better future), is ANYTIME a return to the roots of Anthill Films?
DW: “Both those documentaries had a pretty heavy subject matter, especially Long Live Chainsaw. While both films had positive and bright sides to them, it was nice to make a film this time that dialled back the story a bit and focused on the action. We had all sorts of ideas on how to theme the film, but when we talked to the riders, all they really cared about was pushing themselves, seeing each other progress and getting inspired by that forward movement of the sport. So the goal for the film became ‘don’t say the word progression,’ but at the end of the day, that’s what the sport of mountain biking will always be about. Evolution, progression, whatever you want to call it, that’s the thing. So that’s what we focused the film on.”
You filmed biking in some pretty dramatic locations, including high-altitude, big-mountain riding and urban freeride settings. How did you go about selecting these locations?
“It came down to the riders and the type of terrain they wanted to be in. We selected places based on where we could call on our connections in the area (people who can help us get the project going) and how remote the place is. For example, with the big-mountain segment in Chile, we were looking at mountain ranges all over the world. But we ended up choosing Chile because it had the terrain our riders wanted and it was within a 30-minute heli flight of a major hospital. Riders need to know they have that safety net in order to push themselves to the edge.
"For the urban slopestyle segment, we selected cities that had already hosted urban downhill races and where we could connect with locals who can organize closing down streets and building jumps off the side of houses. It’s not the first time they’ve done this sort of thing in their cities.”
It’s a big year for women’s freeride with a female category slopestyle event at Crankworx and women dropping into Red Bull Rampage for the first time. How did ANYTIME celebrate this milestone?
“We made the conscious choice early on that it was high time there was a movie with 50/50 men and women. We weren’t trying to draw attention to it and we haven’t used it in the marketing of the film, really. We just wanted to create that space. We didn’t intend to separate the men and women in the film into their own segments, that just sort of happened naturally when we asked the riders who they wanted to film with. The Oregon segment had a balanced mix of genders though, and we’d like to see more of that in future films.”
You’ve always strived to push your own videography with your films—were there any special techniques or equipment you employed for ANYTIME?
“We used our backpack rig (which mounts a stabilized, backwards-facing Red camera controlled by another operator) which was great for manoeuvring through the tight streets in Mexico. When we used the same rig in Oregon I had to ride in front of the riders on an e-bike and it was quite scary matching their speeds and still making it around corners.
In Chile, we had to use a Shot Over (a gyro-stabilized camera mounted directly to the nose of the helicopter) because of the scale of the lines they were riding. It was just too big to be shot on a drone. Because of the elevation we were at and how long the shots were, the drones could barely land before running out of battery. Luckily, Red Bull have their own F1 Shot Over that we could use for that segment.”
It’s been 20 years since you released your first mountain bike film (under the previous iteration of the company “The Collective”), where do you see your filmmaking going from here?
"We certainly aren’t making enough money to retire any time soon, so we might have to keep going for another 20 years to keep food on the table (laughs). We’ve already been talking about how this film has the potential to have a follow up or even a trilogy. We have tons of ideas for action films that we want to do. Every time we finish a film we’re always pretty hungry to start again, because you never feel like you totally nailed it, no matter what you do. We’re all pretty happy with ANYTIME, but when we were deep in the edit we caught ourselves getting sidetracked on what we wanted to do for the next film. There’s lots coming down the pipe for sure.”
ANYTIME streams on Red Bull TV starting Sept. 20.
Vince Shuley worked marketing for Anthill Films from 2017 to 2020 and remains a huge fan of their filmwork. For questions, comments or suggestions for The Outsider, email [email protected] or Instagram @whis_vince.
