Despite what the photo may indicate, Anthill Films and TGR are doing anything but following the herd on their newest project; photo courtesy of Sterling Lorence.
So apparently dreams really do come true. Anthill Films and Teton Gravity Research, two of the biggest names in action sports production, upped the ante on adventure cinema, announcing plans for a 2015 collaborative mountain biking film titled “unReal.” Along with the announcement, the duo leaked a mind-blowing teaser that has the Internet buzzing and mountain bike camps counting down the days to its summer 2015 release.
TGR has been producing award-winning ski and snowboard films for more than a decade, recently implementing its own GSS system, one of the most advanced camera systems in the world. This will be the production company’s first venture into feature-length mountain bike film, but they are teaming with a group in Anthill Films that has rewritten the script in mountain biking with movies like “Strength in Numbers” and “Not Bad.”
The partnership isn’t as much a collaboration as it is a Dream Team, pairing two of the best on one mega-project. Still shaking with excitement, GrindTV caught up with Anthill Films Producer Ian Dunn to learn more about “unReal” and one of the biggest collaborative efforts in … well … ever.
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How did this collaboration with TGR come about?
It was pretty random. Basically, we got a call from one of our distributors who was talking with the TGR guys and he made the connection. Those guys reached out, we started chatting, and it was just really cool. We connected right off the bat, came from similar backgrounds, and had a similar approach and motivation behind the films we want to make. It kind of happened naturally.
You’re pretty well established in mountain biking, so what did you get out of this partnership on a mountain bike movie?
I think the biggest thing that both of us saw coming into it was that we could combine forces and do something bigger that either of us could do on our own. For TGR, we could offer lots of connections in the mountain bike world—a lot of know-how and experience when it comes to mountain bike films—and then for [Anthill Films] we were able to tap into TGR’s network and kind of cross-pollinate audiences. The ski and bike audiences have so much in common, so we thought it would be cool to combine.
Also being able to combine gear—because we’re filming mostly when they’re not doing snow stuff, so we can really get a higher level of production with the GSS to do something that will blow people’s minds.
How will “unReal” be different from other Anthill productions?
It’s still written, directed, and edited by us, so it’s still going to have our spin on things. Working with TGR, we’re both pushing each other to come up with things and do things we’ve never thought of before—which is really cool. The production value will be the highest we’ve ever had, and having this big production budget is allowing us to do some things that we’ve never been able to do before. We’re making some ideas that we’ve been percolating for years into reality. That’s kind of the idea behind unReal—there’s some stuff going on that’s not exactly typical mountain biking.
Not your everyday downhill ride; photo courtesy of Sterling Lorence.
For instance, ice biking and outrunning a horse stampede on a downhill bike …
It all comes from our concept of the film, which is kind of that we say mountain biking, and all adventure sports really, are escapes from the real world. We thought we wanted to create a film based around that idea, escaping into the unreal and saying what would happen if we actually took this to an over-the-top level that we’re getting into some of the imaginations of the best riders on the planet? Saying, “OK, if the unreal can happen, now we’re limitless.”
Some of our concepts, like the glacier idea, goes back to the early days with the Collective, where the guys were really inspired by the snowboarding imagery of the time—guys airing over crevasses and stuff. We had always talked about that but had never pulled it off, but when we started talking to the riders like Graham Aggasiz, James Doerfling, and Cam McCaul, they took it and ran with it. All of a sudden we had opened this whole new area we had never really thought about before.
With the horses we found this land that was a sick new freeride zone that was on this guy’s property who owned a horse ranch, so it just made sense to make it into a scene. It all comes back to pushing our imagination and treading the line between what’s real and unreal.
Are you guys tapping into rider input?
Every movie that we make is always based on the collaboration between our ideas and the ideas of the riders. It’s the best way to make movies that everyone is stoked on because the riders buy in and those guys have their fingers on the pulse of what gets people stoked.
Where are you shooting?
I can’t really say what’s coming next but everything is planned out. We spent the whole past year planning and lining everything up, so we’ll be knocking down segments from here on out.
With TGR crossing into mountain biking, does this mean Anthill is crossing over to new sports too?
Right now, our focus is just getting this done and making the best popular movie out there. But we all love outdoor sports, and a lot of us have roots back in snowboarding and skiing. We live in the mountains, so who knows what the future holds.
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