Danny’s MacAskill’s Imaginate / 1x7’ / 5x18’ / 1x60’
A ChristieHQ production for Red Bull Media House

This project is one of Red Bull’s most successful ever campaigns: the legendary riding film has had nearly 100 million views, and was accompanied by a dedicated Imaginate TV special, and a five-part online series.

The entire campaign was produced by my company, ChristieHQ, while we simultaneously made a separate Channel 4 film with Danny, called Life On The Edge. I served in multiple roles across the different campaign assets: the company’s creative director, the campaign’s executive producer, and full time producer and occasional director on the riding film. Initially, I was going to direct the riding film, but when we moved the location from London to Glasgow, and with a 3 month shoot, it made much more sense for it to be shot by a local director. Stu Thomson was a rising star in the world of cycling films at the time - and he, Danny, and I had all met and collaborated for my Channel 4 feature doc Concrete Circus - so he was the perfect choice to film Imaginate. His experience prior to this project was location based cycling, so art departments, lighting, etc. - especially on this scale - was new to him, but not to me. I stepped into a supervising director and producer role, and he took on the mammoth task of actually shooting the film in 65 filming days over a three-month period. It was a joy to mentor Stu throughout this incredibly challenging production, that inspired and enabled him to take his career to another level.

Danny’s artistic genius inspired the creative, which was shaped into a narrative between us and our collaborators at Red Bull Media House. 

The entire campaign - both TV specials, the riding film, and the online series - took 18 months end to end. We think the work was a huge success and undoubtedly worth the time and commitment it took from the whole team.