Hello folks, I'm Danny MacAskill. I'm 35 years old from the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
To be honest, I was really excited when I first saw the list of athletes competing this year,
just unbelievable amounts of talent. I'd say mountain biking's been kind of sending it for
a long time, making really cool content. I think for me, it's really important to have a filmer
that rides and really understands the riding and risks that I'm taking and that's where Robbie's
amazing with his BMX and mountain bike background. He kind of understands the kind of stress and the
position that I'm in sometimes, and kind of can make sure that the shot's going to be perfect.
Over the last six months, myself and Danny have been working on a series of different projects. I
was one of the first people to know and yeah, it's cool to hear that we got a shot at doing it. I'm
actually not a very competitive person, you know, in my riding career. I've not done any competition
at all and it's basically making videos for the Internet, although I do hold my riding to quite
a high standard. I expect a certain level like myself. Since I've been filming. I've never really
had a shot at working on a project that is going to be entered into a competition. The fact that it
is X Games and it's something I've always looked up to, that definitely makes us want to try really
hard. We'd make a little cover for it. Such a wimp really, but it's these little things that I think
about when I'm up there. It's like a game that's never ending i'm always daydreaming about the next
film I want to make, the next tricks I want to pull. Pretty much all I do today. Depends when
I was asked to be part of the X Games Real MTB, I kind of approached it like I would approach any
of my other projects I've done in the past. I've always got a lot of determination to try to do
new and unique tricks and try to push myself as far as I can. There's probably more pressure
shooting with Danny than anyone else because the level of riding that he's doing actually takes him
so long to do and we know that it is one in 500, one in a 1000 that he might actually pull it, so
there's not really an opportunity to say, "Sorry Danny, we messed up the shot can you do it again."
Another day, another beating for my bike. Id say the one thing I've learned over the
years from making a bunch of different films is you come up with an idea that's
right on the edge of your limit. If you basically try hard enough, you'll eventually land it. The
decision making is definitely a collaborative process between us all on what we should commit
to filming on and then it goes to then building it and then trying to film it. Beyond filming,
I also help scout the locations. We also discuss what trick he's going to try, the reasons for
trying them and, sometimes even think up a trick that he might might not of thought of. We're
always working on it really closely together, it's all just working as a team to try to make
it happen. To be honest, I had quite a tough time filming my Real MTB part. Right here, another
freezing day in the U.K. We're filming in Wales in January, which is deep winter here. Very cold,
makes you feel a bit fragile body wise and I'd pick some pretty technical hard stuff
that was quite a high level for me, so we had to work pretty hard to to make it come together.
There is times where all his friends that are there filming, we all have to help him; motivate
him that he can do it because we all know that he can and sometimes he needs that little extra push.
Some of the highlights for me while filming was definitely landing some of the tricks on the dam:
The first drop-in and start the film and the flair, which is something I'd really wanted
to do on my bike for a while. I definitely had a lot of fun trying to film on the gate setup.
It was quite technical and challenging. I would say my favorite location was trying to do
the back wheel bump front flip on the mountain bike. I'm so stoked to work with Robbie on another
amazing project and I'm looking forward to many more over the next few years for me. It's a really
cool thing to be asked to be part of the X Games Real MTB. I think it's something real different.
I'd say for this film, we've definitely gone for a more skate-inspired style edit,
a bit more back to my roots. Just our tricks quickly edited to the tune and yeah a lot of fun.
I'm Danny MacAskill and this is my Real MTB video submission.
Well, Danny definitely did things in that video that only Danny is capable of doing.
I'm mostly just curious to see if that lived up to our judge's expectations from the
viral video machine himself. Danny MacAskill is innovation. You watch any of his videos and it's
always lines that nobody else would even see and this video is a perfect example of that. So
the overall impression of this piece was, it's a very classic Danny Mac piece where it's super fun.
It really makes you want to get on a bike and he's definitely doing things
that no one else is doing, which is what we like to see as judges.