Talking to Nico and Felix - creators of The Balkans Mirage: A journey on wheels
Wooooowooooo!
This is a good one.
We had an awesome conversation with Nico and Felix.
The two were part of a 4-person crew, who not only had an awesome cycle adventure, but created a very special film as well - The Balkans Mirage: A journey on wheels.
It took me to a very happy place. It inspired me to cycle, to live, to create. And I hope it does the same for you.
We got quite excited and carried away during our chat - jumping between the topics of them, the ride, how they filmed, and diving a bit deeper into the process and working with sponsors.
I’ve reordered it a bit for the write up, and go through the following: the team, how they took a different approach to making a bikepacking adventure movie, how they found and worked with sponsors, and ending with what’s coming next.
But before we get into it, let’s share the important links:
Watch the film here (watch it first, if you haven’t already, then use this article as a look behind the scenes)
Follow Nico and Felix, and get a first view at whatever they make next.
Take a look at 7mesh - they were the primary sponsor of the video, and it feels good to get behind their decision to support this film.
So who are Nico and Felix?
Well, Felix is an avid cyclist, ex-pro racer. These days he’s more into adventure, and brings his camera (or 4) with him to document the experiences along the way.
And Nico is a professional filmmaker, with his own fair share of bike adventures under his belt - including a 3 month solo tour in Bolivia.
The film features 2 others, Math and Annie, who they “just picked up along the way”. They had already been talking about a bike trip, so when Felix and Nico shared the idea of making the movie, everything fell into place and they were on board, even if they didn’t know what that meant exactly.
“It was hard for us to even explain what the final result was gonna be. Sometimes we’d just be like, ‘let’s put a tube on your head and we’re gonna film it’. They didn’t know why, but they still said yes, and were really cool about it!”
Those are woowoo kind of people, who can just jump on board to a 1300km trip (with over 19,000m in elevation). Yep. This film doesn’t mention the stats, but it wasn’t just a luxury trip to get pretty pictures - it was also a tough bikepacking adventure.
And we wanted to know how they did that, and came away with such a good film!
The different approach to a bike adventure film
“What got me excited in the beginning is that we’re tapping into something very original by combining cinema and adventure.”
One of the reasons the film stood out for me, is because we see all these different scenes, but we have no idea how far they’ve travelled, how many hours in the saddle, or exactly where they are - we’re just engrossed in the story of the characters and seeing what they do next.
Normally, these ‘classic bikepacking documentaries’ (that I watch far too many of), are all about saying how far you ride, where you are, and talking about the route and food etc.
“Yeah, and when people watch them, it’s almost educational. You might be preparing for your own trip and want to know what to pack, what to eat, how tough it’s going to be.”
It was really interesting to see a different approach, and how it opened up to a different audience.
“We’ve already seen positive feedback from the public saying this is great. Things like ‘I don’t do much cycling, but this makes me want to go on a cycling adventure’. I think that’s the beauty of this concept, and it can go into every sport, opening up to new audiences.”
We did talk about if some of the classical features were missing on this project, and they mentioned that next time, with a bigger budget and production they would like to accompany the film with a more classic behind the scenes approach…
… if you’re looking for someone to help there.. Let me know!
Filming and cycling
Combining this kind of bike trip and creating a film like this meant they had to stay flexible, and it came with quite a few limitations, but as with many creative processes - sometimes limitations are a good thing.
F: “We just had the intial concept. So we just set out to get as much material as we could, within those boundaries.”
F: “Then when we’re back home, we’ll create the best story out of the stuff we got. We did have a rough structure of an introduction, and we knew that during the trip we’d have to get shots to illustrate the characters and show the landscape.”
N: “There was a lot of improvisation during the trip, we’d come to a spot that inspired us and would stop and do a quick brainstorm to imagine what scene could fit that location.”
N: “And as we went on, we’d keep a list of the different shots that we got so far, like 10 shots of character interactions, 5 camping shots, 5 landscapes etc. But until we arrived at each place, we didn’t know what scene we would film.”
N: “The beautiful scenery helped us a lot, sometimes we didn’t even need to be in it!”
A leap of faith within the leap of faith - you knew what you wanted to make, and just had to trust that it would come together.
N: “Yeah, so when it came to the edit, I was kind of putting a puzzle together in parallel, looking through the footage, and taking notes for a story that would bring it altogether.”
N: “And it really is the narration that creates this illusion of a flowing line between the scenes. Without it, there wasn’t necessarily a connection between them. This post production work took a lot of time.”
One of the limitations they faced was that they were only 4 people, and the film had 4 characters - that meant Nico couldn’t take his usual place behind the camera, which meant every shot had to be static.
But in the end - it definitely added to the film, and led to some epic shots, like these:
Working with sponsors
It was really cool to have an open conversation about how to get sponsors and work with them (since that is one goal we have for the future of woowoo).
If you’re looking to get sponsors for this kind of thing, I took 2 key learnings away from our chat:
The first takeaway:
F: “Make it very, very easy for marketing teams to say yes”
Provide a clear plan of what you are going to do, and what potential sponsors will get out of it. The marketing teams behind the companies you want to work with, are often small and have a limited budget, if you come with a clear plan of action, it makes it much easier for them to consider it.
Using something like a pitch deck to explain your idea, and show sponsors what kind of thing they are going to get could be a good idea, it worked this time, but they might try something different next time - they’re still learning and figuring out the best way to go through this process too.
And the second takeaway:
Get contacts in the industry / use your network.
Felix had contacts at 7mesh back from his racing days, which made it easier to open this conversation.
So do whatever you can to start those relationships, engage with people in the community and be present at events, so that you’re not starting from scratch.
And be prepared to work, even though this project had some sponsoring, it still took a lot of free time and work.
N: “To be completely transparent, we had 6,000 canadian dollars for the entire project, which had to cover the travel, narration, the trip and all the rest. Most of the work was in the pre and post-production, which was months of work in our free time”.
Is there a second movie in the works already?
N “Yes and no. We’re still really into this movie, and there is still a lot of work to be done for it.”
N “It also took a lot of time over winter, so the next few months we’ll have to dedicate some time to other projects.”
N “I don’t think we have a specific idea already, but we have some initial proof that this concept can work, so we will explore that field a bit more.”
Well I can’t wait to see what comes next, and to see the continued success for this one.
Thanks so much for your time Felix and Nico, it really was a pleasure to chat and get this behind-the-scenes look.
Did you watch the movie yet!? Give it a like and a comment, let’s help it get the attention it deserves.
