Embracing adventure is in the French Fries Films DNA.
As luck would have it, in working with Vermmillion Communication and Avon cycles, we got to combine our love for adventure with our love for filmmaking. This was a match made in heaven.
How the mountain came to Mohammed
Our journey of working with Cyclux, the mountain bike series of Avon cycles, started with one very quick call from Mr. Vineet Ahuja from Vermmillion. One day, out of the blue, Vineet forwarded me a video of 4 cyclists taking on mountains. This was followed by a call from him with a very simple request; Could you deliver a video like this, with one athlete, in 10 days and with a fairly tight budget? There was no negotiation, no back and forth, just a simple yes or no answer.
Having worked with Vermmilion and Vineet in the past, I knew that the answer could be nothing other than Yes. At French Fries Films, we believe in building long-term relationships of trust, and one of the best examples of this is the relationship we have with Vermmillion. They trust us with brainstorming, uniquely solving for the client’s requirement and managing production challenges, and we trust them with being true partners in managing client expectations, sharing insights and co-creating quality storytelling.
It was also just lucky that the reference video also blew my mind with how amazing it was, and this was the kind of work we wanted for our portfolio.
The journey to the top
I quickly got into action on the project and called Aby Aneja, who looks after Creative Direction at FFF, and told him about the product and the requirements. I also let him know that this would be his baby entirely and that I would only be available to support him through production remotely. Little did he know that even before his enthusiastic yes, I had already informed Vineet that we would be going forward with the project. This confidence did not come from a place of knowing that I could convince him but from a place of knowing that at French Fries Films, we all believe in what we do, and we put our bread and butter at stake to get things done. This is the adrenaline that drives us so that no other project could be a better fit!
With intense planning and lots of support from Aby and my wife, we figured out the complex challenges the team would need to deal with and shortlisted Manali (Himachal Pradesh) for this project. What we needed to find now was a pro cyclist who could perform the stunts at high altitudes and a video production crew that could actually shoot this at the high altitude region.
The critical things we had to deal with include
A 12 to 14-hour overnight journey for the crew from Delhi to Manali
Just one night of accommodation and one and half days to produce the entire video
Local travel and food and beverage of a crew of 8+ people at not easily accessible places.
And transporting the cycle to 3 different locations, none accessible by car.
But as I just said, we at French Fries Films thrive on adrenaline and will leave any stone unturned to tell the story we set out to tell.
Aby took the lead and headed off to Manali a few days in advance to lock locations and meet the team and the cyclist to pull this off. I hung back in Delhi and supported him remotely. In typical Murphy’s Law fashion, everything that could go wrong did, eventually leading to a call from Aby saying I had to get to Manali because the only way we could pull this off in time and with the right impact was collective. With multiple calls made, we had a team put together in 3 hours, and with a lot of scrambling and effort, we were ready to head out to the location by the same night. Even after having done all of this, we missed one bus, but due to the ingenious efforts of my partner Kritika, we managed to somehow get the entire crew to Manali in that one evening. The only thing we forgot was winter clothes for our snow-covered location!
Reaching for the stars
What followed this was nothing like we’ve experienced before. The entire crew, between snow-capped mountains, with nothing but the sunshine and our passion to warm us. Day 1 gave us some amazing footage and much-needed promise for an equally gruelling day 2. Loaded up with a hearty breakfast, some packed food and some Redbull, we head out for locations 2 and 3, a part of which included a 4kms trek with us carrying a cycle!
In just about 9 hours, we managed to cover two locations, get the required shots, copy footage, pack all the gear and catch a bus right back to Delhi. And while we left Manali totally tired down to the bone, we know we had chased and captured the story we’d set out to, and that made everything worth it.
This action-packed shoot resulted in this video:
The video was loved by both the Vermmillion and the Avon cycles team and has to date garnered them over 165k views on social media.
A huge shout out to the epic team that put in their blood, sweat and tears and made this video possible.
Our video production team included –
Director: Aby Aneja
Creative Producer: Ravneet Oberoi
Cinematographers: Bharat Kumar & Ravneet Oberoi
Drone OPerator: Ravi Ram
Editor & Colorist: Aby Aneja
Music from: Artlist.io
Featuring Raj as the cyclist (naam toh sunna he hoga!)
Video Equipment Used:
Main Camera: Sony a7sIII with Sony Lenses
B-Camera: Panasonic s5
Drone: Mavic Pro 2
Gimbal: Zhiyun Crane 3s
