Instagram vs Reality: 2 Days of Filming for a 2-Minute MTB Video

Cinematic social media videos might only be a couple of minutes long… but the reality behind creating them is a lot bigger than most people realise. Out Trek UK short film is under 3 minutes, but it took two full days to shoot — nearly 12 hours each day — capturing multiple takes, angles, voice over, separate audio files, and tiny details that all come together in the final edit. In this video I wanted to show the behind-the-scenes process of creating cinematic mountain bike and gravel content, from setting up shots to repeating sections of trail over and over again until everything lines up. The goal isn’t just to show the finished film, but to give a bit more appreciation for the work that goes into making these kinds of videos. Huge hats off to Joe Norledge who filmed and edited the piece; his patience and creativity involved is seriously impressive. And a special thanks to Colin Bibby, for being key grip (is that right??) and sharing the end result through Trek UK social channels. Hopefully after watching this you'll never look at a cinematic short the same way again.