When people ask 'what do you do for work?', I usually respond with something along the lines of film producer, film maker etc.. which honestly is all I ever wanted to say. 14 year old me would be very proud.

But this got me thinking, what actually is my job and what does it actually entail? Yeah, there's lots of filming and editing but thinking about it, there's a shed load more to it that I can never be arsed explaining to every Tom, Dick and Harry. Being a one man band - most of the time at least - forced me to become and end-to-end 'production company' and functioning limited company also. So yeah, I make films. But here's a list of actually what I could be doing on any given day.

• Planning and creating video projects mentally - brainstorming and then listing out possible ideas and concepts. Thinking about whether certain ideas could be pitched to certain companies, or used by myself as a personal project. 
• Location scouting, mostly looking at and riding new locations to see what would be suitable.
• Building and digging tracks and trails to create exactly what we need to film. I spend a surprisingly large amount of time doing this.
• Communications with riders, whatsapping, instagram messaging, coordinating groups of riders to be together on the same day. Which at the moment is like platting fog.
• Emails and comms with brands, potential clients, giving quotes.
• Updating and maintaining my social media presence across Instagram and Facebook which combined has around 110k followers as well as my presence on LinkedIn and my website/blog here.
• Planning logistics of where to shoot and when, especially in the short winter days. Do I need to stay over the night before? I'll book that hotel then. Do I need an earlier flight? Do I need a hire car? A lot of the time the client will assist with this but it's always on the cards for me to be doing it.
• So I'm finally on a shoot. First things first is I'll make sure people have enough food, or tell them to bring food if we're shooting right through the day. Secondly I'll explain what we're going for, what type of trails, what I'm after and how long we'll be filming for. This is where it becomes a director / producer / runner role all in one. I'm a micro manager at heart, I like to make sure everyone is aware of what is going on, happy and enjoying theirselves.
• Make sure the batteries are charged, cards are formatted, settings are correct, got my food for the day alongside my tools.. and away we go. 
• Filming! Finally. I'll usually be the solo filmer on the day and have a list of shots I want to get, alongside different angles. I'll direct and explain everything as we're filming so the riders know exactly what we're working towards. They're all so switched on media wise these days anyway. Some of the time I'm drafted in as a second filmer to support Will Evans or Jacob Gibbins for example - which is way easier as then my job is to do as they say.
• Editing. Ingest the footage, organise it and import to Premiere. Sometimes it's a days worth, sometimes it's a weeks worth, it depends on the project. Begin to piece the video together until it's something I'm happy with, and then try to refine it and/or stylise it. Editing social cuts, reels, raw footage, extra cuts for the client etc..
• Drink lots of tea 
• Typography. Playing around with fonts, brand logos and designs to apply to the video. Sometimes digital and sometimes hand written and scanned/photographed. I won't design logos though usually - this is something I would get done by my good mates Jon Gregory or Danny Piercy.
• Colour grading. Not something I'm tremendous at but I'm lucky a lot of my past work never demanded heavy grading so it was always quite subtle and a bit less cinematic. But I do find myself playing with colour options a lot to suit a specific video or vibe and would say I'm fairly good at it now. Again, something I would contract out if budgets allow.
• Soundtrack research. And lots of it. Endlessly listening to songs and tracks to find the perfect fit. Be this on Spotify, Youtube, Artist or other libraries. If it's from a library then great. If it isn't then I'll contact the band or record label, usually agree on a price that works for both of us, complete the relevant paperwork and then pay the band / label. But this now means I have a great network of bands and labels who I know are easy enough to deal with and are happy to work with me every time.
• Deliver the project, make a few changes at the customers request, help launch the project across my channels as well as the brands channels. I used to do a lot of the article writing and creation on Pinkbike for my customers but that is a rarity now.
• Invoice for my projects, calculate expenses and inevitably chase invoices = more emails.
• Keep my accounts looking good, correspond with my accountant, pay tax and all the limited company stuff you have to do.
• Sourcing props, investing in new kit etc..

I'd love to have a person for each of these tasks that all work under Caldwell Visuals, but the fact is you need to be Cut Media sized for that to happen, and I'm relatively happy having control of most of these tasks as I'm very particular about things. Possibly, or probably, a hinderance but I know a bunch of others who make it work just like I do. So there's an explanation of what I actually do.

Testing times, so it seems. The industry for the most part is on its arse. I've been sunken into this scene for a good 12 years now and I don't think I've ever seen it this bad. More volatile than bad I suppose. Luckily I've had enough work to keep me ticking over and some exciting contracts for 2024 going forward, although I have felt the squeeze too. Marketing budgets are slimmer than they usually are and brands are tight and understandably so. I really feel for the people who've lost their jobs, I write this the day after Wiggle and CRC have been taken over by Mike Ashley and the whole umbrella (Nukeproof, Vitus, Ragley etc..) is effectively no more with mass redundancies from what was for the last 10 years or so the UK's premier online bike shop. A huge fall from grace stemming from big corporate greed, merges, god awful UI web design and maybe a big lack of foresight to not realise that the covid bike boom would actually come back down to normal levels of consumer demand. It seems they've also ruined the second hand bike market as since October 2023 you've been able to buy ludicrously cheap bikes and bits from CRC as they tried desperately to clear their stock. But then again, it's 2024 and everything is either super cheap, or not selling at all. Interest rates are high, it's a recession and a shit show.

Anyway - Nukeproof really meant a lot to me, as did the people that worked there. They were one of my first main clients from around 2017. They noticed my style and that it aligned well with their brand image, and we got on like a house on fire. I'd like to think I helped shape their brand just a little bit with a solid bag full of impactful and inspirational videos that must've helped shift a good few of those bikes. It's an enormous shame that it fell victim to big corporations, as it deserved to stand on its own after winning the 'most desirable brand' award last year. All those athletes gone, it's integrity and the respect it grew to demand, gone. It'll leave a big old whole in the UK scene as it got to a point where every other rider seemingly was on a Nukeproof, at least round these ends and I know they had a huge hold in Scotland. Vitus too, they became THE entry level brand to have and went onto being a very desirable brand too.

God forbid what Mike Ashley will do once he gets his greasy fingers into it all. Evans Cycles house brands perhaps? Who knows. All I know that is whatever they gets regurgitated as, they'll be merely shadows of their former selves. End of an era.

This was a great project to be involved with for the brand new Cube AMS ebike. Jacob Gibbins of Aspect Media got me involved on the camera and working alongside Jamie from Openwide Agency, there was a solid crew of creatives who did a stellar job of this.

My mantra is always keep doing stuff, regardless. If that stuff is paid then brilliant. But if it's not, I don't care. I just keep on going doing what I love. I love making personal projects as a whole load of fun as well as free marketing, showing what I can do, and keeping the skills sharp. This is Daryl Brown and this was a project we shot early Jan - when everything is quiet. I took advantage of the downtime and made something we can be proud of.

BTS in 50to01 HQ whilst shooting some industry insight bits for Vital MTB.

Possibly one of the most insane clips I've ever recorded, coming soon. The Firm The Movie, coming this year.. at some point.. whenever we decide we're done with it. Ha.

The most British Pie thing since British Pie. The Firm The Movie. Coming soon.

Seeing as it’s all a bit doom and gloom at the moment, I decided to get something fun done as 2024 rolled around. Daryl was the perfect subject after we filmed during 2023 and I realised sliding the ebike round was his speciality. South coast steep chalk was the terrain and raining for weeks before the shoot was the game. Storms and floods galore but the weather thankfully held off for a few days whilst we filmed. Briggy Smalls came along for the snaps and here’s the few minutes of slimy sideways action that we produced. Enjoy.

‘This edit was actually scheduled in March 23... however I impaled myself on a steel rod sticking out a leafy turn after a very small crash, after recovering from that and heading off to Darkfest, I hoped to get it done. Unfortunately I then snapped my femur in another crash. 8 months later we are back! I’m always stoked to with Tommy C as love his enthusiasm and skilled work behind the lens.

I love the idea of anything that slides and I think the Mx5 Turbo perfectly sums that up with the South Downs being mainly made up of chalk the conditions are always loose, slippery and highly entertaining. I always say if you can ride Southern Chalk well you can ride anything! Hope you enjoy.’ Daryl Brown.

This one has been in the works for a while, a follow-up to Keep it Saaf, a project we did post-pandemic once we were all let out of our cages. The issue now is we don’t want to repeat film locations, so we thought let’s get digging in a Southern woodland we all know very well. 1 1/2 days later we had 5-6 fresh new segments along with some refurbished older track, and then it was all filmed the following two days over a weekend. Dug, sessioned and filmed all in 3 1/2 days. We lost a few riders through illness and the like, but brought some subs in who sent it just as hard. Turn this one up loud. 

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I see some riders take a huge injury, such as a broken leg, and not be able to come back as strong as before - which is understandable. I’d not come back as strong. Joel is back just as strong if you ask me, if not stronger, after his horrific leg snapper accident at Windhill. 


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​Joel and myself mainly dug all of the fresh bits, with help from Ollie, Toby and Tom, so we were fairly hammered going into day 3 and we were yet to pick the bike or the camera up. Joel pulled through as always and he used every last ounce of energy pushing back up for more shots.

Toby Down pulling shapes aboard the Norco. He survived the weekend after some wild rear wheel tree tap and nosedive moments whilst properly pushing on. Along with truck driving and bridge building. Some boy.



Ian Stark diving into the woods. He's another local ripper who rides for nobody else but himself. Doesn’t seem to care about phone clips, social media, or anything else other than riding. He seems to come out of nowhere on his Intense (M9 FRO - correct me if I’m wrong?), pick completely different lines and go just as fast as the rest of the lads. Albeit in a very loose fashion. It’s refreshing to see that bike come out and still look (fairly) composed alongside the modern 29er DH bikes. 





Big man Preston Williams. He arrived back from Morzine at 1 am on the morning of filming and drove across the country to come out with us for the last day of filming. A few Red Bulls and he was good to go. He is the type of person you want to be involved with, always keen regardless of the situation.

Huge thanks to Ian Lean for coming along once again to get some bangers for the lads. And cheers to Ollie Halls, Toby Down and Tom Nisbit for helping with the prep and digging.



Full article here - https://www.pinkbike.com/u/caldwellvisuals/blog/downhill-bikes-loam-and-metallica-video.html