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Exclusive: Emil Johansson reveals the tough journey behind filming ANYTIME
Bad weather and a broken collarbone put paid to the slopestyle star's dream line in the ANYTIME movie. Here, he shares what inspired his segment and why this is only the start of video parts.
Emil Johansson has been wowing audiences with his slopestyle competition runs for almost a decade. Still only 25 years old, the Swedish star is yet to reach his peak – as seen in his constant search for new tricks, techniques and world firsts to impress judges.
But when Anthill Film's renowned film-maker Darcy Wittenburg – director of UnReal (2015), Return to Earth (2019) and Long Live Chainsaw (2021) – got in touch to see if Johansson wanted to film a segment in the team's latest mountain biking epic, ANYTIME, the 13-time Crankworx slopestyle champ had a surprise in mind.
"I wanted to create something different than you would see in the contest run,” he said at the Whistler preview of the film, days before he broke his shoulder while practising for Red Bull Joyride. "For me, contest runs only happen a handful of times a year and what goes on beyond that never really gets shown.
"I wanted to get a couple of tricks in the video, as well as the freedom to showcase some of the regular riding that I do and tricks that I enjoy, rather than tricks that score the best."
Johansson is slopestyle's contest king, but shows a new side in ANYTIME
© Sterling Lorence/Red Bull Content Pool
I wanted to create something different than you would see in the contest run
The result is a segment filmed in California, where Johansson is afforded the time and space to ideate, create and play, free from the restrictions of a contest run, where every feature has to be the launch pad for a big trick or combination.
It wasn’t without its difficulties though – bad weather, building delays and a mid-filiming injury all wreaked havoc on his biggest film segment to date. Johansson remained sanguine about the situation though, seeing it as part of the process.
“It's a massive learning curve," he said. "I doubt there's a lot of shoots that ever have gone to plan. It's an underlying theme for a lot of projects – even though you have 10 ideas in your mind, maybe you should be stoked you managed to pull off two."
From coming up with his dream line to dealing with numerous difficulties, here's how Johansson's ANYTIME segment went down in his own words.
3 min
ANYTIME – Trailer
Follow a new generation of mountain bikers as they try to conquer some of the world's most challenging terrain.
Turning dreams into a reality
"I wanted to showcase that there's more to biking than the heavy-hitter tricks that most people know me for from Crankworx. When riding, there's always thoughts and ideas that arise – some of them I hold on to and some of them I let go of, depending on how realistic or how close they feel. For this, I had a couple of them in mind that I'd never really shown or seen anyone do, so I was really looking forward to trying to make those ideas become reality and show something different.
Johansson has made his name developing huge tricks to dominate slopestyle
© Sterling Lorence/Red Bull Content Pool
"Some of the features I had in mind drew a lot of inspiration from ideas that I've had in my brain, but I've never really seen. As I dug through the archives of old mountain bike movies, I managed to see some people touching on it. Unfortunately, with the tough weather we had, I didn't get to finish a couple that I had in mind. I couldn't make all of them come true, which makes me stoked to try get that out soon, in another segment."
Accepting the uncontrollable
“I was scheduled for a two-week trip. I would arrive, test what was built, they'd build some new stuff while we were shooting the existing stuff and then just tick away at it over the duration of almost 10 days of consistent riding.
"What ended up happening was that I got in two days of riding, we needed to do some tweaks and then 60mm of rain rolled in over a day, completely destroyed a lot of the stuff that was built. We managed to recover from that within three days, but after another four or five days, we got another huge rainfall and that really put us back.
Filming ANYTIME was tough on Johansson, but he's keen for more projects
© Sterling Lorence/Red Bull Content Pool
I've learned heaps. Even though I've been around the scene for a long time, I haven't really shot a film segment like that myself
"We recovered from that within a couple of days and started riding again. It wasn't the progressive stuff at all – it was a scenic shot, but it was super awkward to hit. I hit it a couple of times and then on another attempt, when I came into the landing, the dirt was loose because we hadn't had time to finish it. I got caught off guard, my front wheel slid out and I ended up hitting the bank with my shoulder, breaking my collarbone. I also damaged some ligaments – my thumb is still a problem today.
“We managed to get stuff done, but it was the toughest possible way and so much got left on the table. I'm very thankful for what we got however. We managed to at least piece together something worth putting in the movie and I'm really eager to try to improve and get something even better in the future..
“Even though those circumstances were not ideal, I'm pretty proud of what we managed to get done. It was a huge learning curve for me. It's never easy being on a project when things don't fall into place easily. It ended up being three weeks there and another five weeks with my shoulder injury and my whole contest season has been affected by this segment, which has been really tough."
Johansson's ANYTIME part shows he's got plenty of creative lines in him
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
Learning curve
"I've learned heaps. Even though I've been around the scene for a long time, I haven't really shot a film segment like that myself – I've been on group shoots, but it's different. When I get to build something from the ground up and find the right people to work with, it's a massive learning curve. I have so much respect for the people that have not only have done it, but also mastered it over time.
"You need to expose yourself to filming constantly in order to get to a level where you can manage all circumstances, because even though this shoot didn't go as planned for me, I doubt there's a lot of shoots that have fully gone to plan. It's an underlying theme for a lot of projects. It's a lot of time investment and commitment going into shooting a lot of the stuff and even though you have 10 ideas on your mind, maybe you should be just stoked you managed to pull off two of them."
