Stu Thomson swapped racking up race podiums for racking up online video views and he’s now mixing it with the directorial big dogs in themusic industry.
Stu Thomson sits in front of one of Glasgow’s largest computer screens. His desk is big and is surrounded by speakers but there’s none of the usual oice clutter. His company, Cut Media, have only recently moved into their new oice/studio space just minutes from Sauchiehall Street in the heart of the city. They first inhabited the high ceilinged, whitewashed space during the 2014 Commonwealth Games, when they provided big-screen images for the closing ceremony. At just 32, Stu has already packed a lot into his life, but it’s pretty much all been focused, one way or another, around riding bikes.
Breaking newground
One of Stu’s breakthrough films was Imaginate. “It was cool because there were so many talents in the team that put it together, but it was stressful too, just because of the money that Red Bull had invested in it,” he says. The film saw trials star Danny MacAskill trick and flip his way around a purpose-built set filled with outsized childhood toys. “It was weird for me because I was the middleman between the guys shooting it and the guys down in London,” says Stu, who seems stressed even recalling it.Would he shoot another Imaginate? “As a filmmaker, at the start of the Imaginate project I felt like I had to prove myself, whereas now Imaginate 2 would be hard to do,” he says.“The element of surprise was key to Imaginate.We kept it so quiet – it was literally six days a week for six months in a blackedout warehouse in Glasgow, during winter. It was a hell of an experience, but it was also a case of, ‘let’s make the next thing we do chilled’!”
The next film Cut Media made took everyone by surprise – including themselves. The Ridge starred MacAskill again, only this time the Scot returned to his home of Skye to tackle the Cuillin Ridge on a full-suspension bike. “The Ridge was the best project, the best time, the best fun I’ve ever had on a shoot because it was physically super-hard,” Stu grins. “The first day was eight hours hiking with all our shit, and we had to take all our food and water up there too. It was so physical.We picked a team we knew could handle it.”
Lofty numbers
At the project’s outset Danny and Stu had hoped for between one and two million online views of The Ridge. It’s comfortably topped 41 million. Interestingly, it was a break from MacAskill’s traditional technical trickery. “Nowadays, when everyone has seen so many tricks, it’s all about the concept and being diferent, which is becoming harder and harder to do,” Stu says. “I think the frontflip at the end works because no one expects it, because until then it’s all just been ‘mountain biking’.
“Danny did a nose-bonk frontflip in Epecuen (a separate video project, shot by Dave Sowerby in Argentina) but, for whatever reason, not as many people saw it. In The Ridge he does the rock gap and the frontflip at the end, but it’s not ‘Danny’– it’s not what he’s become known for. I thought the film was good, but I also thought it might just be perceived as ‘another mountain bike edit’.”
Bean scene
“My dad always rode [motorcycle] trials and that’s what I grew up with,”says Stu, now settled into one of Glasgow’s trendier cafes.We’re surrounded by 50 shades of ambient brown, and synth pop rattles gently in the background. After a successful juvenile career in moto trials, which included a Scottish national title, Stu made the swap to mountain bikes, taking up downhill racing after being inspired by Jason McRoy.
“My first race was in 1996,” he says. “It was the year after Jason died and he’d been my hero, appearing in all the magazines. They had a memorial race for him that had a juvenile category in DH, which they didn’t always have back then. I ended up fifth and in fourth was Jamie Tomkins, who was another guy I knew from the mags. It got towards the end of the year and I told my dad I wanted to do a few more races. It’s quite cool looking back on it now – he just said, “Cool, absolutely awesome, no problem, but you’re not doing both trials and mountain bikes.”
It’s easy to paint your youth in nostalgic tones, but racing at that time was a very diferent proposition to the motorhomes, personal mechanics and massage tables of today. “Everyone was based out of the back of their cars, borrowing bits of each other,” Stu smiles. “It was a completely diferent time for mountain biking. My dad decided he was going to sort it out, got a trade deal through Giant and started The Clan. It’s awesome now, looking back on who was in the team – Crawford Carrick-Anderson, Chris Ball, Andy Barlow, Paul Angus. All guys who went on to do their own things afterwards.”
Highs and lows
Stu’s own racing career peaked in 2003, when he made it onto the podium at the DHWorld Cup round in Grouse Mountain, Canada. But things were to take a turn for the worse.
“I injured my ankle playing basketball, of all things,” he sighs. “It was one of those weird ones. My ankle’s still in a right mess, but looking back on it, it was good. I’d been racing for some time and I’d done alright but I wasn’t making money out of it. I’d got to the point where I was kind of over it and that injury made me change direction. A lot of riders just continue on indefinitely but I set up MTBCut and that injury really spurred me on to do that.”MTBCut was at first a website, which went on to broadcast the first live feed of aWorld Cup race. Slowly though, teams and manufacturers began asking Stu to make online films for them and, gradually, it morphed into a production company.
Wingsuits and helicopters
Stu moves on to Free, the music video he directed for dance act Rudimental. “Rudimental was after Imaginate,” he recalls. “I’d done a bit of work for a production company in London and their client had seen Imaginate and asked if I’d pitch to direct the video. I worked up a treatment and they liked it. It was weird. It was scary, actually. I was directing for the production company. I had to turn up to a shoot with a crew of 20 to 30 people and two helicopters, and didn’t know a single person. It was definitely daunting. It was a learning curve, that shoot.”
One thing that shines through during our interview is just how critical of his own work Stu is. I ask him how the Rudimental film stacks up in his estimation. “I really like the film,” he says. “I’m really proud of the video. It made me realise that there’s no point in doing music videos unless it’s with artists of that calibre. It also made me realise that if I want to do music videos or be a big commercial director then I need to be in London. That’s what I think made me drive Cut Media forward. I wanted to grow a company as a collective. It’s a work/life balance and I don’t want to be in London, no way.”
Another recurring theme is his revived love for riding. Stu claims to actually enjoy riding more now than when he was racing, and it’s his passion for it that feels like it’s occasionally at the helm. “It’s a big help, enjoying riding so much,” he admits. “Sometimes I worry I’m too into riding, especially when it comes to work.With Cut Media, if we put our heads down and did a load of stuf, maxed it out, the position we could be in…” He tails of as if reconsidering something. “But then there’s this other part of me that just goes and rides my bike.”
IF YOU HAD TO PICK ONE... STU’S FAVOURITE BIKE FILM OF ALL TIME
“It’s weird because it’s not the kind of film I make, or have ever aspired to make, but Sprung 4 just captures riding bikes for me. There’s a roadtrip section with [Ross] Tricker and Donny [Neil Donoghue], who’s incredible in it!, and they’re just riding trails and having a laugh. There’sWorld Cup DH, BMX, MX... a bit of everything, all set to tunes that you went out and bought an album of the back of. All the little skits and stuf...The mountain bike filmmaker who gets the least amount of credit for being one of the best is Milan Spasic. Alex Rankin did Earthed, which was brilliant too, but the combination of those two together on Sprung was unreal.