Cycling For Everyone - An Exposé

As you might have heard through the grapevine, not so long ago I was busy creating the film 'Cycling For Everyone' that officially launched & introduced the Dutch Cycling Embassy. It was quite the process. Challenged by a very tight time frame before it was supposed to be presented (at the Dutch Embassy in Brussels during the Smart2Wheels Forum), I was scrambling to put both a team together and plan things accordingly. The weather forecast wasn't very promising. But we struck some much needed luck; nice temperature, mostly sunny and just a 'bit' of wind. Of course this project was right up my sleeve. Amsterdamize has grown into something solid (albeit, I really need to catch up on posting affairs), I have years of experience in online marketing & particularly in combination with video, I'm no stranger to the historical context of things and I like to think Amsterdamize has contributed to the idea of this embassy :). I managed to put together a great team. The creative, subtle & insightful camera skills of Erwan van Buuren, the charming presence of my friend Mi-Ah Roediger as 'Girl On Bike', production assistence by Reuben Hamburger and the smooth editing of one of my best friends and film director Gabe Bauer. On day 1 we shot scenes in Amsterdam: At the Workcycles shop... At the underground bike parking garage (of which there are many) at Zuid WTC train station... At the Apollolaan/Stadionweg junction, where we were often blocking people going from A to B... Contrary to common use & customs, we sometimes put the Omafiets in the back of the van... ...to get to the infamous Nescio bicycle bridge (of British design(!)) on time, that connects Amsterdam suburb Diemen with IJburg... Day 2 had us: Shooting the morning rush hour on De Lairessestraat/Jacob Obrechtstraat, dominated by the school run... Then we moved to the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat/Prinsengracht area, which included a stop-at-a-shop scene that I ended up not using... On to Houten for the train station's 'Fietstransferium' and junction scenes... And at the end of that busy day we moved our equipment to the majestic Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam. Unfortunately, these scenes were entirely cut from the film, due to playtime constraints. On day 3 I had to fly to Reykjavik to be a keynote speaker at a cycling conference organized by the Icelandic Cyclists Federation (on which I'll post soon), so the crew went ahead and worked with my instructions. And they did great, filming a tongue-in-cheek scene with a representative of the Fietsersbond (Cyclists Union) & their 'measure bike' and putting academics at 'work' at the ITC of Twente University. Luckily (for you), I had also reminded myself to shoot a few videos along the way, for a modest 'behind-the-scenes' edit:As traditions go, I also couldn't resist assembling the footage we either didn't use (as I said, often you have to 'kill your darlings') or cut it up beyond recognition. Hence: here are the outtakes. Warning: it's almost 24 minutes long ;).Oh, and of course, here's the final product of all our efforts: Cycling For Everyone. Enjoy, if you haven't already :).And thanks to all who helped spreading this video, the counter now stands at over 45.000 views on Vimeo & the Dutch Cycling Embassy received a very warm welcome on Twitter and all the blogs! Here are the YouTube links of two of them: - Cycling For Everyone - Cycling For Everyone - Behind The Scenes And here's the complete Cycling For Everyone photo set.