How Our Storytelling Agency Created “Esteban Chaves: Behind the Smile”

WhereNext + SCOTT Sports + Esteban Chaves: A Match Made in Cycling Heaven

At WhereNext, cycling is in our DNA. It’s part of the very fabric of our storytelling agency and a core element of our origin story. The WhereNext dream started with an epic cycling trip from northern Alaska to the southern tip of Patagonia by our founder Gregg Bleakney.

Years later, we’re still a team of cyclists and adventurers: most of the office spend their weekends out exploring the impressive roads of North and South America. We have a long history of producing epic cycling videos for the coolest companies out there, including Bicycling Magazine, H&I Adventures, CyclingTips, Ciclismo Classico, Experience Plus, Pure Colombia, and Cyclomundo. It also helps that our Bogota office is surrounded by some of the continent’s toughest routes and that the world’s best cyclists come from this region. In short, we know how to smash a cycling video production out of the park!

So when SCOTT Sports presented us with the opportunity to tell the moving redemption story of Colombian superstar and Olympian, Esteban Chaves, one of the best Grand Tour cyclists in the world, we knew that we were the storytelling agency to do it. Who else could combine the agility and experience needed for such a shoot with the love of cycling that radiates from our young and hungry team!? WhereNext, SCOTT Sports, and Esteban Chaves are a match made in cycling heaven.

On the road with Esteban Chaves and his brother Brayan

To our delight, it was Wade Wallace, founder of CyclingTips.com who recommended WhereNext to SCOTT Sports for this project because of our work with him a few years earlier producing the feature-length documentary film, Thereabouts Colombia, with Gus and Lachlan Morton. We also developed an excellent professional friendship and trust with the young cyclist Esteban Chaves through a feature article our founder Gregg Bleakney wrote and photographed for Tour Magazine in 2016.

How to Film a Cycling Documentary in Colombia

This project offered two primary challenges. For starters, filming cyclists on the notoriously winding roads of the Colombian Andes is always logistically tricky. Due to our prior cycling project experience, we have overcome this potential difficulty with few problems. It also helped that the principal cameramen and director we assigned to this project, Julian Manrique, is a cyclist: he knew and understood how to ride these routes, and captured fantastic footage without disrupting the riders or putting himself or anyone else at risk.

The other potential concern was how we would be able to shoot the documentary without overly interrupting Esteban’s personal life and training regime. He generously granted us unfettered access to his personal and professional life. We were keen to respect his process and intrude as little as possible. Ultimately, this was to be a deeply personal journey with his family, as well as an important step in his recuperation and rehabilitation. For the documentary to work, we needed to capture Esteban in the most natural way possible, so that he was relaxed and comfortable.

It’s never “all work and no play” with WhereNext - lighthearted moments abound in this deeply personal documentary

We were working for Esteban, he was not working for us, and it was necessary to remember that during the shoot. We set an imperative for our team: know when to keep your distance and know when you can move in for intimate shots. He is a finely-tuned athlete working at the top of his sport, so we couldn’t direct him in the way that projects are often filmed. There was no way to ask him to repeat a difficult interval or ride a particular climb again. We had to be at the top of our game to get all the shots in one take.

During the shoot, our unique talents as a nimble and responsive storytelling agency came to the fore. During the pre-production, we identified the issues mentioned above; we didn’t know exactly what we would shoot. It was impossible to predict what would happen on the road. Because our videographers were on-call and ready to shoot 24/7, we captured many sweet and moving moments, such as a teary Esteban at a family Christmas gathering thanking them for their support. Vulnerable personal moments added an undeniable human touch to the documentary and formed the foundation of Chavez’s healing and redemption story. Our agility as an agency was vital in capturing these scenes.

Getting down to business: this film also captures a world-class athlete operating at the top of his game

A Rousing Reception for a Heartwarming Story

On behalf of our client, WhereNext producers Sandra Eichmann Perret and Bibi Gonçalves worked tirelessly to submit the documentary to film festivals. In November, ‘Behind the Smile’ was given an Honorable Mention in the Sports Documentary of the Year category by the Fédération Internationale Cinéma Télévision Sportifs (FICTS) at the Milano International FICTS Fest in Italy. Meanwhile, on YouTube, Behind the Smile passed 100,000 views in less than a month and has been liked almost 3,000 times with hundreds of comments.

The documentary has touched the hearts of thousands of viewers and achieved its goal of telling the real, human story behind the polished sporting excellence of Esteban and others like him; to truly get “behind the smile” and show the person within.

When we hosted a special screening of the film for Esteban and his family in the WhereNext Bogotá office, it was an emotional moment. They saw their son, brother, nephew, and best friend’s struggles and successes reflected back at them on the screen, and it touched a lot of nerves. There were few dry eyes in the house that day. Since then, there have been several other screenings organized through FUN Esteban Chaves, a foundation that works with children and young people through the twin pillars of sport and medicine.

‘Esteban Chaves: Behind the Smile’ is a project that all of us at WhereNext are immensely proud of, and it shows off the best of our agile and creative storytelling agency: our ability to react to situations on the fly, work with top athletes in a highly professional yet enjoyable manner, produce quality material in a short space of time and under challenging conditions and, above all, tell deeply human stories in a dynamic and different way. That’s our mission as an agency, and this documentary showcases that mission perfectly.

Esteban and his brother enjoying a peaceful moment on the backroads of Colombia

Learn more about our storytelling agency here.

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