Suspending an artist and his easel on a platform 3,000 ft in the air beneath a hot air balloon to paint three wingsuit athletes leaping from a hovering helicopter, coordinating and filming the entire audacious stunt for one of the world’s best known brands is certainly ambitious.
For two best friends, and former pop-rock idols with gigs at the O2 and Manchester Arena under their belts, from a tiny village in the Yorkshire Dales, who created the international production company behind the daredevil stunt for Red Bull, it was their most complicated job yet – and the perfect way to mark the 10th anniversary of the business.
The project centred around artist Werner Bronkhorst’s limited-edition collaboration with Red Bull and required Dream Beach Media (DBM) to produce the campaign’s hero film and supporting content. To bring the vision to life, they designed a bespoke 17-camera filming system and coordinated more than 35 crew members, specialist balloon operators, aviation teams and multiple camera platforms—all while working within an unpredictable weather window – in most technically demanding production the DBM team has ever delivered.
The agency was formed by Josh Stockdale and Alex Boulton, from North Stainley, North Yorkshire and named after the sandy cove in Nusa Cenigan, Bali where they first conceived the idea a decade ago. It is now trusted by brands such as Red Bull, National Geographic and Canon as well as government tourism departments, including Visit Malta, Visit Jordan and Visit Iceland and known for creating innovative, award-winning campaigns.
Over the past decade, Dream Beach Media has produced award-winning campaigns in more than 40 countries, taking their cameras from the southern tip of Argentina to the summits of the Chilean Andes, through the tropical rainforests of Asia, across the remote beaches of Western Australia, into the vast deserts of Africa and beneath the ocean’s surface, telling stories in some of the world’s most extraordinary and challenging environments.
In a previous life, the duo were part of Ripon Grammar School-founded teenage pop-rock outfit Purple Mafia (later just :PM), who were greeted with headlines like 2015’s “Purple Mafia Mania breaks out at private girls schools” (Harrogate Advertiser), signed with LA live agency Marshall Arts, recorded material with Johnny Depp’s Unison Music and played to 25,000 fans at the Tour de France fan park in Harrogate in 2014. as well as at major UK arenas supporting the likes of The Vamps.
The duo note that, as the government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham seeks to re-balance academic and practical vocational education to tackle youth unemployment, they are a living example of what can be achieved without going to university, without raising investment, without relocating to London, and without compromising who you are: “More than anything, though, Dream Beach Media has never just been about making films. It’s been the vehicle that’s allowed us to design the life we always dreamed of – telling stories from around the world, meeting extraordinary people and building a global creative family based on friendship, adventure and a shared passion for storytelling,” they add.
“We started Dream Beach Media after we became tired of the music business although it did give us some amazing experiences. We were just two 19-year-olds with a camera, big ambitions and no real roadmap, just a dream and a belief that if we worked hard enough and stayed true to ourselves, we could build something special.
“Ten years later, this milestone isn’t just about surviving in one of the world’s most competitive industries. It’s proof that resilience, consistency and trusting your instincts really do pay off.”
The core Dream Beach team works across the UK, Malta and Indonesia, while the wider Dream Beach family includes a network of filmmakers, photographers, editors and producers based throughout Europe, North America and beyond.
This approach provides the flexibility to assemble the right team for every project and is an agile way of working that allows it to move quickly, think globally and stay close to clients.
They also marked their decade in business by continuing a strategic partnership with Canon to showcase its latest EOS C80 camera, following an initial, year-long partnership during which Dream Beach Media crews ‘road-tested’ the camera on demanding projects across four continents and produced an innovative promotional film ‘That Guy’ that positioned the camera as a new member of the team rather than just ‘another piece of kit.’
