A lot’s happened since Janapar’s premiere at Raindance last year, but one of the nicest moments was winning one of the top awards at Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, one of the UK’s main fixtures in the adventure & outdoor festival calendar.

It was particularly rewarding given the ridiculous amount of work that had gone into putting it together — four years of shooting, two years of production and 6 months of distribution so far, unpaid, and the ongoing storytelling project still occupies a large chunk of my time.

I learned a huge amount during the production process — as did James, who’d spent half a decade cutting his teeth in the TV industry. And there are plenty of articles on the way for those of you who are interested in trying your hands at adventure filmmaking — hopefully on a more sensible scale! (If you’re not interested, don’t worry; tales from the road in Iran and new adventure cycling projects are coming too.)

Today I’d like to share a special 12-minute documentary, going behind the scenes in the studios, edit suites, voiceover booths and broom cupboards we worked in — a rare insight into the production process of an adventure film.

This short featurette originally appeared in Janapar’s DVD extras, and in the online bonus material for the instant HD download of the film (both of which are currently available at a discount).

Feel free to ask any questions about this filmmaking process in the comments — I’d be more than happy to answer them!