Student life in Bangor

Student takes ‘Short Cut’ to stardom!

Image of Matt Barlow A professional mountain bike display rider and Bangor University PhD student has a starring role in an award winning film set in North Wales.

Matt Barlow, 27, features in a film called ‘Short Cut’ which follows him riding home from the university. However, instead of taking his usual route along the road, Matt gets distracted and follows a number of exciting riding trails, ending with him taking a short cut off the end of Bangor Pier and emerging the other side of the Menai Straits!

Originally from West Yorkshire, Matt now lives in North Wales with his wife Vicki. He is in his final year of a PhD course in sports psychology, studying the motives for participation in high risk sport.

Explaining his involvement in the film, Matt said, “I came up with the initial idea to ride my bike off the end of the pier and suggested it to Bamboo Chicken TV, a production company based in North Wales. They liked the idea, so together we set about working it into a storyline for a film.

“The main problem with the whole production was that we had to film it in a very short time frame. This meant we ended up shooting the scene where I jump off the end of the pier in February when there was still quite a lot of snow on the ground in the mountains. The water was absolutely freezing!

“There were two kayakers in the water; one filming and one in place to rescue the bike. They both had to help me get out of the Straits because my body began to shut down after only a few minutes in the freezing water.”

Image of Matt Barlow ‘Short Cut’ won the prestigious ‘People’s Choice Award’ at this year’s Llanberis Mountain Film Festival (LLAMFF) and therefore is now touring the world. It has already been shown throughout Eastern Europe and is currently being shown in Australia. Matt hopes that the next stop for the film is the BANFF world tour – the most prestigious adventure sports film festival in the world.

Matt added, “By visiting www.slowprogress.co.uk people will be able to see the film once it has finished being featured in world–wide film festivals. I’m also going to be teaming up with Bamboo Chicken TV again for future projects.”

06.05.2010