You Can't Make an Outdoor Film with AI - Trust Me, I Tried
AI-generated image from my experiment. This runner is imagined.
I made an outdoor video with AI. You can watch it above.
There are mountains, water, dramatic light and the sort of imagery that usually makes me want to pick up a camera and head outside. There’s also a giant floating sphere, because apparently my imaginary outdoor world has room for that too.
As a visual experiment, it’s pretty wild and weird and would be dubbed, appropriately, as AI slop. As a video that asks an outdoor audience to believe in a person, an adventure or a piece of gear, it leaves me with a much bigger question: what actually happened?
Who went there? Who put in the work? Who got scared, figured something out, laughed with a friend or came home changed?
That’s the part I care most deeply for as a filmmaker. Real people, on real adventures, feeling real things.
So this is my take after trying it: AI can generate the appearance of outdoor footage. Kind of. But the human experience that makes me care still has to happen somewhere beyond a screen. And for brands trying to earn trust, that difference matters a whole lot and is why I feel pretty confident AI generated videos won’t be finding their ways to ski film nights, movie screenings at the climbing gym or indie theaters anytime soon.
A beautiful image still needs something behind it
Outdoor filmmaking has always had a weakness for the spectacular. We love a huge mountain, a perfect wave, and a tiny person standing somewhere enormous. I love those images too. I make them whenever the story calls for them.
But a landscape only gets me so far. What keeps me watching is understanding why somebody is there. Maybe they’ve spent years preparing for this climb. Maybe running helped them through a difficult chapter. Maybe they’re learning to surf alongside a friend and having a ridiculous amount of fun being beginners.
Those details give the image a life beyond its appearance.
My AI experiment can suggest an incredible destination but it provides zero evidence that a person travelled there, learned anything there or shared the experience with anyone. The scenery exists as an image. The adventure exists as a suggestion.
That can be useful for fantasy, a concept or a clearly labelled creative experiment. I just think outdoor brands should be careful with the job they expect that imagery to do.
If the promise is that your brand understands the life your customers actually live, showing that life carries weight. A generated summit supplies a view. A filmed expedition gives us people whose decisions, effort and relationships we can follow.
I want to follow an athlete with a life
Think of an athlete you regularly follow. There’s probably a reason you remember their name, rather than simply remembering a cool shot of somebody moving fast.
You’ve seen their progress. You know a little of their personality. You’ve watched them try, recover, return or change direction. The next film has meaning because you’ve already invested in the person.
An invented runner can appear on an extraordinary ridge. A real runner brings a history to that ridge. Their family, training, doubts, ambitions and very specific sense of humor all come along.
That’s why I’m drawn to athlete portraits like my film with Hans Troyer. A person gives the film somewhere to go beyond the action. We can become curious, root for them and recognize a small piece of ourselves in their experience.
Imagine a climbing series that follows somebody working toward a route over several months. Each attempt changes what the next attempt means. A fall, a conversation with their belayer or an adjustment to their approach becomes part of a story we remember.
Now imagine generating a flawless ascent. We have an impressive sequence, sure. But the achievement has no athlete behind it. There’s nobody to congratulate, check in with or follow into the next chapter.
Gear has to meet the weather
For an outdoor brand, there’s an even more practical problem. Your customer is eventually going to take the product outside.
A jacket will meet rain. A trail shoe will meet loose rock. A backpack will spend hours against somebody’s shoulders. The buyer has a reasonable interest in seeing how those things behave.
Picture a short film featuring a runner crossing a wet, rocky trail. Real footage can show where their foot lands, how the shoe moves and what the terrain looks like. It can support an honest conversation with the athlete concerning fit, grip and the conditions they encountered.
A generated image can depict exactly the outcome you request. That makes it a poor source of evidence for the product’s actual performance.
The same applies to a tent in wind, a ski boot on an uphill climb or a waterproof bag beside a breaking wave. If the gear in the frame is imagined, its apparent success is imagined too.
Even filmed marketing needs care here. A beautiful commercial alone proves very little concerning durability across years or performance in every condition. But real products used by identifiable people in clearly described environments give the viewer something concrete to consider. Brands can then support specific claims with the appropriate testing.
AI-generated climbing image from 2025 to see what the technology could do.
Climbers notice climbing. Surfers notice surfing.
People who spend time outside develop a pretty particular eye. They notice things because they’ve felt them in their own bodies.
A climber watches the feet as well as the hands. They recognize the moment someone shifts their hips to make a move easier. A skier sees how a person’s weight changes through a turn. A surfer pays attention to where a rider sits on the wave and how they respond to its changing shape.
A cool-looking sequence has a higher bar when the audience knows the activity.
For example, a climbing campaign can feature beautiful rock and dramatic exposure, but experienced climbers will still wonder where the rope goes, what the equipment is doing and whether the movement makes sense. A running image may look energetic while revealing very little of the surface, effort or pace that defines the actual run.
Generated imagery can create inconsistencies in those details. Better tools may reduce them. My concern survives even a technically convincing result: appearing believable and documenting something real are different achievements.
I’m interested in the second one.
When I film an outdoor athlete, their knowledge becomes part of the production. We can ask questions, understand the setting and choose images that respect the sport. The person in the frame helps keep the film grounded.
The moments between the big moments
Some of my favorite pieces of an outdoor story happen while everyone is doing something fairly ordinary.
On the La Sportiva powder trip I’ve written on this blog, the skiing was fantastic. So were the conversations and the time we spent together afterwards. The people made that experience memorable.
A generated powder turn gives me a picture of skiing. Hearing a real person laugh with somebody they’ve just met gives me a way into the experience.
Here’s another example: imagine filming a surfer who has spent the morning waiting for conditions to change. They finally get a wave, then paddle back to their friend with a huge grin. The grin means something because we’ve seen the waiting.
Or a runner reaches the finish and looks for one specific person in the crowd. The emotion lives in that relationship. A close-up alone would miss half the story.
We can manufacture facial expressions, write moving narration and add music that tells a viewer when to feel something. What I value is giving an actual emotion room to show itself. The person gets to surprise us. The meaning comes from their life.
AI-generated surfing image. The beach, wave and surfer are imagined.
Trust carries further than a quick view
I understand why generated content appeals to brands. Production takes planning, people, travel and money. Weather changes, athletes have busy schedules and a prompt screen offers a tempting amount of control.
But if the goal is trust, control has limits.
Imagine seeing a campaign for a new hiking pack. You like the film and start wondering whether the person wore that pack on the trip. Then you discover the entire scene was generated, including the product. The film has answered a different question from the one you were asking.
You wanted a glimpse of use. You received a visual proposal.
Some viewers may enjoy the creativity and happily accept the distinction. Others may feel misled. That’s a risk worth considering before treating generated adventure imagery as a substitute for filming.
My own position is pretty firm: no amount of cool AI footage earns my trust in an outdoor product through looks alone. I want a connection to actual use, actual people and a brand willing to stand behind what it shows.
For a company building long-term relationships, a fast burst of attention is only one piece of the work. The more interesting question is whether somebody feels comfortable choosing your product, recommending it to a friend and returning when they need something else.
Real adventures give brands more to share
There’s also a creative opportunity here that gets overlooked when a shoot is judged solely by its prettiest finished frames.
A real production can uncover a whole collection of useful stories. The athlete explaining a choice. The designer seeing the product in use. A practical lesson from the guide. A funny exchange that feels perfect for a short reel.
Consider a ski brand filming an educational series. Alongside the turns, we can capture an instructor demonstrating a movement, explaining what it feels like and helping someone work through it. The useful content comes from knowledge being shared in the environment where it matters.
Or a surf brand follows a local person who cares deeply for a particular stretch of coast. Their relationship with that place can introduce an audience to its community and the responsibilities that come with visiting.
A trail-running film can make room for the volunteer at an aid station, the friend waiting along the route or the person who maintains the trail. Suddenly the brand has a window into a larger world.
Those possibilities require listening. They also give the work a specific character. When we build a film around real people, there’s more available than an aesthetic someone else could generate from a similar prompt.
There’s room for experiments. Keep the distinction clear.
I’ve tried the technology myself, so this comes from curiosity as much as conviction. There’s room for imagination in filmmaking, and an openly fictional image can be fun.
A surreal outdoor sequence, a visual treatment or an early concept can help communicate an idea. In that context, the audience understands what they’re seeing. The floating sphere in my experiment belongs quite comfortably in that world.
Where I draw the line is using invented footage to stand in for an athlete’s achievement, a product demonstration or a documentary moment. Those are promises concerning reality.
I would also keep a clear distinction between using software to assist an edit and generating the event being shown. Organizing material, preparing captions or working through a treatment leaves the filmed experience at the centre. Inventing a person’s adventure changes the foundation of the story.
For outdoor brands considering AI, I’d start by asking what the audience needs to believe. Is this openly imaginative artwork? Or are we asking someone to trust a real person and a real product?
Once that’s clear, the production choices become easier. If the message depends on lived experience, invest in going where that experience happens. Bring the product. Meet the people. Let the world contribute something you could never have predicted.
I still want to go outside with a camera
Making this experiment reinforced the reason I’m drawn to outdoor filmmaking in the first place. I want to meet people, experience places and come home with a story that happened.
I want an athlete to watch the film and recognize themselves. I want a brand’s customer to see a product sharing the same weather and terrain they’re planning to encounter. And I want the emotions to belong to the people whose lives we’ve been invited into.
That leaves room for beautifully crafted images. Strong cinematography, sound and editing can make a real experience easier to understand and more enjoyable to watch. The craft matters because it helps carry something worth sharing.
But the person comes first.
An outdoor film has a lovely opportunity to make somebody feel connected to a world they can actually enter. A trail they might run. A community they might join. A person they might keep following. I think that’s a pretty powerful thing for a brand to support.
The generated mountains will keep getting more convincing. I’ll still be interested in who climbed the real ones, who helped them and what they carried home.
Want a real filmmaker capturing real people on real adventures? Hit me up. I’d love to hear what you’re dreaming of making.
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Roo Smith is a 3x Emmy-nominated commercial director, documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado, working around the world. He has directed documentaries for Patagonia, produced films for Outside Magazine throughout Europe and Africa, and camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West. His work telling uplifting outdoor stories has received recognition in the outdoor industry.