BTS: Red Bull Cliff Diving in El Nido

^{Rhiannan Iffland, photo from Red Bull Cliff Diving}

First time in El Nido.
First time seeing cliff diving.
First time Sendr EVER got invited to shoot something like this—something this wild, this big, this beautiful.

Red Bull Cliff Diving came to the Philippines and picked El Nido as the stage. Limestone cliffs, turquoise water so clear that it didn’t seem real, and athletes launching themselves off ledges that made me weak just looking at them do it. It was the kind of thing that made you stop, breathe, and think: how is this even happening? How am I even here?

What a life.

But while most eyes were on the dives—and fair enough, they were otherworldly wild—what caught my attention was everything happening around it. The people. The production. The energy that turned this quiet slice of paradise into a full-blown world stage. I got to be there, camera in hand, watching Red Bull do what Red Bull does.

This is how it was like behind the scenes. From the boats to the drones, the content team to the legends in the sky. El Nido was transformed, elevated into a global arena showcasing the world’s elite athletes doing what they do: the impossible.

The Production Machine

Across multiple days, four rounds, and three different dive sites—Big Lagoon, Small Lagoon, and Lagen—the Red Bull team and their crews handled everything from moving boats to managing creators to repositioning drones (one even got a towel thrown at it) with a kind of calm chaos that only comes with experience. Sure, it wasn’t 100% pain-free but it was 1000 times more efficient and more effective than any sporting event (or any event) I’ve been a part of.

It wasn’t just any production. It was a Red Bull one. Why I started Sendr. The reason it is what it is. The peg. The goal. Celebrating human-ness at its best.

And we could definitely see and feel why they were at the top.

There’s levels to this.

There were teams for everything. Safety, gear, logistics, talent, timing. And every boat, every camera, every human had a role. It was impossible not to notice the coordination—how a boat would pull up just as a drone banked left, how an athlete would surface and divers were there to check on them. There was someone for something—all the time. Everything was on purpose.

From the global team to the local team, the work was put in.

Most impressive was how all of this happened without leaving a footprint. The water stayed turquoise. The cliffs stayed quiet when they needed to. No garbage. No loudspeakers blaring. The only sound between dives was the sea and a lot of people coordinating magic.

This was a world-class production staged inside a national treasure—and everyone on that crew treated it like one.

The Athletes

The whole reason we were here. These superhumans.

I’ve always looked at elite athletes—Olympians (even former ones like Laura Marino and Freddie Woodward, who were guests there), UFC fighters, and definitely Red Bull athletes—as separate from humanity. They felt above us all. A combination of genetics, environment, and the kind of training that would break us mere mortals quickly.

When Red Bull PH asked us to come along and help produce the local content, one of the biggest reasons I said yes was to see these people up close. What kind of person not only willingly jumps off a cliff, but does it from 27 meters up—that’s eight stories—while doing flips in mid-air?

I had to meet them.

They were super—but they were human, too. In between warm-ups and competition, they shot local content with us, laughed, shared stories, and made time for moments you’d think were impossible to fit into their schedule.

On the first day of the event, we filmed with Xantheia Pennisi, who’s actually half-Filipina. She nailed a TikTok-style montage featuring her signature colorful suits, worried about jellyfish with us, and jumped off a cliff moments later like it was nothing. That video’s coming soon—just waiting on timing. Another day, we pulled divers Maria, Yolotl, and Jonathan into a game of Luksong Tinik with local creator-slash-athlete Hannah Pangilinan, who gamely taught them how to play (and casually backflipped off a platform later). It was surreal. One of the most fun things I’ve ever shot. Elite divers playing a Filipino schoolyard game? Check.

Jonathan even shot a phone commercial the following day. That’s pretty rad, what a legend.

Those are just some moments from many. And I guess what I’m trying to say is—yeah, they’re different. But they’re still just people. Kind, talented, funny people who just happen to be able to jump off a cliff as high as a condo in Makati.

NOTE: Recap the event and all the winners, here.

I’ll Never Get Over It

It’s easy to see something this big and assume it runs on budgets and branding. But standing there, in the middle of it all, what I saw was people. Really good people. Moving fast. Working hard. Making it all happen while still having time to ask if you’ve eaten.

I loved that. I love that about them.

Also, you don’t come to a place like this, watch people do the impossible, feel the sea in your bones, and leave the same.

And I don’t know—maybe I needed that. To remember that wonder still exists, that this level is real thing to aim for. That people are kind. That stories matter. That the world is big. And that sometimes, you get lucky enough to be right in the middle of everything.

Shout out to P, JM, Aleeya, Gabe, Will H, Mikey, Free Willy, Saiful, Arum, Daria, Luis, Yasi, Larry, Lowell, Anna, Steph, Miggy, Kelly, Yhum, Saac, Kerr, DJ, Elmer, and the rest of the best. You guys made it easy.

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Recap the event and all the winners, here.