That is all.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Are we getting worse at what we do?
WARNING: this is a long one, so get a glass of water, make some popcorn, and take a deep breath.
You know when you listen to a song a million times, and you know every part of it, every guitar riff, every fill from the singer, and then you go to the concert and it sucks?
Don't watch the full video, please. After about 40 seconds of this crap you'll get the point.
I'm sure when 51 year old Vince Neil gets up there to sing Kickstart my Heart for the 17,534th time, the last thing he wants to do is sing it the same way he did the last 17,533 times. I'm sure he doesn't find any creative satisfaction these days in repeating all the same screams and yells the way he did in '87 before he sucked at life and back when reality TV for him meant bringing cameras backstage to document him slugging a pound of blow up each nostril and doing terrible, unspeakable things to consenting groupies. I'm sure Vince wants his music to evolve and progress and grow. I'm sure the musical atrocity that is the live version of "Kickstart" is some sad attempt to redeem Vince's artistic side, and he probably thinks that his new pacing and singing style breathe new life into an aging song.
The thing is, Vince is wrong. The Kickstart my Heart that you and I know and love is so badass because Motley Crue sat in a studio for days perfecting it to the zenith of hair metal shredding. If there was something left to change, something that sucked, it would have been changed in the studio. It's not like the producer thought, "This is going to be THE banger song off an album that will probably go quadruple platinum. Let's just ignore all the crappy parts that are easy to identify and would be easy to fix, and then Vince can fix those in concert 20 years later." And by the way, timeless classics don't need to be "freshened up." Good is good. If it's awesome in '89, it's still going to be awesome in 2012. If it ain't broke, don't be a dumbass.
Yeah, I'm talking to you, too, George Lucas.
Basically, when it comes to making good bike movies, BMX figured out a very simple formula a long time ago:
METAL + BANGER RIDING + FAST EDITING = GOOD VIDEO
2001: Van Homan, Criminal Mischief:
Van Homan - Little Devil - Criminal Mischief from groove section on Vimeo.
2007: Chase Hawk, Fit Life
There's really very little variation required here. Does it have to be metal music? Of course not, but it's definitely a safe bet that chucking your body at full speed onto a twenty stair icepick is going to sync up to Metallica better than Madonna. Maybe instead of metal, you throw in something classic. MAYBE you could get away with a contemporary, non-metal song, but that's pretty thin ice before you fall into electronica, dubstep, or other pussy music. Maybe for your mountain biked movie you spice up all the riding clips with a couple quick clips of drunk Steve Peat making fun of everyone at the afterparty. Maybe you have a little buildup to the riding and have a slower, more melodic song before you get to the metal+banger riding+fast editing.
But that's pretty much it. There's no need to do too much thinking, the format works. But try convincing mountain bike film makers of that.
This Whistler segment is mega big budget, replete with cable cams, boom cams, steady cams, three minutes of talking, famous quotes, everything starts moving backwards for no apparent reason, NEW music, slow mo, SLOW MO, and REALLY REALLY REALLY SLOW MO, and then starting at 3:13 you only get to see one shot of every rider, and you don't even get to see a whole shot of them riding. Isn't it awesome when the action cuts off halfway through, and then they cut to someone else? SWEET. The segment sort of doesn't even make sense. The second time I watched it I think I got what they were going for. Maybe.
"The Collective" and "Anthill Productions" are technically different companies, but it's still the same dudes. For comparisons sake, look at the Whistler scene from Roam, way back in 2006:
It's actually pretty good. Sure the music sucks, the "watch me drop in behind the last guy" trick gets pretty old, and there's waaaaaay too much pedaling, but it stills works. It even makes sense. It's a coherent storyline, and that's more than you can say for the latest Anthill Whistler scene.
Looking at these two Whistler segments it's apparent that TheAntCollectivehill actually got worse at making movies. Their most recent Whistler segment is objectively worse. Why did they change anything? Just do it over again, with slightly different riders and see what happens. Wild guess: letting a bunch of super talented riders loose on Whistler is going to be entertaining as hell and you won't be disappointed, even if you don't storyboard out three minutes of narration and spend 10 days setting your cable cams up..
Everyone in mountain bike film making is trying to innovate, to one up each other, and to find the next new thing. To be the most epic. For some this means buying a Phantom Flex or a Red so they can do 1000 FPS shots and put people to sleep. For other filmmakers, progression means traveling halfway around the world to Bolivia or Nepal or Morocco or another place called BFE to build the same jumps they have in Kamloops and to put the riders in mortal danger in a country where healthcare means calling the local witch doctor to ward off infection. For others progression means stopping at nothing to show how bro'd out you all get when you come together to collaborate and shred; Reggae, sunlit beaches, and boardshorts somehow make it into bike movies when you're trying to illustrate just how chill the scene is, bro.
So the movie makers keep "progressing" and getting away from the basic formula
METAL + BANGER RIDING + FAST EDITING = GOOD VIDEO
But what no one realizes is that you don't need to keep artificially "pushing the boundaries." This attitude of constant, unmotivated "progression" pervades all of mountain biking, whether it be film making, trail building, or steerer tube standards. MORE MORE MORE.
Guess what? 200 million people turned into NFL games last year. 278 million people watched the NBA. The seven World Series games last year averaged 17 million viewers per game. Even the NHL had 70 million viewers last year. And those sports have looked really similar for the last 30 years.
Major league (aka real) sports don't need to change the rules or introduce new cameras or use crazy editing techniques or build bigger fields to draw viewers in. These are real sports, and a real sport is compelling enough on its own. Year in, year out, fans root for their favorite player and their favorite team because of things like personality, athleticism, and geography, not because of 1000 FPS Phantom Flex cameras.
What I'm trying to say is that there is no need to reinvent mountain biking every time you film a web edit. Maybe next time just make a movie with bike riding in it. Just go out into the woods and shoot what you think is good, edit it to music that you think is good, and maybe some people will think it's good. If they don't like it, then you know they suck.
Wait...
An epihany that I just had while writing this: Maybe the new, crappy videos are what the movie makers wanted to do all along, and it's only now that they have the budget and freedom to allow them to finally realize their crappy artistic vision.
There's no denying that, at this point, Clay can do whatever he wants. I'm sure he would say he has this limitation and that restriction, but basically, if he really wants to do something, he can get it done, as long as it's not rebuilding and then resinking the Titanic for his next Atherton webedit. Clay can do whatever he wants to do, and it turns out that when he puts his head down and starts thinking, his ideas just aren't that cool.
Maybe getting to do everything you want to do creatively isn't a formula for success. All creativity takes place within boundaries, and when you are totally unbounded, with an endless budget, and no direction, you get things like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.
It's unwatchable. Seriously, I bet you fell asleep. This is a ten minute fight scene that does nothing to move the story along or develop the characters. I'm not invested in this fight scene at all. Congratulations George, your crappy artistic vision was fully realized. It turns out that you just suck.
You know when you listen to a song a million times, and you know every part of it, every guitar riff, every fill from the singer, and then you go to the concert and it sucks?
Don't watch the full video, please. After about 40 seconds of this crap you'll get the point.
I'm sure when 51 year old Vince Neil gets up there to sing Kickstart my Heart for the 17,534th time, the last thing he wants to do is sing it the same way he did the last 17,533 times. I'm sure he doesn't find any creative satisfaction these days in repeating all the same screams and yells the way he did in '87 before he sucked at life and back when reality TV for him meant bringing cameras backstage to document him slugging a pound of blow up each nostril and doing terrible, unspeakable things to consenting groupies. I'm sure Vince wants his music to evolve and progress and grow. I'm sure the musical atrocity that is the live version of "Kickstart" is some sad attempt to redeem Vince's artistic side, and he probably thinks that his new pacing and singing style breathe new life into an aging song.
The thing is, Vince is wrong. The Kickstart my Heart that you and I know and love is so badass because Motley Crue sat in a studio for days perfecting it to the zenith of hair metal shredding. If there was something left to change, something that sucked, it would have been changed in the studio. It's not like the producer thought, "This is going to be THE banger song off an album that will probably go quadruple platinum. Let's just ignore all the crappy parts that are easy to identify and would be easy to fix, and then Vince can fix those in concert 20 years later." And by the way, timeless classics don't need to be "freshened up." Good is good. If it's awesome in '89, it's still going to be awesome in 2012. If it ain't broke, don't be a dumbass.
Yeah, I'm talking to you, too, George Lucas.
 |
| No, really, it was waaaaaaay better with Hayden in there. Good thinking, George. |
Basically, when it comes to making good bike movies, BMX figured out a very simple formula a long time ago:
2001: Van Homan, Criminal Mischief:
Van Homan - Little Devil - Criminal Mischief from groove section on Vimeo.
2007: Chase Hawk, Fit Life
There's really very little variation required here. Does it have to be metal music? Of course not, but it's definitely a safe bet that chucking your body at full speed onto a twenty stair icepick is going to sync up to Metallica better than Madonna. Maybe instead of metal, you throw in something classic. MAYBE you could get away with a contemporary, non-metal song, but that's pretty thin ice before you fall into electronica, dubstep, or other pussy music. Maybe for your mountain biked movie you spice up all the riding clips with a couple quick clips of drunk Steve Peat making fun of everyone at the afterparty. Maybe you have a little buildup to the riding and have a slower, more melodic song before you get to the metal+banger riding+fast editing.
But that's pretty much it. There's no need to do too much thinking, the format works. But try convincing mountain bike film makers of that.
This Whistler segment is mega big budget, replete with cable cams, boom cams, steady cams, three minutes of talking, famous quotes, everything starts moving backwards for no apparent reason, NEW music, slow mo, SLOW MO, and REALLY REALLY REALLY SLOW MO, and then starting at 3:13 you only get to see one shot of every rider, and you don't even get to see a whole shot of them riding. Isn't it awesome when the action cuts off halfway through, and then they cut to someone else? SWEET. The segment sort of doesn't even make sense. The second time I watched it I think I got what they were going for. Maybe.
"The Collective" and "Anthill Productions" are technically different companies, but it's still the same dudes. For comparisons sake, look at the Whistler scene from Roam, way back in 2006:
It's actually pretty good. Sure the music sucks, the "watch me drop in behind the last guy" trick gets pretty old, and there's waaaaaay too much pedaling, but it stills works. It even makes sense. It's a coherent storyline, and that's more than you can say for the latest Anthill Whistler scene.
Looking at these two Whistler segments it's apparent that TheAntCollectivehill actually got worse at making movies. Their most recent Whistler segment is objectively worse. Why did they change anything? Just do it over again, with slightly different riders and see what happens. Wild guess: letting a bunch of super talented riders loose on Whistler is going to be entertaining as hell and you won't be disappointed, even if you don't storyboard out three minutes of narration and spend 10 days setting your cable cams up..
Everyone in mountain bike film making is trying to innovate, to one up each other, and to find the next new thing. To be the most epic. For some this means buying a Phantom Flex or a Red so they can do 1000 FPS shots and put people to sleep. For other filmmakers, progression means traveling halfway around the world to Bolivia or Nepal or Morocco or another place called BFE to build the same jumps they have in Kamloops and to put the riders in mortal danger in a country where healthcare means calling the local witch doctor to ward off infection. For others progression means stopping at nothing to show how bro'd out you all get when you come together to collaborate and shred; Reggae, sunlit beaches, and boardshorts somehow make it into bike movies when you're trying to illustrate just how chill the scene is, bro.
So the movie makers keep "progressing" and getting away from the basic formula
METAL + BANGER RIDING + FAST EDITING = GOOD VIDEO
But what no one realizes is that you don't need to keep artificially "pushing the boundaries." This attitude of constant, unmotivated "progression" pervades all of mountain biking, whether it be film making, trail building, or steerer tube standards. MORE MORE MORE.
Guess what? 200 million people turned into NFL games last year. 278 million people watched the NBA. The seven World Series games last year averaged 17 million viewers per game. Even the NHL had 70 million viewers last year. And those sports have looked really similar for the last 30 years.
Major league (aka real) sports don't need to change the rules or introduce new cameras or use crazy editing techniques or build bigger fields to draw viewers in. These are real sports, and a real sport is compelling enough on its own. Year in, year out, fans root for their favorite player and their favorite team because of things like personality, athleticism, and geography, not because of 1000 FPS Phantom Flex cameras.
What I'm trying to say is that there is no need to reinvent mountain biking every time you film a web edit. Maybe next time just make a movie with bike riding in it. Just go out into the woods and shoot what you think is good, edit it to music that you think is good, and maybe some people will think it's good. If they don't like it, then you know they suck.
Wait...
 |
| This lightbulb is supposed to signify an epihany that I just had while writing this. |
An epihany that I just had while writing this: Maybe the new, crappy videos are what the movie makers wanted to do all along, and it's only now that they have the budget and freedom to allow them to finally realize their crappy artistic vision.
There's no denying that, at this point, Clay can do whatever he wants. I'm sure he would say he has this limitation and that restriction, but basically, if he really wants to do something, he can get it done, as long as it's not rebuilding and then resinking the Titanic for his next Atherton webedit. Clay can do whatever he wants to do, and it turns out that when he puts his head down and starts thinking, his ideas just aren't that cool.
"I miss filming with Alex."
Maybe getting to do everything you want to do creatively isn't a formula for success. All creativity takes place within boundaries, and when you are totally unbounded, with an endless budget, and no direction, you get things like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.
It's unwatchable. Seriously, I bet you fell asleep. This is a ten minute fight scene that does nothing to move the story along or develop the characters. I'm not invested in this fight scene at all. Congratulations George, your crappy artistic vision was fully realized. It turns out that you just suck.
Watch this 2 minute Rennie video, and learn how visual story-telling works:
No budget, no tripods, no interviews, just Rennie and The Who. The riding speaks for itself. Without any words, I know way more about Rennie's riding style, personality, attitude, and Whistler's terrain from two minutes of Rankin than I could ever get from a documentary style ten-minute slowmo cable cam SNAFU.
Good is good.
A question for Marc Beaumont
Marc, why you be wearin a hat with yo riding kit?
Homeboy be lookin wack.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Going to the big leagues
Here's the sort of email that gets me pretty stoked:
Hello,
You have been granted a National Team reserved start spot for the Norway Downhill World Cup.
Please email me back and let me know if you would like to accept this start spot.
If you don’t already have a USA National Team jersey (from last year or this year made by Barbedo Sports) then let me know what size DH jersey you are and I’ll get one out to you. You will be required to wear this jersey during your timed run/qualifying run and your final run.
Finally, I’ll need to know the name, address and phone number of the hotel you will be staying at for the event in order to get you registered so send that over to me asap.
Let me know if you have any questions and if you wish to accept this start spot,
Marc Gullickson
Mountain Bike & Cyclo-Cross Program Director
USA Cycling
The above country flag still sucks, but I like their color choice. Some stars and some horizontal stripes would be a huge improvement, though.
Junior phenom Kevin Littlefield looks like he's going, so it should be a pretty good showing. Obviously I'm stoked out of my mind right now.
-Chaz
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
You and your friends are dumb
No, I'm not making fun of Steve Smith. Clearly not. It's not his fault that someone else referred to him as "legendary." It's not exactly like Steve finished his 12 minute long Garbo run and then, while he was busy puking up a lung through his dust lined, bleeding esophagus, hike up the hill until he found Colin Meager shooting photographs and say "Hey, Colin! When you write the captions for the pinkbike article later tonight, can you refer to me as A LEGEND!!"
I'm not really making fun of Colin Meager either. Colin takes awesome photographs and is a nice guy. Okay, I've only met him half-of-once while he was minding his own business trying to eat dinner with his friends, but he was very polite to my interrupting ass and we had a nice chat. Mr. Meager is one of the two main Pinkbike World Cup photo guys, and I'd say he does a pretty damn good job. I always read his writeups, especially when he makes fun of me.
No, the purpose of that article wasn't to say someone sucks or to discount the value of what they're doing. At all. It was actually to make fun of the words we use as mountain bikers, words like "legend," "epic," and "crazy." Because, if you were really honest with yourself, nothing you've ever done on a mountain bike is legendary, epic, or crazy. I'm not saying Steve or Colin suck a lot. I'm saying that you, mountain bike community suck a little bit in this one, humorous area.
What does suck is having to explain your joke because your audience is too stupid for words. But because you are that sort of audience, let me explain it one more time:
What does suck is having to explain your joke because your audience is too stupid for words. But because you are that sort of audience, let me explain it one more time:
Hercules slaying the Hydra is legendary.
Odysseus battling Posiedon is epic.
John Hinckley, Jr. attempting to kill President Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster is crazy
You taking an extra hour and a half out of your day to pay money to ride a chairlift to the top of a big hill to coast down a trail that somebody else built for you is not legendary, epic, or crazy.
On the other hand, Steve Peat, Napalm, the Missile, and Voreis are all real, bona fide legends. There are active, factually inaccurate and conflicting oral histories being spread through all of mountainbikedom for each of those guys.
Here's a great write-up from the best page in the universe that I think captures my sentiment nicely. Read it for your own edification:
You could call it the inspiration for my current rant. You could just say that I plagiarized him completely. Maybe I'd like to think the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and that the original author would be flattered. Hey, it almost worked for Fareed.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that you're all idiots.
-Chaz
Monday, August 13, 2012
Freeriding/Legends
It's not all bad.
Mark Matthews in B.C.
Speaking of B.C. I saw this picture and caption on pinkbike from Steve Smith's recent win at the Garbanzo DH:
"BC legend Steve Smith layin it down with some authority in the Garbo DH as he rolls a slab on "In Deep". A dry, fast course helped Smith came home with a time of 12:33.27."
Obviously that's a pretty fast time. I heard the course is 12 kilometers long, which I think is, like 3 miles, so that's pretty long. Anyway, I'd never heard about the legend of Steve Smith. I know the native Americans of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest have a rich oral history, replete with legends that explain natural phenomena, retell significant events in tribal history, and give insight into the human condition. Fascinated, I started looking up British Columbia native American legends, but I couldn't find anything about this legendary about this Steve Smith character. Merriam Webster gives this definition of "legend:"
leg·end
noun \ˈle-jənd\a : a story coming down from the past; especially : one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiableb : a body of such stories legend
of the frontier>c : a popular myth of recent origind : a person or thing that inspires legendse : the subject of a legend
Actual B.C. legends:
According to legend, many years ago a young Indian Chief found great difficulty in choosing a bride. There were three very talented and beautiful maidens to choose from. The older Chiefs asked the gods to aid them. The Indian gods considered indecision a grievous sin; therefore, the punishment dealt out was severe.
The young Chief was turned into a mountain where, each day, he could look at what he could never have. The maidens' grief was so great that all three maidens prayed that they might be turned into mountains also. Their prayers were answered. As we gaze at the Three Sisters and Proctor Mountain we are looking at the three maidens and the young Chief.
The Legend of The Balancing Rock
Located only 10 minutes from Kamloops is The Balancing Rock. The rock itself weighs many tons and is precariously positioned atop a clay hoodoo base overlooking beautiful
But legend has it, that the rock came to rest where it does today because of a long standing feud between the Okanagan and Secwepemc First Nations people. It's been told that the Secwepemc and Okanagan First Nations people were involved in a battle for many years. Neither was winning or losing so a competition to determine the winner of the land was held where the strongest man from each side would try and balance a large rock on top of a standing rock. Try as he might, the Okanagan man could not lift the rock. The Secwepemc man tried and did lift the rock, balancing it on top of the standing rock, and as a result, the Secwepemc won the rights to the land.
Not an actual B.C. legend:
Steve Smith
New idea, old idea, good idea, bad idea
Brook MacDonald riding with a super short prototype stem:
Brook MacDonald riding without a super short prototype stem:
Way to think outside the box and all, but the bike industry actually tried that already:
Sunday, August 12, 2012
The only kid who didn't get to go to Worlds
Did you know that Brendog_1 has, like, a million followers on Twitter but still didn't make it onto the British Worlds team?
http://www.imbikemag.com/mountain-bike-news/2012/08/2012-world-champs-british-team-announced/
No, you read that right: the flag$hip rider on one of the biggest teams on the circuit didn't make the cut to go to the most important race of the season. All the hype in the world can't save you from a bad season. Apparently the world's team was not decided by fans texting in their top three faves.
How bad was his season, really? Well, to put it in perspective, Brendan's currently ranked 35th in the World Cup right now, which puts him just behind such World Cup veterans as 16 year old Richie Rude, 18 year old Loic Bruni, and 18 year old Connor Fearon, and also puts him behind several people you've never even heard of that make about 1/20th what Brendan makes, guys like Aurélien Giordanengo and Pierre Charles Georges. I'm pretty sure that Aerial Gorgonzola guy's best deal was when he landed free stickers, t-shirts, and 20% off of goggles from Scott on Sponsorhouse.
As it sits, the current Elite World's team for Britain is
Danny Hart
Gee Atherton
Josh Bryceland
Marc Beaumont
Matt Simmonds
Joe Smith
Sam Dale
Steve Peat
Which is weird, because if you've been following the news, America's World's team just got announced and we only had seven spots. So Britain had an extra spot and Brendoggystyle still didn't make the cut. It's okay though, cuz on the press release for British Cycling it said that Brendan had the "reserve" spot. You know, because with all the world cup rounds between the announcement this week and Worlds in two weeks, somebody might get hurt. Please, the only event between the announcement is Crankworx, and nobody gets hurt at Crankworx. I'm pretty sure it says in most pro contracts that if you get hurt dicking around at a festival event like Crankworx they take your bikes back and you hitchhike home.
So Brendan Fairclough isn't going, even though he makes way more money and gets way more hype than almost all the other guys on the British team, all the guys except Gee and Danny (BTW, yes, I do feel like I'm on a first name basis with all these guys. I've read about their lives on the internet).
So Brendan had a crappy season this year. But does anyone in the British Cycling federation remember when this happened 11 short months ago?
Yeah, not only does Brendanimal get paid more than almost every else that's going, and not only does he get more press for taking a big dump than Matt Simmonds gets in a whole season, Brendan was the second fastest Brit at, you know, the last World Championships.
Well, you don't have to wonder what goes on behind the scenes. Thanks to Team Robots investigative reporting, here's what the recent "Dear John" letter from British Cycling to Brendan Fairclough said:
"Oh yeah, thanks for getting fourth last year at Worlds for Mother England, you know with, like, half of one knee working. That was a big help for the team, big guy. Unfortunately we feel like the skills you demonstrated last year on that steep, rooty, muddy track in the Swiss Alps will not translate well to the steep, rooty, muddy track in the Austrian Alps. Sorry Brendan, the Austrian Alps are WAAAAAY different."
So, Scott11's probably pretty bummed. On the bright side though, Brendan will probably get more photos and interviews for doing another nacnac over Crabapple hits on Tuesday than he would have gotten from a win in Austria.
Oh, and he just won Speed and Style, but nobody really cares about that. Here's a great Speed and Style quote:
"Pro freerider Cam McCaul, who lent his expertise as an announcer at the Dual Speed & Style, feels that going fast and having the ability to pull multiple variations of tricks is going to be the type of riding that will prevail in future rounds of Speed & Style."
Thanks for that inside pro tip, Cam. My mind is literally blown right now.
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