Clayton Vila: Film Segments vs. Competitions

CANDIDE:

If you think about the beginning of your career when you won Winter X Games big air with a d-spin 900, did you ever think that freeskiing could become what it is today?

"Well, maybe not at the time but now it is what it is. But you know, it’s a bit sad that it turned out this way. The spirit of the sport is more about creating your own style and creativity and not ‘spin to win’. Right now everybody is doing pretty much the same thing. If you don’t have a double cork in your trick bag, you cannot win. This takes something away from the real spirit of the sport. The way that skiing is going now, for example with the Olympics, is making the sport ‘mainstream’ and bringing it to the masses. But do we really have to be like everybody else? Back in the day the purpose of the sport was to get away from things like mogul skiing and aerials, and we got inspired by snowboarding which was more fun and creative. But today when you look at the Olympics in terms of coaching and training, it’s kind of losing the real spirit of the sport."

 
just watched all the totally trevor edits, and i have to say i fully agree with clayton. its more entertaining to watch that, than to see people do a left side dub12 followed by a right side dub12.
 
While I completely agree that competition skiing should not define freeskiing, it is necessary to recognize that a lot of guys that are competing really need the money to continue living the ski-bum (sorta) lifestyle. And just as people have a drive to compete, perform and win in other sports, so do skiers.
 
hahaha come one man! Do you really think guys like bobby, goepper, wallisch and russ and all those other guys really need money from competing to live the ski bum sorta life style??? Anyone who is a real "ski bum" does not make money competing. Its called a god damn job!!! Clayton is smart and knows exactly what he is talking about. It would honestly be very humorous to see all those competition guys make segments. haha russ having a street segment, that would be too funny. As the TWO of the the ten slope invites to xgames. Wallisch and Edollo are sick. I would assume they both compete cuz there at that level of "perfection" if thats how you win. Its true though everyone will forget that Snowblading was once in x games but know one will forget segments like T-HALL in 1242 or Claytons Creep segment!!
 
This is stupid, ANYONE who skis in X Games or Dew Tour has more than enough ability to film and make a segment. Some of them choose to mainly compete, which is cool, but just because they don't put out a segment each year doesn't mean they're not capable of it.
 
Going to a park shoot and getting shots on a man made jump or rail feature is not filming a segment
 
I didn't say it was, I was just saying that all comp skiers have the skiing ability to put out really dope segments, some just choose to compete more than they film.
 
What got you into skiing? Watching the X-Games? for me, personally, I saw Dylan Natale's segment in Booter Crunk and I was like "fuck yea, I wanna be able to hit backcountry booters and huge closeouts"
 
Sorry to break the news bud but most of the skiers in the xgames could not do the rails tom does or ski the lines that Pettit does
 
The fact about film segments though is its not always about doing completely gnarly shit. .

Look at JP Auclairs segment in all I can nothing in that was off the wall gnarly yet I know tons of people who don't even ski who have seen that. Any of those people are capable of doing those kinds of things if they actually put more time into actually filming then just training for X Games.
 
I feel as if you're taking my words to the extreme, or I'm just too tired? Idfk, but name one person who competes in the X Games that COULDN'T shoot urban if they actually wanted to. Legit, if anyone of those people wanted to, they could shoot urban.

Just because they don't, doesn't mean they have some physical handicap that prevents them from filming hand rails.
 
Just because they can do dub corks and 4 disaster a park rail doesnt not mean they could hang on urban... plenty of really good urban skiers cant do dub 12s, they're different skill sets.
 
this. those guys could definitely put out "segments" but good segments? not as likely. And yes guys in X could hit urban rails but they could NEVER get an urban shot that Tom would consider a "shot". kfed on a down rail or somethign is great but none of them could 2 on to switch on the gagnier quad. Tom did it like 4 years ago...
 
If contest skiing becomes even more prominent, it will give non-competitors more to work against. In order to have someone that hates and does his or her best not to be robotic, you have to have the robots.

I see the film side of skiing becoming much more interesting in coming years while the contest side becomes much more mainstream and much more robotic.
 
i imagine fitting the schedules together can be quite difficult. let`s say you are a pro from europe travelling to the us for the major contests; you don`t wanna pay a lot for a flight overseas and then risk to get hurt on an urban rail right before a contest. now you could argue "why they are not filming in the backcountry..?" - from what i know, freeskiers have a certain budget to spend during their season. so they might just not have enough cash to go on heli or catski trips. and even if they would have it. who guarantees them that a filmer of one of the big companies is ready and waiting for them to go and shoot..? not to mention if a pro pursues a university degree or maybe does some other work besides skiing. does he have enough time left for his studies if he would go on filmtrips besides competing/training .. ?

furhtermore if you look at a guy like andreas hatveit for example: he has a family at home, so he might not want to be away from them for the whole season.

skiing has become a quite professional sport over the past couple of years, a little bit of filming is not enough to create an outstanding segment, while a lilttle bit of training won`t earn you a top spot in a competition - so if you go for filming, go for it at 100% or leave it - same goes for competitions..

and using tom as an argument that every skier can do it all together...well, we can agree that he is a badass guy and not everybody is blessed with his talent..

 
Good luck convincing skiers who make $100K a year in contest winnings (and sponsor matching) to focus on video segments? Why would you? Its not in their best interest. Their sponsors are paying them to compete, not to film and wear their bodies out and risk injury. I would gladly trade all the hard work and effort in producing a solid, full video part for hopping on the contest circuit and walking away a whole lot richer, but thats just me.

I think the reason there is such a divide in movie segments and contests is that it seems like skiing can't get rid of its competitve nature as a whole. Look at pro snowboarders, once the contest season is over, the contestants go to BC to sled, or off to Alaska to get in a heli--and have a blast doing it. Skiers seem to keep their focus on training for next season, just traveling in search of the best park or pipe. There's nothing wrong with that, we arent skateboarders, or snowboarders. If you feel the need to fit into their culture, pick up what they have under their feet. Or just go ski what you want to ski and if you have the right combination of skill, attitude, and patience, you'll get noticed and hopefully compensated somewhat accordingly.
 
nobody remembers comp results, everybody remembers a good film segment. sponsors need to get this and start putting funding in the right direction.
 
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