Future of ski movies

JLev

Member
Reading posts about what movie was better or worst than last year I've got to say that all of these movie companies are expected to do the impossible each year! and it's only they're own perseverance & passion that's kept them going this long. These guys work their asses off 12 months a year (not just a couple of mths during winter) & they can no longer be expected to progress with mind blowing content like we've come to expect because the sport's progression of introducing new tricks, cameras tech, etc. simply can't maintain the previous high pace. skiing will continue to evolve but not at the pace of the past 10 years. On top of that sponsors and athletes are now pulling their $ and time out of these films & doing their own projects, releasing shorter vids more often, as they should be leveraging social media & today's digital FREE distribution to get the word out to more people more often. No longer is a ski companies only way to show their athlete skiing on product accomplished by paying a movie company to shoot it and distribute it. But this also puts the film co's at a disadvantage trying to impress us more than the last year, with less money and less athletes to pull from.

For all of the above reasons, especially because of free digital distribution and lower cost vid creation wiithin 3 years the full length annual ski movie format will no longer exist. Level 1 is one of the few that due to their popularity and hard work actually have another side of their business that will quickly if not already become their main business (clothing) of which any and all vids they put out only strengthens. TGR has their website and messageboard that they'll need to make a priority. I'm sure all of film co's will quickly learn to capitalize on the year round, multiple short edit release format that guys like Stept have already committed to next season so that we can watch it as it is. . . a really talented dude or two doing some sick inspiring skiing for a couple of days without the unrealistic expectations of 40 minutes of never before seen mind blowing, game changing experience we've all been trained to expect on an annual basis. Stoked to see the evolution!
 
I hate to agree with this but all of the insane free content this last year, especially the Big Picture kind of pushed it home for me. I like to hope that traditional ski movies will be able to find a place and survive in some form, but who knows?
 
don't know if this really applies to the ski movie industry but I was stoked on this Pontus Alv Interview on skate movies

" From my side I don't want to be a part of this whole internet clip consuming skateboarding. You know, put out a clip just to get your brand out there. Throw some shit out there and you wash out your whole team. You want to save some mystery. You want the people and the kids to wonder, what's going on? They're working on something and it's exciting. When it drops I want it to change something, i want it to mean something. I'm really over these shitty web clips that come out every week. Nobody remembers it and it doesn't mean shit. It's cool sometimes but I don't want to be a part of it, I'd rather completely close the doors and then drop something where people haven't seen anything like it before. I don't want to hype it up too much or anything but I think we have a couple of cards up our sleeve that are going to be sick for people to watch."
http://www.slamcity.com/blog/pontus-alv-interview-2
 
I really hope we're reaching the age where ski movie progression is no longer in tricks or style or who has the most expensive camera rig. I want to see more movies like The Recruitment. Movies that don't follow the same cut and paste format that most movies have followed in recent years. I want to see film companies try new things and blissfully succeed. I want to see film companies try new things and fail miserably for it.

We already have a whole spectrum of types of skiing, a whole spectrum of types of styles, so why not make a spectrum of ski films?
 
Having not seen a movie yet this year, and just from reading reviews it sounded more like everyone killed it and put out amazing shit, but it was the editing that was lacking. You could tie it to your argument though, we see 2-4 minute "segments" with kids skiing to music all the time so that doesn't cut it in a movie anymore. The people want more that just segments, we want a new way to watch and experience ski movies. Sherpa's tries to add story, but the final result is redundant filler between segments. If I wanted to watch an edit, I'd watch it for free on newschoolers. I'd really like to see some experimentation that really differs from the current typical ski film.

[video]http://youtu.be/xlXtuTxk3SU?t=1m30s[/video]
 
13166989:toastyteenagers said:
Sadly I think the production values are going to go up like crazy.

so every film will be like art of flight

and that is a bad thing why?

ski movies have become so stale and boring. leave the ski porn style film to web edits. I wanna see documented trips, full lifestyle. I dont have the answer because I am a victim to of choosing web based media content over a ski movie at the end of the year. ill wait until a buddy buys it, watch it, and never see it again. ADD rules over all.
 
Finally someone brought this to a NS forum and everyones attention.I honestly think about this issue almost daily. It really started when All.I.Can came out, that was a two year project. Taking a while to film with great athletes allowing them to get the best material possible. What MSP, Sweetgrass, and Sherpa Cinema are doing, other companies are going to follow in suit. Taking there time and gathering resources and having the best content possible.

As far as personal projects we are going to see what is going on in the skate,bmx,and surf world. More guys will be taking years to film just one part. Let alone a movie. Also we will be seeing more company films much like skating and bmx.( I dont know why this hasn't happend more often). I mean look at skating , Pretty Sweet was an amazing film and that took multiple years to film.

I don't understand why there has not been a full length film of just LINE guys. Seeing Andy Parry and Eric Pollard in the same film would be epic.

I totally agree with JLev, in the next 5 year there will be no more annual ski films.
 
13166902:dgraves said:
don't know if this really applies to the ski movie industry but I was stoked on this Pontus Alv Interview on skate movies

" From my side I don't want to be a part of this whole internet clip consuming skateboarding. You know, put out a clip just to get your brand out there. Throw some shit out there and you wash out your whole team. You want to save some mystery. You want the people and the kids to wonder, what's going on? They're working on something and it's exciting. When it drops I want it to change something, i want it to mean something. I'm really over these shitty web clips that come out every week. Nobody remembers it and it doesn't mean shit. It's cool sometimes but I don't want to be a part of it, I'd rather completely close the doors and then drop something where people haven't seen anything like it before. I don't want to hype it up too much or anything but I think we have a couple of cards up our sleeve that are going to be sick for people to watch."
http://www.slamcity.com/blog/pontus-alv-interview-2

It's an interesting opinion thats definitely relevant to the topic of the thread but I took the quote a little less seriously once I read over this part:

"When it drops I want it to change something, i want it to mean something"

What could you possibly want a skate edit to mean? There's not much meaning or substance put into any action sport edit. It's just awesome clips of cool tricks. Nothing more. You're not conveying any secret message that takes a team of philosophers to unveil. If you are, then you're definitely over thinking it. It's just skiing.

I like the direction the film industry is moving toward. I would never pay 30 bucks plus shipping just to watch a movie. The clips are gonna leak on ns, youtube, or vimeo eventually anyway.
 
accessibility for the kids is the best thing about the future! film equipment used to be available to production companies, media outlets were dvds, and industry sponsors have been a monopoly... im sure there will be full length productions for a long time to come

10 years ago we dreamed of tricks kids are doing now...

in ten years, kids will do the tricks i did last year...

wait till i produce the movie of my dreams...
 
I just had a look at what L1P is selling these days in terms of apparel, and to be honest, I don't see a lot of people buying that stuff if L1P ceases to be first and foremost a film company. It's essentially a lot of average, everyday stuff that's just branded with various L1P logos. In other words, if the brand itself doesn't continue to represent what it does now, I can't imagine people would be inclined to represent the brand anymore.

I do agree that it's probably just a matter of time for the standard format ski movie. The company-sponsored team movie (i.e. Salo Freeski TV or TC or things like those) are already, I think, moving towards becoming the primary method for us to get our ski stoke on video-wise. I doubt they'll die completely, though; for example I have trouble believing MSP is going to stop making flicks any time soon.
 
Lets go the route of skateboarding and start throwing out 2-3 year team movie projects.

One year is a really short amount of time to travel, compete, get "revolutionary" shots, market, and succesfully release a ski movie. Kudos to Berman, Decheserae, MSP, TGR, the Martini Bros, the 4bi9 guys, and anyone else who has been putting out high quality full length features for the past 10 years.
 
I like that you are stoked about the new movie format. It represents a positive trend on NS. Why approach change with skepticism when you can approach it with optimism? Also stoked to see what happens.
 
13166989:toastyteenagers said:
Sadly I think the production values are going to go up like crazy.

so every film will be like art of flight

I don't think you remember the days where all of these were shot on very very expensive 16mm with cameras that weighed a million kilograms.
 
What about team movies? Snowboarders have been doing it for years, and it certainly seems to work (from a distance perspective).
 
I don't think the 'ski movie' will ever go away, but I don't see production companies being able to keep up with the yearly releases as they could for the last 10-20 years. We've already seen the influx of two year projects, if anything, yearly releases will just become half-an-hour online freebees. I've had the notion that pros won't be able to be 'comp-circuit skiers' and still film professional level group movie parts (not solo projects) for a while now, I think thats becoming more true than ever.
 
13166952:Poikenz said:
The people want more that just segments, we want a new way to watch and experience ski movies. Sherpa's tries to add story, but the final result is redundant filler between segments.

Is it? I hear people on here complaining much more often about films taking too much time with shots that isn't skiing than films not taking enough time with shots that aren't just skiing. Seems to me that more and more the people watching just want to see banger shot after banger shot and consider any second in the film not spent doing that a complete waste.

13167016:soup said:
ADD rules over all.

Exactly. The kids buying these movies don't have the attention span for a 45-60 minute movie
 
"a real movie is seen in a cinema" ~ Captain Obvious

The Bumps Documentary is now in roadshow mode.

The future is about seeing stuff you can't already see online and hence will have to pay to see - an unfilled niche, and possibly crowd-financed.

It'd be interesting to note how well the Inspired tour would be going if Henrik and Phil weren't there.

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." - Albert Einstein
 
I feel like future ski movies will include far more kids. I say that because I've noticed that there are more and more super talented kids when it comes for skiing. Like I've 10 year olds stomping cork 5's. It's crazy!
 
I've been developing a new camera system for about two years now and it will be finished for this season. Once I bust this fucker out there will be no going back- for anybody.

Mark my words, I'm going to blow all your minds this year. The future is closer than you think, and I seriously hope they do the TGR Co-Lab again this season so I can enter.

OP I know what you're saying and that is completely true- while the big guys have saturated a changing market, connectivity is changing to allow more even access to everyone. A Level 1 or a Stept can get their stuff out almost as well (even if in a different capacity or medium) as TGR can, etc. and although the giants still exist, it's in a different context than in years past. IMO we need both, and it's turning into something really, really cool. Heck, forums like this can put ski industry legends like yourself in direct contact with schmucks like myself and even just that is crazy.

The world is getting smaller and that is mostly a good thing for us. I'm sad to see the era of profitability for crews like Ski The East for their full length films go to the wayside, but that doesn't mean they're out of the game, and their influence on the EC scene is still very real. Evolution indeed!
 
13167016:soup said:
and that is a bad thing why?

ski movies have become so stale and boring. leave the ski porn style film to web edits. I wanna see documented trips, full lifestyle. I dont have the answer because I am a victim to of choosing web based media content over a ski movie at the end of the year. ill wait until a buddy buys it, watch it, and never see it again. ADD rules over all.

welll I mean, meanwhile in canada did that pretty damn well and I was thoroughly entertained the entire way. Idunno, I didnt really like art of flight compared to the other films released that year (namely Horgasm). Content over cinematic prowess I suppose.

Also Id like to point out that Legs of Steel and Indeed productions put out by far the most entertaining movie of the year, props for doing something different, I laughed my ass off
 
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