So I just finished watching it, and I really love what Voleurz did. They made a video that wasn't just a ski video or snowboard video, it had both, and some skating too. I thought that was an awesome concept. I won't lie, no matter how good a ski movie is, towards the end I almost always start getting a bit bored, no matter how sick the segments are at the end. I think Voleurz's idea to mix up all the sports so you get a little bit of everything was a great idea, and I was so ready for another 20 minutes of it when it ended. They sort of broke the mold of the contemporary freeski film (I don't know about snowboard films, I haven't seen many), opting out of any of the old templates and deciding to structure the film their own way. In my opinion, it was really bold, and it paid off well.
The only things I would criticize it on would be that I thought it just a bit snowboard heavy, and I wanted to see more big mountain segments; I understand that shooting real big stuff usually requires a really expensive trip (including a private heli rental), but I still found the BC stuff to be a bit sparse, and all the BC shots were BC kickers...yeah, they were sick, but why not just some natural lines? But it was pretty clear that they were headed in a more urban direction, so if that's what Rayner and the crew had in mind, more power to them.
For those of you who haven't seen it, go to
http://voleurz.com or just go to Vimeo and look up Outdoor Graduation (it's the first one, not the teaser, obviously). For those of you who have seen it, what did you think? How did you like the idea of mixing a whole bunch of action sports into one fluid, multi-sport movie? I'm curious to hear what the rest of NS thought about what I found to be one of the more innovative movies put out this season.
