Most of these responses are pretty outlandish and ridiculous. You guys do realize that surfing has been doing this with Innersection for a number of years with great success, right? The whole point of Colab (and Innersection) is to harness the power of the internet and increased access to production tools to give people that are overlooked in the narrow scope of "pro film companies" a stage to gain exposure. The incentive of entering the contest was even though you may not win the cash purse, you have the potential to gain significant exposure and a spot in a major company's film that these skiers would not have access to be in otherwise. I know McNutt for example has received significant interest from sponsors and companies due to his performance, despite not winning the "grand prize". Step back for a minute and have some vision and foresight.
In Logan Imlach's Olympics thread, Mousseau said something to the notion that it wouldn't be wise for companies or major athletes to enter the contest and I responded that "if they were smart they would have." While that is a pretty sweeping claim, the point I was getting at was that if athletes framed the concept in a more strategic light, they would realize that despite a slim chance of taking the $100,000 there were huge benefits to releasing a segment that would traditionally be saved for a film. Does anyone here have an idea of how many people annually see the Level 1 or PBP film? The numbers are not all that impressive. Stept for example released Sean Jordan's insane urban part online in early September with no potential for reward or return, merely to promote their film and gain web views. Why not release that segment 4 months earlier with the same return in film promotion and web views but also with a shot at the biggest purse in skiing history? Same goes for anyone else releasing their "film" segments now.
Beyond that, TGR dropped close to a couple hundred grand on this contest in prize money, marketing, and man hours without a sponsor backing the project- why do any of you see an issue with recouping a fraction of that cash? Ski film companies and companies in general in this industry are extremely stingy and tight on cash, I have not see any other company put up their personal resources at this level for the betterment of the sport, the following criticism is unfortunate and in my opinion unfounded.
The ski media industry is in desperate need of progression- the short-sighted responses seem to further the notion that the ski industry is really leaps and bounds behind the leaders of action sports.
