MikeWeinerONEThe corporate interests of Toyota spend a lot of money so that people from Kentucky, Florida, etc are stoked to ski and spend money on ski equipment and ski vacations which funds the sport for the NS crowd and skiers living in ski towns.
What do you think the most interesting shots are now days? You don’t see any interesting shots in these movies? Which editing techniques would you like to see more of?
Do you believe a company like MSP should try to appeal to 15-24 YO males with limited budget to spend money? Or do you prefer they cater to rich people who fund our sport in a larger scale and funnel money to bartenders, servers, resorts, or even small mountains and events at these places.
Someone has to stoke these people out to continue to come out to places like UT/CO/Tahoe and drop an average of 10K a week for a family of 4. Without these people being stoked on skiing, our culture and our resorts we wouldn’t exist.
I also believe Scott Gaffney is a true professional and knows or is capable of learning any editing technique to go alongside his creative mind if that was what attracted these sponsors.
i do think i'm not giving gaffney enough credit here, generally i'm just being the saltiest asshole in the thread, probably taking it way more seriously than i should.
you're wrong about the last part - sponsors aren't attracted by creativity. sponsors are attracted by marketability. and i don't mean to shame gaffney for finding and sticking with a marketable formula. i'm at a completely different point in my life in making movies where i'm not supporting a family or paying a mortgage etc., so obviously my approach to filmmaking is way more creativity/experimentally/innovatively pointed than business-focused. MSP is not a young production company at this point anymore so i get that they have to produce content that keeps the business running. and i'm not saying he couldn't or doesn't have the skills to switch styles and edit at a different pace and style. but that's not the reality and i don't expect MSP is going to be experimenting with styles anytime soon.
i don't think MSP doesn't have interesting shots, i have no immediate complaints about the the filming itself unless it's a "guy in the sky" shot like the one of bobby's dub flat in the trailer. MSP filmers are experts at what they do, especially backcountry/big mountain filmmaking. plenty of MSP footage is far more interesting than the footage that i or andrew can get with strictly on our limited budget.
i want to see literally any editing technique other than the action adventure drama epic shit. i'm sick of hearing voiceovers "oh my god" and "dropping in 3 2 1", epic drum beats to cut on, cineflex megamo a split second instead of respecting the entire context of a trick or a line. i feel like the editing always caters towards this facade of some lifestyle of a nomadic action sports athlete, cherry-picking choice moments to glorify the sport and action beyond what it really is. it just feels fake to me. i think that's closely straddling the boundary where filmmaking gets in the way of appreciating the skiing itself. in my opinion in making ski movies/edits/whatever - the skiing is paramount, the filmmaking should support that without eclipsing it.
i mean, you're really not wrong here. someone DOES have to stoke out the vacation skiers who actually "put money into this sport" - although that's a completely different discussion, because we all are aware that the kind of money those people spend is barely touching us, so much of it goes right to corporate interests. like, maybe you could argue about local restaurants and bars, etc. but 9k out of that 10k that a 4 person family spends is going to Vail/Alterra/Real Estate Corporations/etc... maybe it pays an NSer's wages somewhere along the line, but it's not going back into supporting our community. even though, based on the content MSP produces, they're way closer aligned to our community's content than the corporate side. so no, i think our culture already exists outside of the realm of the money vacation skiers infuse into the greater sport of skiing.
and i'm not saying i just want MSP to just start manicuring their content to fit the interests of 15-24YO males like me. i want to see MSP take a fucking risk again. make a provocative segment. stop catering content to just massage the imaginary adventure egos of backcountry berts.
again, i'm just an opinionated asshole. i don't understand all the perspectives at play here and i'm definitely wrong about plenty of my opinions, but i still feel like voicing my dissatisfaction with MSP because i grew into skiing watching movies like Attack of La Nina, In Deep, etc... and i feel like the magic is lost to me now.
