FOW: Experience Human Flight

This film was produced by “Betty Wants In.” for the Melbourne Skydive Centre and the title says it all.  The short promotional film shifts between real time and a slow motion speed that allows the viewer to relate with the broader and more subtle details of the experience of falling.  While I think the lack of an ambient track is better for the overall appeal and style of the piece, I wonder what reasons led them to exclude any ambient.  Having never been sky diving, I don’t really know, but assume that not much could be heard other than the rush of air.  Overall, the piece was mesmerizing and makes me want to go skydiving more than any other skydiving film I have seen.  Thanks for showing me this film Ben Haas.

FOW: Tempest Freerunning Academy Ad

This advertisement for the new Tempest Freerunning Academy is pretty sick.  The way they did transitions between different choreographed sequences was pretty creative and allowed the constantly moving scene to continue with out an obvious cut of fade.  However, I still want to see Freerunning shot with a high speed camera.

Rock Climbing Apps

So I have been looking at creating a mobile application (android AND iphone) and wanted to explore what was already being done.  Just as with most mobile applications, are great ideas and others not so much.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of great ideas out there that just don’t seem to work.  This may be because of poor and hurried design and coding, but could also be due to limitation in our current technology.

Red River Gorge Climbs

I think the climbing app. most are familiar with, at least in the East, is the Red River Gorge Climbs app by Wolverine.  I had the opportunity to play with this app. on my last trip to the Red and was very impressed.  Unfortunately, I have yet to see their apps for android phones (had to barrow the gf’s iphone).  However, it looks like they will be releasing other guidebook apps as well including Rifle, CO and the various areas in and around the New River Gorge, WV.  Here is a link to a ClimbingNarc post about the guide and below is a video demonstration.

Where’s the Nearest Cliff?

This is an app. by MEA Mobile and it didn’t work for my roommate Ben Haas (who gives it one star).  This could be due to the topography of our area, which is rocky (wait…isn’t that the point?).  It could also be a glitch or it might be that this app sucks.  Here is what others had to say in the review section of the iTunes store.

Spraycaster

While I haven’t used this app because it doesn’t exist for android, I have done some looking around and it seems to be like training log that you can “spray” all over the internet.  Yay! 8a that you can shove up your ass and take with you!  Yes, that is a bit harsh and I am sure I am guilty of  regaling people with stories of my favorite/hardest accents, but I am not sure an app. needs to encourage it.  Despite my rant, I am sure this app. has a lot of great features for those, like myself, that want to keep track of how hard they are trying and to keep track of training etc.  My question is, “Can you ‘spray’ to your twitter while in the Red River Gorge where signal is patchy or do you have to go to Miguel’s and do it the old fashioned way?” Here is another link to ClimbingNarc for your reading pleasure.

Knots Guide

Knots Guide by SusaSoftX is a handy little app. with various knots for various uses including climbing, which has its own section.  While a great reference to recall knots you may not have tied recently, I am not sure the app. would be a great way to learn new knots.  The pictures are not always easy to see and some knots only have a single picture as opposed to a series demonstrating the steps, however the app. is simple and easy to use.  If only I could tweet how many hard knots I can tie.

Climbing Grade Converter

While I don’t have this app. by Blue Fusion Games, it seems like a great idea.  The app. does just what you would think.  It converts grades from 14 different grading systems for climbing around the world.  Now it only it would tell me which ones where sandbagged.

FOW: GT3 Climb

I don’t know anything about cars.  I have a hard time keeping up with the simple maintenance on mine, but this blew me away.  The race is run on a 12.42 mile course with 156 turns that begins at 9,390 feet and finishes at the 14,110 foot summit of Pikes Peak located 10 miles west of  Colorado Springs, CO.

While racing doesn’t usually interest me all that much, this film got me excited about hairpin turns at fast speeds.  The variety of shots highlighting the subtle and precise movement of the driver.  The wide, medium and tight shots give you an overall sense of the cars movement and the beauty of Pike’s Peak and the great ambient sounds really makes you feel like your their.

Will Roegge’s film is simple, but beautifully takes you on Jeff Zwart’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb record run in a Porsche GT3.

Banff: The After Party

This is some more information about the films presented at the Banff Mountain Film Tour.  I also tried to include videos and trailers when possible for those of you who were unable to attend the sold out event.  Enjoy!

Kranked Kids

Produced by Radical Films.

Incomplete Clip

Life Cycles

Check out more at Life Cycles.

Crossing the Ditch

Here is a link with more information about what James and Justin are up to. website

Dream Result

Khumbu Climbing School

Here is a link to the film and the camp 4 climbing collective.

Into Darkness

Produced by Uncage the Soul. A short trailer can be seen there.

The Swiss Machine

Trailer

To buy the full film check out Sender Films.

FOW: Banff Mountain Film Fest

If you haven’t experienced the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, here is a short trailer to see what this year’s tour has to offer.  The trailer ends with some advertisement you may or may not be interested in watching.

The Banff Mountain Film Festival will be in Morgantown, WV on Thursday April 7, 2011 at 7pm in the Metropolitan Theater.  For those of you elsewhere, here is a complete schedule of the Banff Tour and its stops.  For more information check out Chestnut Mountain Productions and The Banff Centre.

Mapping Cooper’s Rock’s Bouldering Distribution

View Larger Map

Green = VB-V3

Orange= V4-V6

Red = V7+

While this isn’t the prettiest map in the world, it does provide some great information in a simple easy-to-use way.  I only use free on-line software to create it including Create A Graph to make my pie charts, Google Maps for the interactive map and an old WordPress account to store the images that could be used by Google Maps.  There is a lot of potential for more information to be added including pictures, videos and links.  Check out these posts about other ideas that could be incorporated with this map in the future: “Google’s Sick Project” “Virtual Bouldering: Microsoft Photosynth” “Map Medium”

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx

The Struggle to Shoot

I like to play.  I enjoy climbing, running, biking, riding, dancing and moving in any way I can.  I thoroughly enjoy journalism, but that doesn’t mean I always want to be taking pictures and video of the action.  I am an outdoor journalist because I like to DO… And then talk, show and share non-stop until people tell me to shut up.  Sometimes it is a struggle…snapping pics and shutting up.

I find myself organizing gear instead of charging batteries.  I often carry my camera bag to only use it as storage for my keys.  I will rack up over and over again until the good light is gone and often spend more time washing the chalk off my hands than editing photos.  It is hard to be a journalist if you aren’t behind the camera.  I am sure Mikey Smith, from my prior post wants to ride waves, instead of getting pounded by them some days.

However, I see benefit to my struggle.  With the right amount of  discipline and self control, my experience allows me to understand the sensations and emotions in a deeper and more vivid way.  Experience is the best research: It allows you to feel, see, hear, smell, taste and connect to an activity in multiple ways.  With the movement toward multimedia story telling, understanding experiences is more important than ever before.  To present and portray the complete story a journalist needs to be connected to the subject or activity.  They need to draw upon all of their senses, understand an audiences ability to relate to those experiences and think creatively to express them through a variety of mediums.  DOing is the research of the kinesthetic journalist…At least that’s how I justify it.  And if it’s all work and no play what’s the point in pursuing journalism in a field that you love anyway.

Film of the Week: Home Bouldering

So this isn’t a “Film of the Week” because of the filming or editing, but because someone put a lot of work into setting a cool boulder problem in their house.  I believe their is something awesome about creating a puzzle or sequence that can be experienced physically by others.  A setter can create an experience that is both shared by others, yet can be interpreted differently as well.  While this film doesn’t have the production value typical in my “Film of the Week,” the shots were were well composed allowing us to experience this unusual boulder problem.

Google’s Sick Project

I get lost.

So I get super lost when I am in new areas.  Yes, I know how to use a GPS.  Yes, I can read a topo map and use a compass.  I know the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, but when I visit a new area I almost always get lost (except for at Rifle…you have a better chance of getting lost in a gym, especially this one).  Generally I fair pretty well on return visits and become easily familiarized as long as a pay attention to the trail during the hike.   It is hard not to flamingo stretch my neck to peer over and through vegetation the rocks.

However, people like myself have a new hope and Google may be cooler than Luke Skywalker himself.  With the creation of Google’s Art Project people can experience places and locations from their couch before or without ever visiting them.  The site/multimedia piece allows you to, “explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.”  DAMN!  That is the whole package.  The ability to navigate virtually through the individual rooms is cool enough, but this site has a lot more to offer.  Combining this virtual reality with a floor plan map to navigate between the different rooms, a Google map showing the museum’s location, a separate viewer for looking at individual pieces with great detail and plenty of artist and historical information provided in drop down menus and links this site is the convergence of many mediums.  the most impressive thing is the format and design that brings all of these elements together in what I felt was an easy and intuitive design.

So What?

This is how we need to approach portraying rock climbing areas, rivers, trails and any other recreational area, geographic location.  These mixed-mediums are the next step for the visual, spatial and experiential learner.  Which in my opinion is most of the outdoor community.  These are people who ‘read’ topos and go do stuff.  They are people who want to see and experience their environments and they could get more out of their media if it came to life.  Along with Google, National Geographic is a great example using new technology and techniques to do a different type of storytelling and journalism.  They have partnered with Microsoft to create an amazing multimedia piece that is similar to Google’s Art Project in design, but encourages viewer input in the form of images.  Learn more about Microsoft’s Photosynth software and National Geographic’s  in this post.

Understanding these new technologies and how they can be combined correctly to portray stories and information in new ways is the awesome future new technology and on-line tools are providing us.  We can communicate in new ways and combine multiple mediums to portray things more vividly and to better suit the multitude of ways people learn and consume media.

If I can go to the Obed virtually and walk down the trail, observing the path in some augmented reality at home or perhaps on my phone, I’d never miss a turn.  Melissa, my gf, and I wouldn’t spend an entire day looking for Tierrany Roofs walking icy boulders that were more like snot covered bowling balls with icicles raining down around us from the high ceilings above.  However, I am not sure I would ever want to forget that experience and there is something to be learned from getting lost.