For some reason my account always get messed up and Ive stopped making new ones for a while because I figure its useless too but I wanted to post about this msp issue. In a lot of threads there have been some extremely unintelligent, nonsensical remarks on both sides of the msp issue. While Im not exactly in the know, Im hoping my thought process on this will help some of you think of both sides of the issue and maybe reevaluate your stance.
Start of MSP debacle
There is a phone conversation in High Five, it does exist. To the extend of what steve winter says is the footage is second rate and smaller film companies will fold in the near future. The way steve winter presented himself from a business standpoint was completely out of line and rude. I believe he was inferring to berman that the actual image quality of the footage was not at a 16mm level, not that the actual skiing was too weak to show. Steve winter basically should have said “You know josh, you footage is real sick but were going for more of a cinematographic feel with high film quality this year and I don’t think your footage would fit this style. Im real sorry about this and I think were not going to use much of your footage as we had planned. Im really sorry this didn’t work out this year but maybe next year we can put something together.� This would have been the end of story. Basically all he needed to say was the footage wasn’t matching up with our film so its not going to work out. If he wanted berman to film some of their stuff for next year he should have just said “well give you some 16 mm film and you can shoot some shots for us.� He should not have mentioned anything pertaining to sponsorship money. If winter wanted more money he should have gone to the sponsors and asked for it and if dynastar chose not to give berman money and put it all in msp, that’s bermans fault. There was no need however to mention to berman that small companies might fold.
Video distributor crisis
I have no idea the extent of validation in these claims but some have said that session 1242 sold more copies than focused and would be placed on the front of the vas catalog. Ok, lets say that statement is true. If winter was able to convince the distributor to put yearbook on the front of their catalog and advance him 100k, he made a good business deal. If vas thought msp’s business was that important that is not winters fault. Poor boyz should be mad at vas and not msp for doing this. This was a deal strictly between vas and msp and if poor boyz didn’t have the muscle its their fault.
Iberg and tanner situation
I am not sure when Winter approached cr and tanner about filming with them. For all I know winter was upset tanner never went to him for an offer and he wanted to give tanner an offer to produce his film. I see nothing wrong if winter thought he could make a better film with tanner and asked tanner to go with him. Again though, as in the berman case, its probably the way winter presented himself. If winter did approach tanner in midproduction, the message should have basically been “I know youre filming you movie with iberg this year, but we would really be interested in helping you on a project for next year. Well give you a ton of funds and backing if you want to make another movie next year and id be real interested in working with you on it,� Again, that would have helped winter for next year and not have pissed tanner off.
Sponsors and Msp
I am pretty much in the dark on what all went on here but I think I do have some valid claims. Mark Abma switched to Salomon this year. A lot of people have said msp made him switch to be in their movie and he is filming with them exclusively. First off, most of you forget Mark Abma had to fire fight during the summer to ski in the winter. He now may be making enough money to be skiing year round or getting more heli footage. Shane Mcconkey is with k2 and is still with msp, pollard is with line and msp, Ingrid is with volkl and so is jt Holmes. Hugo is with rossi. The athlete ski sponsorship is still pretty diverse. Now why did seth leave if he didn’t need to switch to Salomon? This stumped be for a big but now its pretty obvious. Dumont and Olenick are a Salomon skier but not with msp, alma can be with msp and is still in poor boyz. Pollard is also in multiple films. There is one sponsor that clearly is film affiliated though and that’s Oakley. I really think all this msp sponsorship is bullshit because it doesn’t make sense. But if you take note, hugo is the only Oakley athlete not in a poor boyz film and im not sure if hes still with Oakley. I really think it is Oakley and poor boyz made this athlete divide and not msp.
Athletes and Msp
As I have just said Oakley and poor boyz have caused the sponsorship mess. Now a claim Levine was making happened to be that msp wont share any footage with poor boyz for the one and only Oakley movie. The year before seth filmed with warren miller with no problem. Hugo is filming with warren miller this year. Now lets say msp prevented them from filming with poor boyz which clearly isn’t true from the cases above. Dan treadway is not an msp athlete. If poor boyz wanted “once in a life time segments� for their skiers, why didn’t treadway have a full segment? The only reason I can think of for this whole issue is that poor boyz was too cheap to put seth and hugo in a heli and film them. They decided to just buy msp footage. And obviously msp will sell old footage. They are not going to sell the footage for focused, they depend on that for their own movie. Again, it looks like poor boyz is at fault.
MSP also has treated their athletes pretty well. I mean After McConkey put in an amazing segment in ski movie, they still were willing to take him heli skiing and put money into him in focused after two injury years. They were the first company to take new schoolers to big mountains and continue to lead the trend. No one would know pep, cr, pollard, and Abma could ski without msp. Also, most of the younger people on this site keep ranting about how big mountain skiers are terrible in the park. You probably don’t remember but guys like mcconkey, krietler, and holmes were are in contests like the x-games and gravity games competing against jp, vinnie, Douglas and so on. Jt Holmes used to win the high north camper contest for tricks. Darron Ravles was in a warren miller movie a couple years ago, and while I never saw it, he susposedly was throwing backs and fronts off 30-40 foot cliffs in the middle of lines and that was a couple years ago. He also has done rails and rodeos so you really cant knock on his as a one dimensional skier. When I was in jaskson a couple years ago, tommy moe was on a snowboard for 4 days total and decided to the big part of corbets which is like 50 feet. I wont underestimate any of the top skiers in the sport.
Actual Film
As far as msp films go, I think ski movie 3 and focused were very well done. The footage from ski movie three was very good and focused had a very original feel and a very good sound track of reggae and bands like Damien Marley, modest mouse and judas priest. Yearbook had a pretty terrible sound track, especially that 5 part skier segment, the song is terrible. The cinematography was very good but the actual film disappointed me in some regards and the base jumping should have been a bonus feature, shanes bonus feature segment was actually incredible and should have been the film segment. The hit list trailer had some good footage but I agree theres a lot of shots that are reduced speed and the commentary reminds me too much of tgr or warren.
As far as creativity goes though, poor boyz has been less creative I would say simply because focused was so different and poor boyz has been pumping out the same shit year after year.
Ive seen strike three and high five and really didn’t see a ton of progression in film style. Musically berman uses a lot of very bad underground rap in both films. That Romanian techno song is real played out. Steeles song is original but msp also did a similar song this year in their bonus features so id draw straws here. Bermans film quality is below the big names and he has no diversity in his shots. If you watch the bonus section of focused of the msp scenic shots youd see how good of cinematographers they are. Even if berman had a huge budget, I don’t think hed just be able to know how to film out of a heli and do big mountain shots. Seth used to say hed never film with johny cause hes always missing shots. In big mountains skiing its real important you get the shot cause theres so few of them.
My favorite movie for this year was not another ski movie, I haven’t seen plehouses film though. Not another ski movie in my opinion had a very unique feel and blended shots and slow mode with normal very well. I wish it had more big mountain but otherwise id say it was the most original of the films I saw this year. I have to say the flat powder shots of sage were kinda anti-progressive for big mountain filming.
A lot of you are telling people to boycott msp and buy level 1. To me they are so different that if youre considering one, you shouldn’t consider the other. Yearbook competed with soul purpose, stimulus and impact this year, not high five. And warren miller still dwarfs msp as the filming giant. Right now I really think its good that were are a lot of companies pushing each other and taking new directions in filming. All it does it push other companies. Msp’s footage makes other companies try and capture scenic shots and berman makes others get some urban rail footage. Some companies will end up folding but its great people are taking their own approach to ski films. And yes, steve winter does seem to be a poor communicator, but I really don’t think you can blame everything on him. Seth is still with k2, and k2 is sponsoring msp this year, others claimed msp dropped jt holmes and it looks like hes still in the film. Not everyone on this site will be telling the truth and you all should be aware of that.