I better set this straight before rumors run too rampant here...
It just so happens that most of the film companies share, exchange, or trade footage with oneanother. As Freelowda pointed out, the talent pool ins't quite deep enough right now (not only as far as athletes, but cinematographers too!) to pack a half dozen feature length movies with entirely unique and high quality athletes, locations, and shots. Furthermore, even with a full time staff of a half dozen cinematographers (or 1 full-time cinematographer in my case), its still almost impossible to get all the footage you need to create the segments that you either want to put together, or in some cases are contractually obligated to create, and as a result, sharing, trading, exchanging, and selling of footage goes on in order to fill the voids.
It always has been this way, and it almost definitely will continue to be this way for years to come.
As far as shot similarities between RFA and Forward, I'm sure you will find some shots that are either similar, or in a very few cases, the same, in both movies, since Johnny and I helped eachother out and worked together on a few projects this past season. I can't quite understand why this bothers some of you as much as it does, because there are probably around 10 or so similar (or the same) shots between the two movies which amounts to potentially 1 minute or so, out of movies that are 50 and 40 minutes long, respectively. Regardless of any similarities in some of the shots, the end products are entirely unique and substantially different from eachother in so many ways. Of course everyone purchases movies for different reasons, but as far as my interests go, the value of a movie is determined by the way its put together and the end result as much, if not more, than the shots that go into it. Thats why the filmmaking process is such an amazing thing... I could give you a million examples to illustrate this, but I won't because I'm sure that anyone who has a clue here doesn't need this concept explained or illustrated further.
Anyway, to get back to the issue at hand, and to explain once and for all any similarities in shots between RFA and Forward, simply enough, Johhny helped me out on a few occasions this past winter (Thank you Johnny D!) and I in turn helped him out by giving him some footage in return. As well, incidents arose where PBP was conducting shoots where they wanted one or more of the athletes that I was traveling and shooting with to show up, and as a result, I was permitted to shoot, of course. Additionally, we traded shots here and there to fill some holes and round out some segments in each of our movies. So any Crichton shots that are similar (or the same) in our movies, were likely shot by L1P. Any of the shots of Crichton, or any other athlete that are from the PBP shoot in Aspen that appear in Forward were shot by me, but of course can be credited to PBP, as they (Johnny) made that happen. Additionally, MSP has got a bunch of L1P shots in their film this year, and Forward uses a few MSP shots; TGR used a number of PBP shots, and PBP used a good few TGR shots; Volume also uses a number of Level 1 shots, and both PBP and L1P used a few Volume shots; as well, Plehouse used a large number of L1P and Volume shots, and PBP, L1P, and Volume used a couple of Plehouse shots; also, Push Films is using a few L1P shots, and PBP and L1P both used a couple shots from Push Films. Thats the very short version of the story, but I'm sure you get the idea... all the production companies rely on eachother for help to get the job done!
So ultimately any sharing and cooperation that goes on between film companies, as far as I'm concerned, shouldn't be shunned at this point, but encouraged, as it results in stronger segments, better and more complete movies, happy sponsors, and athletes content that their segments represent the best of what they have to offer.
The end.
