UKC

During the last few years, Alex Megos has emerged as one of the very best in the world in sport climbing as well as bouldering. Not that he hadn't been successful earlier, but his onsight of Estado critico, the first 9a onsight, thrusted him headfirst into the limelight, and he...

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In reply to UKC News:

Can't help but say this is a massive missed opportunity here. The ingredients are really special: two legendary climbers, with unique footage on one of the world's hardest routes with a really interesting story.

Yet in the attempt to show off video editing skills you have completely ruined something that could/should have been amazing. In the first place Jerry Moffatt is a brilliant speaker with lots of interesting insights about hard climbing. Why have him read something - I doubt he even wrote - off a card, to make the video. Let him speak for himself, naturally. It would have probably contained much more insight and been far more interesting.

Secondly why do videographers feel compelled to constantly switch angles all the time? It's not in the least bit creative because so many other film makers do the same thing. The average take in this 5 min video is just a few seconds long. It's like the film maker has so little faith in their footage they feel the need to constantly switch angles to keep the viewer's attention.

Here's a video of Adam Ondra making the second ascent of Fight or Flight that is far better in my opinion: youtube.com/watch?v=45xlTby_S2A&

There's no narration and no editing and its not even a decent camera and no tripod. Just raw footage from someone on the ground. But the point is with significant hard ascents by top climbers you don't need be constantly changing angles. Just watching the ascent, as if you were at the crag, is enough to make a compelling video. Do people think climbers have really short attention spans for some reason? The videos of Adam Ondra doing Change run for over an hour. Why compress this story into 5 minutes? It seems a tragic waste of time to spend hours editing footage on a computer and then end up with something worse than what you started with.

Finally the story of this ascent for FRFM is missing. Maybe it will be in an upcoming video. But if not then a big missed opportunity. Why not interview Alex about his ascent? About the fact he started trying it on his thirteenth day on! It says nothing about the route or his experience on it. It's all brief soundbites that adds up to something completely vacuous, with no depth or sincerity. It's more like watching a film trailer or even an advertisement.

Perhaps you're not suppose to be critical of other people's efforts in public. But this video is just so annoying. And if no one speaks out, or starts a discussion, then videographers will just carry on making the same mistakes in the future.

In reply to UKC News:

Can't help but agree. The only things I took from this vid were that FRFM is way shorter than I thought it would be and Megos' coach is a scary lookin' fellah.

In reply to stp:

And it doesn't even say it's Jerry Moffatt talking either, does it. It's only that I've spent more time than most listening to Moffatt drone on (as I imagine you have too stp) that I knew it was him.

In reply to stp:

I quite liked it! Well, at least, I guess I'm looking forward to the rest of the series, put it that way.

J

In reply to stp:
I agree with Moffat commentating it would have been interesting to hear about his days as a teenager ie no coach...no sport climbing...no walls and use this experience/history to give a better historical context.

In reply to Niall Grimes:

Yeah a good point. Most climbers won't recognize his voice. So the line 'I know a fair bit about hard climbing' has no context.

And I don't think the question 'What is Alex's formula for success?' is something Jerry would ask in the first place. It's not a good question because it's endlessly debated and understood elsewhere. The combination of a passion for climbing, good genetics, starting young, access to modern training facilities and trainers and the means to travel around the world climbing full time is pretty much the answer. In a previous interview I know Megos is very big on antagonist training so it would be interesting to hear about that but I suspect that won't be included in this series of videos. Hope I'm proved wrong though.

In reply to UKC News:

Without wishing to shit on anyone's thoughtful dissection of this video, I'd like to point out that it's a Red Bull production, and so the intended audience isn't exactly people who understand concepts like 'narrative', 'context', and 'climbing'.