Would you have considered the Down videos as a "huge success"? They won awards for their time, but I still wouldn't have considered them as a success unless you are comparing them to what has been done before.
Fair enough :) Sure, for their time, definitely a success. It seems though that you are purely measuring success on a monetary level and by that, no mtb film has been a success.
They were better as is the Collective now, but the numbers are still not close to impressive. This all depends on how you define successful. I liked the film, as did you, so they were successful on that level. But the fact that such a small number of the mountain biking population did not buy the film would ultimately be considered as a failure on that level. I'm not saying that it was a bad film, because it wasn't. It just wasn't good enough to sell to even a tenth of the MTB DH/Freeride population.
Mountain bikers are cheap. Downhillers (yes I know this is a terrible generalization but here it goes) really could care less about freeriding so to make a film focusing on slopestyle and the shore pretty much rules out any pure-dh fans. I rode with a guy this weekend who just saw Roam and asked me, "are all freeriders idiots? the snake went into the snake hole?…come on.." Just some food for thought there.
Most people do not watch a mtb flick over and over unless they love it. The rest of the population will see a movie once (usually at a friends house or on youtube or at the premiere) and then never watch it again. I bought the movies I bought because I wanted to support films that I felt were worthy of supporting.
There are obviously some problems with the films that are currently available, and many of you will disagree, but there is no reason why there can't be a mtb film that attracts more mtbers..
My trail-riding friends have zero-[HTML_REMOVED]no interest in freeriding. My dh friends don't either. My freeride friends find most dh boring to watch and view epic trail riding as a waste of time. Because of the HUGE divide in biking you are never going to have a film that appeals to the masses like it seems you are suggesting can be done. If you are sure it can be done, all the power to you! I will surely watch it and if I love it, i will buy it.
I would like to ask the people who don't worship the Collective/Roam/Disorder what the problems are with these films and others, and why they wouldn't buy them, and what would have to be changed in order to appeal to you.
I far from worship the collective, but I did use them as an example since they are still on the top of the field. I couldn't tell you a thing about any of the recent NWD flicks; I would rather watch static :)
To be honest, I bought the collective after seeing it at a friend's house. They tossed it on as we were eating breakfast and it got me so stoked to ride. Up to that point I had not felt that from a single mtb flick. I bought Roam sight unseen figuring that it would be even better. The first time I saw it I felt it was a continuation of the first one and did very little for me. I had to watch it a couple more times to see if I was missing something. if I had the time (and really cared enough to bother), I would take the segments from the first and second that I liked and put them on a disc so I wouldn't have to watch the rest. I don't care about dirtjump segments and I have seen enough Leech.
I dug Stripped for its hiphop/snowboard feel from start to finish. I didn't like how rushed a few of the segments and transitions felt though. I could defnintely live without Metzger's segment and all the dirtjumping.
I can go on and on here but I will give someone else a chance :)
dear DW,
since you got like a million bucks now, can i borrow $2850 for a Revolt frame?thanks,
steve