The List 2012: Bonus Content
Has the web edit killed the video star or is there a legitimate future for full length films? Maybe if we put them on VHS…?
You know how every time you pack to head home from a trip you can never make everything fit like you did before you left? It happens every time. Everything starts off neat and folded and fitting perfectly, but no matter how hard you try at the end of the vacay you’ve somehow go to squeeze a pair of shoes or all your dirty socks in your carry-on… Well such is the case with this year’s version of The List. You can read the full, neatly packed article in the issue of Alliance that is out right now, but of course we couldn’t fit everything. Thank God for the Internet; our spillover is now your seven minute hooky session from work. Read on to see all the other things we deemed cat’s-pajamas-cool, insistently asinine, or somewhere in between.
The Hypocrisy of the Internet
Don’t get us wrong, the Internet is freaking awesome – we’re using it right now – but it is by no means perfect. First of all, the Internet has effectively killed off the traditional wakeboard/wakeskate video. Back before the days of Facetube and “This Blog Is All About Me ‘Cause I’m Important Too” we could look forward to at least four or five really legit, full-length wake videos every year. Now we get two-minute clips several times a week on all sorts of websites, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it leaves us debating the quantity versus quality aspects of it all. There is something to be said for a group of riders and a filmmaker spending a season (or two, or three) to get their best tricks and their new tricks from cool, thought-out angles with the best light in great locations. Those full length sections in the full length videos had impact and carried weight. Riders, industry insiders, media and fans could all dissect them, discuss them, and get stoked on them. Of course, that can happen with a web video, too, but only until it’s been replaced by 14 other videos in a matter of ten days. Web videos, when done right, can have a quick hit of staying power, but it vanishes as quickly as it was posted. A solid full-length part in a big movie can have staying power for a year, and in some cases for a career. Full-length parts got riders the respect and admiration from the industry and fans they deserved. Sponsorships could be earned, incentives could be had. The web has made it to where riders suddenly have the need to constantly post something so people don’t digitally forget about them, and they get little for it in return. If anything they get more flack and grief from the idiots hiding behind their screens with nothing better to do than to type something negative hoping others will take the bait of their trolling and a flame war ensues. At any rate, the Internet isn’t going anywhere, and neither is the web video. Instant access to our favorite riders isn’t a bad thing, but hopefully we can start to see more quality to go with the quantity, and hopefully both riders and video makers can start being rewarded more for that work.
Brenton Priestley shot by Collin Harrington on the GoPro 3. Get one and then get up in there and get you some…
GoPro
Getting good video of yourself or your buddies riding used to be a pain in the ass and would usually empty your wallet pretty quickly. Usually both. Thanks to GoPro it’s no longer an issue. Plus, GoPro has continued to improve on their original camera and make cool, functional accessories, which only means it’s that much easier for all of us to post cool videos of ourselves on our FaceSpace bulletin things.
Dieter took hard work to the next level in 2012 both on and off the water…
Dieter Humpsch
Dieter Humpsch might just be the most talented guy in wake these days. Actually, Collin Harrington might have something to say something about that, which leads us to believe they might actually be related. Not only is Dieter unbelievably good and insanely stylish on his wakeskate, but he just released one of the coolest wakeskate videos ever made. Noisia Vision is the cat’s pajamas and Dieter’s work as a filmer and editor definitely deserves some hearty praise. Imagine if he and Collin teamed up on a project together… some crazy wakeskate, wakeboard, surf, fishing journey of epic video proportions. GoPro might explode from stoke overload. What if Collin and Dieter could somehow have kids… über creative watermen kids…
Multiple Pro Model Boards
Isn’t one enough?
The flash-master worked hard for the money in 2012 and shined a new light (pun intended) on the world of wakeboard photography.
Chris “Flash” Garrison
If you’re a photographer and your nickname is “Flash” chances are you’re in way too deep. Not so with Chris Garrison. Chris jumped into the pro wake scene this year with some super creative flash photography that included new rails, broken mirrors, and a lot of other craziness. He scored a couple covers of Alliance and has since been shooting like mad with the who’s-who of wakeboarding. We’re a little concerned that with all the flash shooting he’s been doing a good portion of the top riders are going to start going blind, but as long as the photos are good we’ll keep printing them!
You know you’ve done something right when riders are landing brand new tricks in contest…Andrew Pastura.
The Wakeskate Tour
Yeah, we already mentioned this in the magazine article, but it deserves mentioning again. The Wakeskate Tour was awesome and did an unbelievable amount for the sport on a shoestring budget. Props to all the guys who worked so hard to make it happen.
Nitro Circus 3D
With or without Parks Bonifay this movie would still be awesome, but the fact that Parks Bonifay is in it and doing crazy ass stunts with Travis Pastrana and gang makes it that much more badass. Plus, the 3D of this movie is so well done. It’s crazy seeing some of the guys fly at you off the screen. We have no idea how they got some of the shots they did, but it was well worth the price of admission. Get your popcorn!
Grant Roberts knows the importance of diversity: In schools / the workplace / and most importantly, while wakeskating.
Wakeskating Behind the Boat
The boat is root from which wakeboarding and subsequently wakeskating grew. Wakeskating behind the boat is awesome, especially with some of the moves guys like Reed Hansen, Dieter Humpsch, Grant Roberts, Danny Hampson, Brian Grubb, Stu Shinn and others are dropping. It’s not every wakeskater’s cup of tea (which is fine), but you have to respect it. For those who don’t respect it or the guys who pioneered it, shame on you. If it weren’t for guys like Thomas Horrell, Scott Byerly, Brian Grubb, and Aaron Reed riding behind the boat when wakeskating was in its infancy and trying to stand on its own away from wakeboarding, the sport would have died. That means it would never have had the opportunity to blossom into a sport that utilized all different types of pulls and opened up to all different types of styles. Basically without the boat and the pioneers, you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing and looking cool to the 23 people online who give you props.
October 26, 2012
Man with Noisia Vision, Defy, Lipsmack and In Transit, I'd say it was a pretty good year for full lengths.
October 26, 2012
who writes this crap. stop talking about wakeskating like you know whats going on
October 26, 2012
Who's such a pussy they perpetually comment under an alias?
October 26, 2012
Randall why are you so butt hurt over this? Nothing bad was said, and whoever wrote it probably knows more than you
October 26, 2012
Yes, we rode behind a boat when wakeskating started because that's all there was. But it had nothing to do with helping wakeskating "stand on its own away from wakeboarding." It's true I love seeing skaters catch a huge flip trick wake to wake or put together a lengthy line of tricks, but neither of those boat riding aspects were mentioned. No, this merely claims we should respect boat riding because it's the only form of riding that was available at the time. Those pioneers definitely deserve our respect and they put in the grueling time to create the foundations of wakeskating, but I have good faith that each one of them will attest to the character development that happened to wakeskating once we expanded outside of the confines of boat riding. Those guys were always actively finding ways to wakeskate without the boat, like Aaron Reed ollieing the mega Texas gap or hitting the wooden ledges in Sfumato (both behind jet ski), or the old footage of Thomas hitting Metro West, or the Arete contest, or the ten years of Toe Jam rail and winch events. Claiming wakeskating would have died without boat riding is a useless thing to say. Why? Because wakeboarding would die without the boat, too, but who gives a fuck?? No, the fact is, wakeskating never even found its true identity until it grew AWAY from boat riding, and it's not even done "blossoming" yet!
And the "only 30 people wakeskate" jokes never get old, guys! But you forgot the cut off shorts and dirty mustache jabs!
October 26, 2012
My balls smell
October 27, 2012
thank you dave hanson. no thank you alliance
October 27, 2012
hell yea wakeskating behind wakeboard boats is awesome! late big spins and late shuvs are sick!! i gotta learn those so i can be like my favorites reed hansen and grant roberts. dude i heard reed is pulling bs 360 late bs shuvs in his contest line OMG and i really like how grant just cuts right through the wake like a salomon skier. his wake to wake stalefish photos never get old, keep em coming there timeless!
October 27, 2012
I read it in 6 minutes..
October 29, 2012
Boat riding deserves our respect in much the same way I'm sure modern military respect cannons and muskets. They might've been important in the civil war, but we've improved on the design and it would be worthless today. Fit for a museum. Wakeskating doesn't need or want a $100,000 investment to be progressive, and if you think that to stay relevant you need that, you are a fool. The number one problem with wakeboarding is that the boat that pulls it's contests costs more than a house. Why is this necessary? Who decided that progression meant a larger wallet? Why does no one cry foul here? Boats are on there way out in wakeskating because they're unaffordable, stale, and every other method of wakeskating just looks incredible. There's such diversity in traveling and hitting different spots around the world where as a wake-to-wake shuv looks the same in Australia, Tahiti, and Orlando. Why even go?
Does Alliance intentionally try to insult the people it wants business from? Did anyone actually read this and agree that making fun of the "23 people" who wakeskate is a good idea to sell magazines? I have honestly never heard of another magazine that belittles it's own fans, but Alliance seems to dish it out regularly.
October 29, 2012
Since my IP address is banned from commenting on Alliance, I guess I'm just going to rant here, haha. I'm sure they'll all see this tomorrow and talk more crap about me, talking crap on a lame discussion forum with 23 members, or tell me to grow up and stop acting 16.. that one never gets old. (Pun intended, it's my birthday as of 57 minutes ago) Yes, I'm old as dirt and I still talk crap on the internet. There's no age limit to exposing bullsh1t.
The motives behind that post are pretty obvious and honestly, quite sad. Just when I thought they were completely out of the loop, they dropped this. The whole "wakeskating would be dead without boat riding" comment was classic, but Dave already hit that nail on the head. The "23 people" remark is just as entertaining, there's no better way to support wakeskating than by belittling it's fan-base!
You (and your boat advertisers) clearly only care about numbers and not the actual audience you're speaking to. (Mostly wakeboarders) If it's only 23 people viewing the content, why bother even covering wakeskating? Shouldn't you be out working on that new w2w melonfish cover on Clear Lake? I'm surprised you even mentioned the wakeskate tour considering you only showed up on the last day for the last hour of half the events. I would have thought you guys were bored with it, but I guess you still have to convince your 23 fans you care about wakeskating. (with half-assed coverage.)
Let's put skateboarders in charge of running Surfer Mag. Yes, skateboarding spawned from surfing, skateboarders respect that, but that doesn't mean surfers need to go around telling skateboarders they have to skate vert and pay your dues by offering Tony Alva a hand job if you see him at a contest.
If you're not going to do the job right, save your time and let wakeskaters handle it. You can still be a fan and support wakeskating without writing irrelevant garbage…
October 29, 2012
^ Yes!
Also. Maybe DVD sales are hurting because ALLIANCE puts out so many web edits – Too many. Follow the example of successful boardsports and leave the majority of the web edits to the amateurs. "Pro's" need to be ok with some other riders getting exposure.
October 29, 2012
Why is everyone taking this SO serious? Stop. Clearly no one has a sense of humor. You are clearly misreading this and you are clearly making yourself look like an asshole. Just saying.
October 29, 2012
This is hardly the first time anyone has observed the internet's effect on the validity of traditional media, so I'm not going to bother getting into that…
Before I get into my observations of what's going on here, I should say that there's nothing I'll type here that I haven't already said face-to-face to the staff of Alliance in their own offices, in the hopes of seeing improvement. Sometimes it seems like my words are taken in, and sometimes it seems like they aren't interested in what I have to say.
Over the last few years, my gripe with Alliance has been it's seeming lack of interest in documenting/presenting the real motions & moments of wakeskating, as they happen. For a publication that has called itself "The Pulse of Wakeskating" at one point or another, Alliance has consistently missed out on milestone moment after milestone moment of what's happening in wakeskating, missed out on countless opportunities to offer meaningful observations of what's happening in wakeskating, & maintained a careless attitude about the whole deal, not taking responsibility for their dereliction under the premise that they've still covered wakeskating.
And they have. As well as any wakeboarders/ex-wakeboarders who've been around a long time could cover it. When they started the magazine ten years ago, wakeskating probably had about 23 fans & it was pretty much just a little sideshow to wakeboarding, both still happening almost exclusively behind the boat. That's obviously not the wakeskating we know today, but these guys can hardly see it any differently. Other than Patrick Wieland, the guys at Alliance are good dudes, but they don't wakeskate. It's as simple as that. They run a photo of a wake-to-wake stalefish again & again because it's comfortable and familiar to them. The subtle intricacies that make wakeskating what it is, these little pieces of what we do which make the fire light up inside of us, these are lost on the people who charged themselves with being the pulse of wakeskating. As wakeskating moved forward & out, they didn't care to bring someone on board who would follow.
When Alliance terminated it's relationship with a journalist determined to portray wakeskating as petty & insubstantial, we all held our breath in the hopes that they would employ someone with passion for wakeskating, someone who would help grow a healthy foundation of what wakeskating can be in the future. We then saw this key position of the time filled by a self-serving, two-faced talentless weasel. Sure he could crank out 5 mediocre web edits a week & rode a zariel that one summer, but the massive let-down of this appointment was a major setback of what could've been accomplished had that position been filled by someone with a bit of passion/knowledge/creativity/professionalism/heart, or anything other than scum-fueled ambition…
Just as The Wakeskate Tour was born of wakeskating's collective dissatisfaction with the Toe Jam's inability to reflect the wants & needs of modern wakeskating, I believe that if a true wakeskater had been put in charge of running the Alliance Wakeskate website & had a hand in contributing quality wakeskate coverage to the magazine once Brooke Geery was gone, there's a chance that WeSubsist & WSM might not yet have been created.
Until there's someone at Alliance who is genuinely in touch with what's going on in wakeskating, the tricks, the styles, the motions, the characters, the mindset, & the passion; there's going to be a substantial dissatisfaction with the way their magazine/website is run, coming from those of us who are trying to stay in touch with wakeskating. The only thing worse than Alliance's neglect of the progress of wakeskating is their attitude towards the general wakeskating population. Consistent treatment of wakeskaters as though they aren't a part of Alliance's constituency is ridiculous, as is talking down to the people who are reading your magazine looking for stoke.
I find myself in a strange position in all of this, because I'm personally friends with everyone at Alliance except for Patrick Wieland, but I still have a lot to say outlining my discontent with the way publication is run. I've put my reputation with them on the line before, by speaking my mind, and so far (by continually asking me to write for them, running my photos, and not turning their heads away when they see me), I think they respect me for it & recognize that it's all from the heart.
And of course, the only reason I can even say any of this is because when I read The List in the last Alliance, it said that having an opinion was cool this year.
October 29, 2012
Alliance is the last one to be ranting about to many web videos coming out rather than full length parts. marcus and nick and dave hit everything spot on.
October 30, 2012
i did a w2w front big last year.
October 31, 2012
Cant we all just go back to 3 competition?
November 2, 2012
I ride behind the boat because it puts a smile on my face. I remember when I used to have an opinion. Whenever I would get bull nosed and go for the throat I would be instantly confronted with this sob story about wakeskating just being fun. "Why are you such an ass hole man. Who cares, as long as you are having fun."
Everyone grows up, and it seems that some of these crybabies have grown a sack and have something to say. And how the tables have turned. I am now on the other end of the argument. I am old. I love to wakeskate. Two facts. Dan and I have been winching longer than any of you. That's another fact. Sometimes the boat, or the cable or the ski or your buddies golf cart are easier or more convenient. And it's all fun.
I'm going to enjoy the sport that has fueled my passion for more than a decade. And I will always share that with my friends, my wife, and someday my kids. Because it's fun.
Wakeskating is becoming what we had always dreamed. It is surreal to watch its progression and it's path through its pioneers. Past, present, and future. Every day is the future of our sport as it is ever changing and evolving. No more is that true than today. Riding at the Projects for a two day private session for the Oneill team on Nick Taylor's setup was unreal. It was so fun to session a spot like that. A spot that only existed in dreams ten, or even five years ago. And the next day, riding Byerly's boat, was that any less fun? Was it some sort of letdown from the days prior? Hell no. It had me smiling ear to ear, thinking I was 23 again. I love what wakeskating has become, and I love what wakeskating was (and still is). I just love wakeskating.
I remember when I had an opinion, and it mattered. Every dog has it's day.
Thanks for all the good times Alliance!
-Aaron
November 7, 2012
I have a ring too…
It says love.
EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY!
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