[Paul B]

I'm not prepared to spend 60 quid on buying all of these, so hypothetically (or maybe you've already preordered one) which one would you buy?

I can see that each one has something unique going for it:

King Lines: Holywood like picture quality, stunning footage of sharma who is always good to watch....
Psych: Mclure on some hard BRITISH sport... felt that the last posing-productions DVD focused more on the fancy camera techniques rather than the climbing.
Committed: The footage of the promise looks really good, but is it going to play too much on the danger aspect and not get annoying after the first viewing? I haven't seen E11 so can't really compare...
Hard XS: I don't really know much about?

I think I'm leaning towards king lines but I'm not really sure...

[dave]

tough choice. king lines should be amazing but it'll be hard to live up to the quality of the trailer! psyche looks a bit toss, sportclimbing on video is generally boring as watching paint that is already dry remain dry. hard XS will no doubt be good but its been in the pipeline so long a lot of that footage must be pretty old by now - plus footage of pearson on equilibrium has been on the internet for 3 years. for me big mountain and seacliff stuff is great but doesn't withstand repeated viewings. committed probably looks best of the british offerings so far cos its got people i know on it, more grit, more recent stuff etc. I'm happy to be proven wrong and all these turn out to be badass.

[Stubbs]

I've got King Lines on preorder so will report back as soon as I get it - to be honest though I'd pay the price for that one just for the Es Pontas footage and Ethan Pringle at Bishop. 

Dave from that statement I assume you didn't enjoy the dosage footage of dreamcatcher, realization or Rumney?  They are some of my favourite bits in the respective videos. Perhaps it's just british sport climbing that doesn't lend itself well to being filmed?

I'll buy HardVS when it comes out because I've enjoyed all of their other videos and I want to show Slackjaw my support - I'm sure there'll be some awesome footage on there.

Not too sure about the other two - E11 was really good on first watching but got tired pretty quick - I'm not sure if committed may go the same was as you say.  I haven't seen Set in Stone, so can't comment on the funny camera stuff.

[dave]

Dave from that statement I assume you didn't enjoy the dosage footage of dreamcatcher, realization or Rumney?  They are some of my favourite bits in the respective videos. Perhaps it's just british sport climbing that doesn't lend itself well to being filmed?

dreamcatcher is good cos its so short, and the way he climbs it is like a boulder problem anyway. realization is good more for the fact it was history in the making etc, but if you took that out of the equation its pretty dull to watch except the end cos he pisses the first 90% of the route and its only the top bit that gets interesting. i haven't got the dvd with rumney on, though i've got it on a low-res on the PC. don't get me wrong, these are good to watch, but the bouldering always seems a bit better. more fly. i watched a video of sharma on rambla extension recently and it was good but then 45minutes later i was still sat there watching it, the belay was nowhere in sight and i had an urgent luncheon appointment to keep.

[Fiend]

This is THE topic that needed to be posted at the moment. I was going to put it on UKC but....

Anyway.

Hard XS - should be pretty entertaining in a left-of-centre way but too obscure and probably not flashy enough.

Psyche - again should be pretty entertaining but will probably be hampered by Alaistair Lee's annoying posey editing and maybe a lack of truly impressive stuff.

It boils down to:

King Lines - I expect will have amazing production, amazing ascents, proper Sharma pr0n and will probably be the best overall quality. But possible cheese and possible "another Dosage" syndrome.

Committed - But I think this will beat it for British audiences at least. Looks to have a good variety and a proper amount of proper trad, plus the production seems good. I think E11 proved they can make a quality overall film as well as climbing footage. Possible flaws include weaker non-Macleod / Keenus Brown sections and lack of on-site rapping which would be quite disappointing.

[Jaspersharpe]

Have to agree that King Lines looks worth getting for a few reasons. 1. The production quality looks so much better than any previous climbing films. It's gotta be worth watching just to see if this works or if it feels too Hollywood and detracts from the actual footage. 2. The Es Pontas stuff. We've all seen the teaser however many times and I for one want to see more. 3. The Clark Mountain project. It's just meant to be really fucking hard so I'm interested. 4. Three Degrees of Seperation at Ceuse looks way more entertaining then Realization. 5. Should be lots of decent bouldering stuff in it too.

Apparently Psyche has some great stuff on it but the footage I've seen so far has been less than impressive.

Committed looks entertaining but I'm not too interested in just seeing dangerous shit so I don't reckon I'll buy it.

Hard XS I know fuck all about but if it's Slackjaw then it should have some good stuff on.

[Somebody's Fool]

For everyone who doesn't know anything about HardXS, here's some info:

http://www.slackjaw.co.uk/climbingfilms/hardxs.html.

I reckon this will be good.  Slackjaw always put as much importance on the human story as the climbing, which is why they make memorable films.

Although King Lines and Copmmitted both look brilliant as well.  Just depends what floats your boat.

[dobbin]

I was, at one stage, going to be an extra in HardXS - HardWood it was going to be called, but I understand its now on the cutting room floor. Apparently people werent ready for the exposure.

[Stu Littlefair]

I'm going to buy three copies of HardXS. One for the living room, one for my mum, and one for, erm, personal use.
King lines looks essential, and I might well get Committed just so I can laugh at Alan cratering...

[Paul B]

This is THE topic that needed to be posted at the moment. I was going to put it on UKC but....

King Lines - I expect will have amazing production, amazing ascents, proper Sharma pr0n and will probably be the best overall quality. But possible cheese and possible "another Dosage" syndrome.

Last night I thought nobody was going to answer and it was destined for the shit heap!

I agree with the potential cheese on king lines, they seem to have coined that phrase (the first person I hear using it over here will get: ) and the section with DG and CS chatting on momentum vids looks silly, its too set up they surely know everything about each others project(s)?

[r-man]

There's Underdeveloped too. The trailer for that always looked pretty good. And I've heard from people who've seen it that it is great.

[Paul B]

Yup, I saw a lot of the uncut footage a few years ago and some of it is pretty good. I think thats more along the lines of Winter Sessions than the above contenders but I may be wrong.

[Dr T]

There's Underdeveloped too. The trailer for that always looked pretty good. And I've heard from people who've seen it that it is great.

when's that coming out??
in time for christmas??

[GCW]

King Lines  Julian becomes the next Monarch following a bizarre series of Royal-osides
Psych!  Some bloke stands at the bottom of a route working himself into a Dervish frenzy
Committed  Dense is finally sent to a sanatorium
Hard XS  Something to do with a fat lad struggling to get into an undersized swimming costume

Of those I'd prefer to see Dense being locked up   


On a serious note, I'd be interested to see Hard XS for the OPR shit routes bit.  If you've forgotten they are:

Kinder Downfall  Diff (or worse)
The Ravenstones Stomach Traverse  "severe"
Mam Tor Gully  Ungradeable
1847, Stannington Roughs  HS 4b
Matterhorn Ridge, Winnats Pass  V.Diff
Chocolate Blancmange Gully, Horseshoe Quarry  Quite Tricky
Generously Cut Trousers, First Lift  Severe
Claw Left-hand, Baley Bittress  HVS 5b,4c
High Tor Gully  V.Diff
Speak The Truth, Hall Moor Quarry  E5 6b

Is this the Ravenstones Stomach Traverse? 

[Fiend]

I'd like to see 75 minutes of Dense ranting moaning and grumbling incoherently whilst occasionally twitching his magic fingers.

P.S. "Yes."

[neil h]

thought so make that £80


you forgot the uprising toooooooooo



Fuck It im going to buy the lot

[neil h]

I reckon this will be good.  Slackjaw always put as much importance on the human story as the climbing, which is why they make memorable films.

The problem I see with hardXS, is that a lot of the stuff has been in the making for the last 4 years, so most of it will be very old news, but you should see a very young looking james on it. They filmed the grit stuff when my little lad was born, and he is now 4 and a half,

Should still be good though



suport the poor film makers and buy them all

[a dense loner]

i'd prefer to see me ranting for 75 minutes as well.
speak the truth went up to E7 without the baby bouncer, don't know if the footage is with or without

[r-man]

There's Underdeveloped too. The trailer for that always looked pretty good. And I've heard from people who've seen it that it is great.

when's that coming out??
in time for christmas??

Sounds like it - http://www.climbing.ie/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=71&Itemid=1

[dave]

i'd prefer to see me ranting for 75 minutes as well.
speak the truth went up to E7 without the baby bouncer, don't know if the footage is with or without

i thought when they did the ticklist thing they took the fallback tick of Private Targets instead. not to mention they didn't do it all in a day either. poor effort.

[Somebody's Fool]

i'd prefer to see me ranting for 75 minutes as well.
speak the truth went up to E7 without the baby bouncer, don't know if the footage is with or without

Maybe they've used Honeyman's footage and edited Shane Ohly's face onto the Enigma.

[Johnny Brown]

As i recall, you get the tick for Private Targets anyway. I daresay they did that.

[Paul B]

So plenty of you were there last night, thoughts on committed?

Personally I thought it was pretty good, the footage of trauma and the promise especially so however I'm not quite sure who some of the commentary was aimed at, it seemed a bit dumbed down almost like what you would expect from a tv or newspaper article on climbing?

[Fiend]

Tend to agree. Wasn't as well put together as I expected given what they'd done with the E11 story. It needed more continuity to link the footage, which although diverse could have been tied together with better commentary. On the other hand there were several bits of inspiring footage, my favourites being anything with Keenus in, the Keenus vs Johnny Long battle on Angel's Share which was nicely done, and Jude on Lord which I could really identify with (the style of climbing NOT the route obviously). Some of the other sections didn't go into the depth I'd have hoped but then again maybe I am more of a sucker for the nitty gritty faff of trad climbing than some people.

[Paul B]

Hmmm I preferred the way the Angel's Share was presented on the internet.