Review: PowderWhore's 07

Had the opportunity to catch the latest from the PW film crew as they traveled through. I've said it before, I'm not a big tele skier. Having successfully navigated my way down the mountain a few times on some teles, I can say the feeling can be very similar to lunges. I've only been successful on one ascent attempt with them. I'll have to keep trying this season.


Anyhow back to the film. This film is strictly a telemark skier film with asentions and decisons going on all film (I think there was one shot with a snowboarder at the very end, but the powder made it hard to tell). Initial reactions from friends and I:

It felt very short. Coming in at about 45 minutes in length, the overall movie feeling was much less. Outside of (possibly) adding in more stoke shots, I'm not sure there was much that could be added to the film to change that feeling. I'm also not sure that's a bad thing.

Awkward filming. Having watched my fair share of these films, there get to be some expectations in the style of shooting. For example most of the bigger budget films set up angles to show the rider arriving towards the camera or on a constant follow from a distant peak or helicopter. PW07 contained a lot of shots like this, while including several following shots where the skiers would ride past the camera only to disappear into the distance. This gave it a feel for an extremely low budget film, but did provide a nice change.

Optics quality was lacking. Without giving away some of the film, one of the most awe inspiring moments comes with a horrible focus blur problem. It's obvious this was an unfortunate attempt at using a digital zoom and not an optical zoom. Several other shots of long untouched powder we speckled by red, blue, and green dots from the digital camera sensor brightness level being overloaded. Probably should have had a tint and polarizing lens on there. At least invest in a better optical zoom lens, it will make all the difference for the film.

Big mountain riding. These guys had absolutely no reason to go play in the park. They had some great shots of big mountain riding, and the pure bliss that comes with it. The few riders who did try some grabs, weren't spectacularly amazing grabs, but enough to convey the air time they were enjoying. There were certainly a couple of ridge lines I wish they'd have ridden though.

Editing. For the most part the editing was fine. The comedic montage of personal statements felt like a bad edit at first, but made more sense as it went on.

Comedic gold. I'm not sure if the guys planned every moment I found humorous, but they obviously love what they're doing and love that they can do it. It shows in how they dealt with each other.

Repeat shots. I did get confused a couple of times during the film. Was I watching a ski pron or was I watching an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger"? While not nearly Walker level of annoying, the constant showing of a shot from multiple angles allowed some drops to be understood a lot better. On the other hand that is the job of the editor, to pick which are the best shots. After the second time of seeing the same drop from 3 different angles I got tired of the effect.

Bunch of teases. Not only did they show some amazing powder, backwoods, and climbing shots to get my psyched for the season... they also teased me with a raffle where I won absolutely nothing. Talk about leaving you high and dry...