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Topic: Personal or Reflective
The Lounge's 3rd Annual How to Make Friends on the Lift went down Sat. night at HotShots. Despite the annoying, intermittent rain, there was a great turnout. The event was a benefit for Boarding for Breast Cancer so it was nice to see people out for a fun event that was supporting a good cause.
The rail jam started at 5:30 or 5:45 but I was late so I'm not exactly sure but it was in full swing when I got there. A scaffold setup, about 12ft off the ground, was the strap-in and runway area leading to 45 degree before the actual jibs. There were two jibs; an up-flat-down box on the right that didn't see much use and a double-barrel rail on the left that saw the majority of the action.
I heavily Photoshopped for bright/contrast, levels, and color balance b/c it was raining and dimly lit last night. My digital wasn't doing well with those conditions. I switched to video and was able to capture the action a little better b/c there wasn't the same delay that I suffered shooting stills without a flash. QuickTime clips below:
After the rail jam ended, things moved inside for the movie premieres: Burning Bridges, The Community Project, and FutureProof.
Burning Bridges had a lot of rail/jibbing and acid drops that made my knees hurt but I got tired of seeing rail after rail sequence. The movie was quirky, I'll give them that, but it seemed more like a home video than a snowboard video. That may have been their intention, the un-snowboard movie, but it meant there was no continuity or flow, just disparate clips slapped together haphazardly. Here's TWSnow's review, they give it more credit than I do but maybe that's b/c they know the guys that made the movie.
The Community Project was the best of the three movies: big names and big tricks. It showed that some foresight had been put into achieving the theme of a snowboard movie. The city, transition, and lifestyle parts the blended into the movie made it visually appealing in addition to the great snowboarding. I was on the edge of my seat but then again, I love watching snowboard videos. The highlights were the Japan segment (a little Lost in Translation feel and boundless powder as far the eye could see) and the film's last segment where Travis Rice spins onto a spine to backflip off and then a double-backflip off the last 60-70ft kicker. Although I've seen the stills from this sequence, it was no less amazing that seeing it in video format. Here's TWSnow's interview w/ Rice about the movie.
Futureproof looked like an amazing film as well except that people were standing in front of the screen (holdovers from when free schwag was thrown into the crowd). I couldn't see everything and with a few beers on board, I yelled at them to move. [Disclaimer- I love snowboarding and don't mess around when it comes to watching snowboard movies; I'm there to really watch & analyze the film so I have little patience for those shooting the breeze or and hanging out during the movie]. There was lots of backcountry, big air sequences and incredible straight-lining of AK chutes that had me silently thinking "damn he's hauling ass..." I'll have to watch this movie again. Here's TWSnow's review.
For all of the downtime, there was tons of free schwag thrown to the throngs of teenagers. I stayed in my seat and kept drinking $2 Molson Light specials to dull the pain; just show the snowboard videos, that's what I came for. The saving grace of having to wait before and in-between the different movies was the beer and the DJ Battle, which DJ Artie K definitely won. He got the crowd into it, which is saying a lot considering high school kids won't often dance in public for fear of looking uncool.
Overall, a great event and a fun night. Props to Josh at the The Lounge and to HotShots for putting together such a great event for the western NY snowboard community.
Posted by cph19
at 2:04 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, 23 October 2005 8:03 PM EDT
