Hey yall. Wanted to share some recent work I did for the awesome outdoor company, REI. Above and below are two videos in a series of 5 that I created for their online holiday campaign. Commercials ran in lots of places… Both vids in this post were shot in the lovely town of Telluride, Colorado last spring. And Both feature a friend of mine, Marni Yamada. She’s a dual sport (snowboard and ski) X-Games veteran athlete, a ripper, and an all-around great person.
Love to get your thoughts on either or both. And we’ll do our best to answer questions in the comments below.
The rail slide above was shot entirely on the RED One camera. The halfpipe sequence below was shot on the RED for the slo-mo stuff (120 fps) and the lo-fi handheld “followcam” look from within the pipe was captured with the Nikon D3s (B&H link for product details…).
Credits, links after the jump
Athlete: Marni Yamada
Director: Chase Jarvis
Client: REI
On the cameras: Chris Bell, Scott Rinckenberger, Erik Hecht
On the edit: Erik Hecht
Music: Mad Rad in the halfpipe. Cameron Patterson on the rail slide.
I guess I’m the odd man out here, cause I didn’t think it was your best work. I felt like some of the editing/sequencing was off just a bit in both spots. The first one in particular, where it seems like it’s just one hit on the rail, but the shots jump back just enough to make it not a smooth progression from start to finish. This could be by design, but for me it didn’t work cause the repeating actions just looked like mistimed cuts. For example, when the rider first jumps off the snow ramp and onto the rail, maybe you should have cut to the side shot of the lift off from the ramp while she was still in the air, not after she’d just touched down on the rail.
And the second one was just too repetitive for me – follow cam in the bottom of the pipe, then cut to deck shot over and over.
They were nice shots and all, but just didn’t do anything for me overall as a complete spot.
Sorry, but didn’t like it … maybe I did not get it
but it’s probably OK for mainstream … which make sense since it’s REI.
I would expect more from shots with the RED and maybe better audio too, a bit more “intimate” … closer … anyway, what do I know
The rail slide vid was pretty nice. Clean editing, nicely framed shots. I liked it a lot.
The half pipe clip looked like something a teenager would upload to youtube… only with less thought put into it. There’s nothing interesting or unique in that video, and the final edit is just plain boring. The standard for ski/snowboard videos has been moved so high, that this falls well below baseline.
Yep –
Chase, while your work is great, this one was a turn off for people that live for snowboarding.
I understand that mainstream consumers don’t ‘need’ to see high end action, but with a growing percentage of the outdoor sports market becoming involved in snowboarding/skating/’action sports’ etc – I don’t see how REI can get down with this…
By using athletes that are in the game right now (no offense to Marni) and features that are a bit more ‘official’ (no offense to ride on rainbow rails and 16 foot pipes) – I think the average consumer would still feel involved and influenced to shop at REI, and the true snowboarder would have respect for REI’s support and vision of our lifestyle…
My two cents –
A
I agree with Aaron on this point. Straight airs with Indy/Mute grabs in the pipe aren’t going to do much for a snowboarding clientele. Beyond that, the footage looks great and the cuts are clean.
Chase, Love your work, love what you do, love the shoes, but… According to paragraph six on page 334 of the style laws, “You may not publish any image of a snowboarder on a rail whose board is in any other position relative to the rail that is not parallel or perpendicular. The only exception to this is in sequence when the snowboarder is transitioning from 50-50 to boardslide.”
You clearly have the still frame with the board at about 35 degrees. Your citation is in the mail. Marni’s will be delivered in person at the Banked Slalom.
Furthermore in the halfpipe still you freeze at a point where the hand is touching the edge of the board but the fingers are not closed on it, thereby not counting as a grab. This I don’t get since she’s making the grab in all the other shots.
I think you might have been able to get away with the missed grab and odd angle boardslide if you had a few smiley people going “Woooo!” and having a good time, but since you threw in a serious goggle pull down intro, we were expecting at least a 7 in the pipe.
You just shot them, right? And someone else edited?
You can go bigger.
Agreed. WWVD. What Would Vincent Do?
Nice work Chase.
I think the second one needed more angles of the same sequence to make it feel like one of the snowboarding vids.
Question: did you strap on your board and get some turns in? Hope so.
Thanks Chase.
pablo