Skydiving Portrayal in the Media

[rapper4mpi 0]

This is similar to the post in Safety and Training on how skydiving is portrayed in the media. Real TV and any skydiver that submits accidents to this show is not helping the sport. BUT sometimes when we try to help the sport as in Skydive Miami's attempt on MTV, it can come back to smack us in the butt. Check this out. The first part in an email I sent to Skydive Miami, the 2nd part in the response. I apologized to skydive Miami since then.
After watching the MTV Road Rules/Real World Challenge segment on
skydiving, I was a bit confused. Why would a reputable DZ let MTV show the sport of Skydiving in the manner that it did. Your chief instructor said "If your reserve fails you will die", come on, you know it is not cut and dry like that, and I hope you would know that whatever you say, may be taken out of context. I'm not blaming Skydive Miami, or trying to start an argument, I'm just concerned that when we can get the kind of coverage that you did, that you take every precaution that everyone lands safely. Two of the "cast" members hammered in pretty hard, how could you let that happen? Just so
they could score some points? I was not there, but this seems like it could have been avoided. What were the busses doing parked where they were? What about the prize X-terras? I feel safety was slackened just for the opportunity to host this event. I know MTV is influential, but someone missed the boat on this one. Why were cast members giving radio commands to the students? This coverage singlehandily could have attributed to many possible students choosing not to try our sport. Speaking only on behalf of myself, I say thanks a lot....Try to be a little more thoughtful in the future. I would welcome a reply to my letter. I may forward this to the industry publications, but I am not one to write something without hearing both sides of the story, so I hope to hear a reply, otherwise I will assume my assumptions are true. Again, I mean no harm by writing this, I'm just very concerned, I would appreciate being proven wrong. Thank you for your time.
blue skies
Hi, thanks for your concern about how our sport is portrayed by the media at times. As you can well see, MTV presented a very one-sided view of the complete training process for an AFF Level 1 skydive. I will answer your questions in the order that you have asked them : They repeatedly asked the question (the film crew) "What happens if both
parachutes do not work?" to which our CI, after trying to work diplomatically around the obvious, finally provided them with the answer to their question. It's a tough situation because they could also have also shown on TV a negative version of him avoiding their question (which he did for a long time). Landings: We have a ten acre landing area for our operation, bordered on all four sides by open farmers fields (literally hundreds of acres). The buses were on the south edge and the Nissans were on the north edge, winds
were out of the east at 5 mph. Canopies were the latest Navigator 280's from PD. We use the standard flight plan were a student remains in the holding area until 1000 ft, then they do their downwind, base and final as per normal. The way they edited the footage makes it look like other cast members were giving last minute instructions to their team-mates, nothing could have been further from the truth. After a student had deployed and done their canopy check and was in the correct holding area, this was the
only time that team members could say a FEW words to their partner under canopy. The instructor then took over as per normal and assisted with the flight plan. We had numerous safety briefings (not shown on MTV) were we told the participants that if we noted any un-safe practices under canopy that they would be immediately disqualifed. MTV wanted the viewing public to be under the impression that it was a competition, so they edited accordingly. In reality there was no competition because the instructors,
using the radio, set-up each student on a long final approach, it was pure luck if they landed in the peas, undershot by fifty feet, or overshot by fifty feet. MTV obviously thought that this lacked drama, and edited accordingly. Please also remember that out of this group of twelve students who did not exactly choose to come skydiving, some had a lot of natural talent, while others obviously did not. I am an AFF instructor myself, and
the reality of it is that no matter how comprehensively we train a student, there is a certain percentage that will overload and be unable to perform up to standard. I agree that two hard landings out of twelve is unacceptable, but these were twelve unique individuals, to put it mildly, and we did our very best with an extremely experienced staff to look after everyones safety.
MTV and the viewing public unfortunately want only the drama, we as skydivers always seem to struggle to get people to understand why we love our sport so much.
Michael, I could go on and on about all the extra safety precautions we
took, MTV chose not to view a single one of them. Please reply to my side of the story, I do understand your concern.
Sincerely,
********
I guess no matter how hard we try, big money will always win out!
-Rap

[MarkM 0]

I can totally see MTV doing what skydive Miami said they did. That station went to crap somewhere in the early 90's when they went from a station that played music videos to the station that "was" music.

[LawnDart21 0]

They may be a crap station, but as long as they keep showing Shakira videos, I'll be glued to the screen! Damn she is a hottie!!!! Britney who? It's all about Shakira in my humble opinion.........LOL
"I live to EFS"
Tom

[scottbre 0]

Editing video is very similar to editing text. If you do it right, you can make it look/sound like someone did/said anything you want them to.
20 million bathtubs can't be wrong. . .

[LawnDart21 0]

Here's a picture of me and Shakira hanging out at Quincy before we made a balloon jump.
'I live to EFS"
Tom

[Scratch 0]

Newspaper headlines:
Skydiver falls to his death in Citrusdal.
Truth:
S/L student has fatal heart attack under fully functioning canopy.
This happend about a year ago.
Go figure.

[scottbre 0]

Damn! You got da mad fotoshop skillz! 20 million bathtubs can't be wrong. . .

[Scratch 0]

Quote

Here's a picture of me and Shakira hanging out at Quincy before we made a balloon jump

ummmmm
Arn't you a little small for her?

[n2skdvn 0]

i was wondering what that box next to one of the balloons was
now I know!!!!!!!
this space for rent........

[GrumpySmurf 0]

She's been a jem hidden in Latin America for some time (part Arab, part Columbian, I think) - I think she is engaged to the son of 'former' (which one, eh?) president of Argentina.

[kingbunky 3]

it's all about sensationalism (is that a word?"Jumping out of planes for the thrill of it all."
-J.Geils Band

[n2skdvn 0]

i have coutnless vids (that i shot myself)
that i will never let the media get ahold of
i love my sport too much to let it get tarnished
i have even had tv camramen offer me money
and i told them flat out no!!!!!!!
the wuffo world views skydiving as a circus attraction
id like to show them diffrently.
this space for rent........

[LawnDart21 0]

She's alot taller in real life.................

[skymedic 0]

Just remember she is columbian/iranian....nasty nasty combo..that ends up in a tasty treat......last time I dated a columbian I was very very afraid..even though she was SOOO funnn in soo many ways.....
marc
BSBD

[rapper4mpi 0]

Glad to see everyone loved my post...
-Rap

[GrumpySmurf 0]

Yeah - you don't know if she is going to kidnap you for ransom or just shoot you for being an infidel.
But it's a fun way to go, eh?
Totally off topic:
Speaking of Columbians - a company I used to work for in Canada had a product in the works that used our geo-sync satellite to transmit GPS location data, continuously or on demand (originally developed to track movement of containers of nuclear material) - from trucks, cars, small planes, etc - we had enough interested private buyers in Columbia that there was talk of shipping me down to help get them set up and running. I thought it would be neat to see a new country - till I found out what thier #1 import was - gringo employees of large firms that they would kidnap and hold for ranson. I quit that job 2 weeks later.

[QuickDraw 0]

Top story dude,
I think SD Miami deserve a pat on the back for putting the record straight.
Whilst we can argue about how it was portrayed by mtv, the bottom line is it's a buisness and the have bill,s to pay too.
I wonder what would happen if they were approached by them again ?
I bet there would be a different response.
There is no spoon.

[rapper4mpi 0]

Thanks, I think this story clearly illustrates the problem and how easily things can get out of hand. We had a tandem master at our dropzone that was approached by one of those TV talk shows. He was asked to make a jump with his mom attached to him. He turned the offer down because he did not trust the producers. You never know what spin they might put on it!
-Rap

[rapper4mpi 0]

It's amazing how fast a post can be lost and forgotten forever......
-Rap

[QuickDraw 0]

Shameless bumping usually does the trick.
There is no spoon.

[Zennie 0]

One of the best media portrayals of our sport that I've seen was a show on The Learning Channel called "Risk Takers & Thrill Seekers." It was basically a profile of people who enjoy "risky" pastimes. The profiled a body surfer, a motorcycle jumper, a wing walker, a BASE jumper and some skydivers. They also followed two guys who apparently were part of the production going through AFF.
They went into the psychology and physiology of risk takers and, surprisingly, portrayed them in a very positive light.
Very interesting and a refreshing change from the norm.
"Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

[rapper4mpi 0]

I think one of the best ways to show our sport to the public is to just do demos for good causes. But then again, how many wuffos do we want joining out sport. Skydiving is not for everyone...
-Rap

[MarkM 0]

I think I saw that and it was pretty good. One of the things that stood out was that they mentioned that the "risk takers" made every effort to make the risk taking as safe as possible, using the latest available technology, etc.

[xybe 0]

Just found this thread.
Maybe this has been commented while I was not reading the forums and somebody can point me to the right thread...
How about the series 24 hours where a lady plants a bomb in an airliner and then skydives out of it. I've read posts of people having trouble taking their (very expensive and beloved) rigs as hand luggages, sometimes the idea that AADs contained explosives was the cause (although cypress have a note explaing that they pose no threat). Aren't you guys afraid ground staff are going to get a little more paranoid after this? not to speak of fellow passengers if they guess what's on that big totebag.
How come media do not portray the rescue personel and firefighters that use parachutes in their work nearly as often as fictional criminal skydivers?
One nice video for whuffo audiences is freefall extreme although fellow skydivers might get irritated with all the inaccuracies in attributions that end up building up the protagonsit's (Adrian Nicholas) ego.
Still shedding whuffo-ness
Check out the Hardcore Whuffo pages

[DENGOPHER 0]

i share your concerns.. it's hard enough to get and keep new skydivers...
just jump!!!
gopher