Douva

In response.... I present...."Bellybutton Peek"..... No f**n way, dude. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

I was actually involved in a relatively heated legal negotiation with Chunk (a.k.a. Jeff Cohen) once (he's now an entertainment attorney). It's my "fun fact" when I'm teaching AFF courses. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

Nice answer, BIGUN. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

I don't want skydiving to get much "bigger"--I kind of like it where it is. But I also don't want to see anymore DZ's disappearing, aircraft being retired without replacements, etc. If you read through the "why isn't skydiving not a lucrative sport??" thread, you'll see the same people who don't want skydiving on TV ranting about the inevitable decline of the skydiving aircraft fleet, ever-increasing airport access issues, and the threat of government regulation. As long as the general public sees skydiving as simply a crazy stunt with no redeeming value, we are never going to get public support in fighting any of those problems. But if Joe America has paused his channel surfing on a couple of 4-way and freefly matches on "The Deuce" and he happens across a news piece on a group of skydivers about to get kicked off their airport, he's going to think, "You know, what those skydivers do isn't really so different from my hobbies, and that sucks that the government is trying to stop them." And suddenly we have public support. As long as nobody understands us, nobody cares about us, and as long as nobody cares about us, we're always going to be teetering on the edge of extinction. The surest way to ensure the survival of a minority is to gain the backing of the majority. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

Exactly my point. Thank you. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

You're still looking at this a recruiting tool. I don't think that should be the goal at all. I think the goal should be positive exposure for the sport. Positive exposure becomes a huge asset when dealing with airport access issues, fighting federal regulation, and any other situation where we need public support. The goal should be to have skydivers and skydiving viewed by the general public as less ridiculous, less suicidal, and less threatening. Of course some of the resistance to this proposal may stem from people who "get off" on the "psycho" image associated with skydiving. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

Wow... you know that just about all the Open teams pay their videographer on a PER jump basis to be there to film right? They pick up his slot, pay his pack job and usually pay about $10-20 per jump. If you are filming at that level you better be on your game 100% of the time. Top camera flyers like Rickster can gaurentee his results almost. If your video is the slightest bit screwed up at that level it might result in NJ's and there you go from 1st to 4th. Ask the Advanced teams what they pay for their videographers. Its not cheap to pick up a videoperson for a whole year. EXPECIALLY if you are doing 400-1000 jumps a year. At that level most camera flyer JUST fly camera for a living since there is little time to do anything else. Read this thread: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=458084#458084 Your teammate hooked you up with a killer deal last year. MUCH better then the 4 way teams pay. If the teams are paying the camera man then it's a work-for-hire, and the footage belongs to the team. I don't think having your footage used to promote the sport of skydiving is an unfair price to pay for getting to train, travel, and compete for free. Yes, my teammate is a great guy, but skysurfing camera flyers operate differently because they are considered part of the team, on par with the skysurfer they film. The camera flyer's moves are judged by the same judges who judge the skysurfer. The camera flyer on a skysurfing team isn't simply charged with documenting each round; he/she is actually required to participate. I may be mistaken, but I don't believe any of the skysurfers at Nationals paid their camera flyers. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

You still miss the fact that most people don't care. They don't understand skydiving and they really don't find it interesting for more than a few mins. SOME people enjoy watching it. Even less will enjoy watching skydiving. People can relate to skating or NASCAR...They have no idea about skydiving at all. And most don't care either. The only skydiving they want to see is the stuff that makes "Real TV". You keep harping on this "relate to" angle, but the truth is, in the year 2005, most people relate to a given sport because they've been exposed to it on TV. I've never seen anyone do a triple lutz, in person. The general public is not as dumb as you seem to think they are, and skydiving is not nearly as hard to follow as you seem to think it is. I've never snow boarded, and I've never been to a snow boarding competition. I relate to it because I've seen it on TV. And when I watch a snowboarding competition on TV, which I do from time-to-time, I'm drawing my knowledge of snowboarding from the other snowboarding competitions I've watched. VERY narrow minded view. So as long as it fits your agenda its OK. If it does not fit your agenda then they are assholes? If it were so great Xgames would not have dropped skydiving like a rock. It is a small segment of the population, a population that can't relate to it, and will not bother to watchit for more than a few mins. It has been tried and it has failed. Best of luck, but I take offense at you thinking anyone that does not agree with you to be stupid....Ya think it might be becasue we have already gone through this before and seen it fail? Ya think it might be because we are able to look past our love of the sport to look at the real issues? You seem to be ignoring most of what I write and seeing only what you want to read. ESPN dropped skysurfing because the X-Games are expensive to produce and they couldn't figure out the sponsorship angle, not because nobody wanted to watch it. My plan is much more cost efficient. Yes, televised skydiving failed in the X-Games, but it has never been tried in a cost effective manner. You're not very clear about how I'm being narrow minded; perhaps you could make your case rather than just impugn my judgment. Finally, I don't recall calling anybody "an asshole" or "stupid." Those inflammatory remarks are your own. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

So why whould they get into it now? I don't see these type of programs with Darts. Yes, you do; you just don't realize it. When you watch these non-mainstream sports broadcast on ESPN 2, what you're actually watching are clip shows. You're seeing the "down to the wire" rounds with the dead time edited out and color commentary edited in. I don't....People can understand ice skating and dart throwing. I could go throw darts in about 15 mins if I wanted to. I could be skating in less than an hour. I also have already thrown darts, and skated. I just went around my office and asked three questions to people. 1. Have you ice skated? 2. Have you thrown a dart? 3. Have you made a skydive? All said they have thrown darts, most said they have skated one skydives. When I asked them if they would like to do those things....All said they would throw darts, a few think an ice skating trip could be fun (I think I am gonna get stuck organizing one )...No one wants to skydive. We have two Tandem Masters on staff...Know how many people either of us have taken on a jump? NONE. People don't understand ice skating. They grasp that it's supposed to look pretty, more turns are better than less, and falling is bad, but the don't grasp the nuances or technical judging criteria of it. People just enjoy watching it. These are PROFESSIONAL vidoe people. They do this for a living. It is their lively hood. I object to you calling them "prima donnas". How would you feel if the work you did was taken by someone else and used to make money? If you're shooting video and stills with the intent of selling your work to media outlets then you can be picky about who uses your work, but if you're a team videographer, you need to get your head out of your wallet and play for the team. This isn't about talking the rest of the world into skydiving anymore than ice skating broadcasts are about talking the rest of the world into ice skating. Skydiving videos are boring because they're just clip after clip of skydives set to music. Hell, that bores me in any sport. But intense competition with color commentary and explanation is different. It's exciting, it's beautiful, and most importantly, it's entertaining. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

I really think it was more of a case of the investors not getting into it. Nobody could figure out a sporting goods tie-in. The X-Games is very expensive to produce, so without the big endorsement deals, it was hard for ESPN to stay out of the red. What I'm talking about is much simpler. Rather than putting on a lavish sports spectacular and then airing the footage, USPA should pay an editor and a couple of commentators a little money to put together broadcasts from existing skydiving competitions. Highlights could be provided to mainstream sports shows interested in showing short clips, and the full broadcasts could be aired on one of the secondary sports networks, like ESPN 2. The public doesn't have to be obsessed with it, just intrigued by it. I feel pretty confident that the same people who get sucked into watching figure skating and dart throwing competitions would be sucked in by something as fast and fluid as skydiving. Actually, the X-games was what really kept skysurfing alive. Skysurfing is a fringe aspect of a fringe sport, so the numbers were never very high, but since ESPN dropped it, the numbers have declined to probably 10% or less of what they used to be. You were not in Lake Wales last year. There was quite the stink about it. People didn't want to hand over their property to the USPA so the USPA could make money. No one seemed to mind when the Wagners were doing it....It was a labor of love for the Wagners..But the USPA wanted to turn it into a comercial business. There was quite the stink about it since others were trying to make a profit off of others work. I don't know what kind of prima donnas were raising a stink about their footage being used for free, but skydivers need to wake up and look at the bigger picture. This isn't about making money; it's about supporting skydiving and the USPA. I'm pretty confident our USPA directors aren't using their positions as a front to get rich of the sweat of their constituents. We shouldn't always be so quick to assume the worst. There is something to be said for working together and being a team player. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

But you used to Water ski so you already have a built in interest Wakeboarding on TV has no interest to me. Tried it and failed misserable. It doe'nt connect with me at all. Same with Bull riding. Yes, but the reason I skysurf today is because I used to enjoy watching skysurfing on ESPN years before I was even a skydiver. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

I'm going to ignore the rest of your rant and just reply to this statement: www.douvafilms.com I bet we'd manage. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

The footage isn't HD, but it's plenty passable for coverage of this type of non-mainstream sport. Again, for non-mainstream sports (which is what we're talking about), it happens all the time. Water-skiing--I watched a solid hour of it on ESPN 2 today. Quote I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

What the hell are you talking about? Where did you get the idea that everybody is in this to get rich? And who says USPA is going to "make a lot of money off their hard work and training?" This isn't about giving USPA a product to sell--Hell, we're still trying to convince ESPN it's worth airing; I don't think we're exactly in a position to start demanding huge sums of money. This is about getting positive exposure for the sport and the competitors. The teams already hand over their footage for free for the Nationals DVD. I haven't heard anyone complaining about that use of their footage, and I seriously doubt they'd object to having it aired on ESPN. Do you really think these teams put in a year of "hard work and training" and then don't want to be recognized for it? I don't see the PRCA rodeo contestants complaining that they have to pay entry fees even though their events are televised. In fact, I don't recall ever hearing that complaint from any contestant in any non-mainstream televised event. To look at this as simply a money making scheme is to miss the bigger picture. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

I think you missed the point of my post. I'm saying that we don't need live spectators for skydiving to work as a spectator sport because the real future is in televised competitions. Like most of the competitions on ESPN 2, skydiving competitions wouldn't be aired live. Ideally, they'd be narrowed down to the exciting rounds, spiced up with color commentary, and edited into broadcasts just long enough to grab the attention of television viewers without boring them. As I said in an earlier post, I really don't think a reality TV approach is the best approach to take. Sometimes people like to imagine themselves as the competitors in a sporting event, just as people like to imagine themselves as the characters in a movie, but that doesn't mean they have to actually aspire to compete in the event they're watching. And not everybody views every sport they watch with this attitude. My sister likes to watch football. She's 5' 4" tall and weighs 115 lbs. I don't think she's envisioning herself as a running back; she just enjoys good competition. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

If you divert from the sporting aspect then you are basically talking about a reality show. The general public isn't going to be interested in the wacky goings on at a DZ unless they have a basis to understand the wacky goings on at a DZ, and the only way to do that is to document the day-to-day activity at a DZ, hence a reality show. Personally, I'd be more interested in seeing skydiving covered as a sport. I'd rather keep the muggles out of all the subcultural aspects of our world. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

I think aiming for a skydiving TV network might be a little too ambitious, but I don't see any reason our competitions can't get 30 or 60 minute spots on ESPN 2 between the likes of the national darts championship and the junior figure skating semifinals. The key would be keeping overhead low. Hire a small company to shoot and edit the competitions, hire a couple of color commentators who know the sport, and give the finished products to the network. USPA should try to work out a deal with one of the sports networks for one competition. If it goes well, we can convince them to pick up more competitions for broadcast. Slamball was a completely new sport when it debuted on Spike TV in 2002. It met with a hugely favorable response from viewers. It wasn't popular because of the viewership of amateur Slamball players (there weren't any Slamball players outside the small televised league), and it wasn't popular because of millions of kids getting into Slamball (there was no way for anyone outside the league to get into the sport). It was popular because it was fun to watch. Even though nobody knew the rules at the beginning, the commentators easily explained them throughout each game, and everybody quickly caught on. Unfortunately, Slamball was canceled after two seasons because it was just too expensive for Spike TV to produce. The viewers were certainly there to support a show produced at average cost, but the cost of producing Slamball was just too over-the-top. And as I said before, cost efficiency would be the key for televised skydiving. If the USPA could provide quality, pre-edited competition video to a network at low cost, I think the plan could definitely work. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

There is a lot of talk these days about skydiving not being a viable spectator sport. The most prevalent argument is that it will never work because the sport doesn't lend itself to live spectators. However, that kind of reasoning is flawed because live spectators are not the backbone of a successful spectator sport in the twenty-first century. In today's market, television spectators are the key. As I sit here flipping through the seventeen sports channels on my digital cable service, a few of the events I see covered include bowling, darts, ski jumping, skateboarding, drag racing, BMX bicycling, and hunting. None of these events appear to have more than a few hundred spectators, at most; however, the television coverage is spectacular. Although I am not involved with any of these sports, they each manage to catch my attention as I channel surf past them. Other naysayers argue that skydiving cannot hold the public's attention because there is simply not enough public involvement in skydiving. This leads me to question to what extent sports like figure skating, ski jumping, and the many variations of auto racing rely on actual participants to build a viewer base. My guess is that these sports rely more on their visually stimulating nature than a wide base of participants for their core audiences. As Hollywood has shown us again and again, the general public is much more interested in watching something that depicts the life they wish they lived, rather than their own humdrum lives. How many NFL football fans actually play football on a regular basis? Perhaps the argument that has done the most damage to this cause is the one that dropped skydiving from the X-games--the notion that sponsors will never support skydiving because eleven year old Average Joe America can't watch skydiving on TV and then talk Mommy and Daddy into buying him a parachute for Christmas. I maintain that his chances are about on par with talking his parents into buying him a stock car, and NASCAR is the fast growing sport in America. As McDonald's and Coke figured out long ago with the NBA, the most lucrative sponsorship deals don't involve gear endorsements; they involve product placements completely unrelated to the sport. After watching the bottom of a Twin Otter disappear into the distance in three or four competitive skydiving rounds, somebody is going to get the idea to put their company logo on the bottom of that plane. And that's just the beginning--The possibilities are endless. Skydiving has the potential to grow and prosper as a spectator sport without first undergoing a substantial structural change. Skydiving does not have to first become the commercialized monster snow skiing and other sports were mutated into to be a viable spectator sport. To immediately discount skydiving's potential shows the same shortsightedness demonstrated by the many people throughout history who have said "It can't be done," only to be proven wrong. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

Self-serving bump. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

I'm going to have to say that statement is pretty far off base, considering M. Night Shyamalan has never made a sequel to one of his films. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

A sure sign of a sub-par film. If the movie can't survive without the element of surprise, it's not a well made film. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

Translation: Who else is going to be hanging with the cool kids at the Rob Harris Boogie / Skydive Arizona Easter Boogie / Project Horizon? I want to know who we're going to be hanging out with, competing against, etc. Interesting bit of trivia about the Rob Harris Boogie: If my facts are correct, the Rob Harris Boogie will coincide in time and place with the twelve year anniversary of Rob and Joe's first medal win--a gold medal in the intermediate division of the first ever skysurfing competition held at the 1993 Skydive Arizona Easter Boogie. Be there or be an old 5-cell square. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

Second worst movie in recent memory. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

Some go without saying. For instance, the worst movie I can recall from recent memory is House of the Dead. There are plenty of bad movies out there, but I quickly forget most of them. House of the Dead has stuck with me for a few months because the director's commentary was so hilarious--"We were going to put a lot of character development here, but we ran out of money." "We were running out of time, so we decided to just have her find this ancient book that kind of explains to the audience what's going on." What about movies that everybody else loved that you thought were total garbage? I hated the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I thought the filmmakers stretched a relatively thin plot (destroying the ring) over three absurdly long films and tried to sustain these three static epics with vague hints at character development that were only fully recognizable by people who had read the books. I also thought the recently acclaimed Hero starring Jet Li was a deplorable attempt at filmmaking, using voice over narration to tell the story over a series of drawn-out, loosely tied together fight scenes. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

MNS's films are too much about the surprise endings. They're like two hour brain teasers. He needs to let the surprise ending thing go and just try to make good movies. It's too hard to keep surprise endings a surprise when everyone is expecting a surprise. I guessed the ending of The Village from the trailer. I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.