Friday glee is in awe of AlexHonnold!cat

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.

It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.

N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.

To enhance this week's glee: this cat is more hardcore than you.

Also, potentially relevant to people's interests:

the_great_outdoors is a new comm for anyone doing outdoors stuff: hikers, campers, skiers, kayakers, geocachers, etc. -- and climbers are specifically included. Might be of interest for anyone who's trying to climb outside more (especially since outdoor climbing obviously often involves hiking and/or camping in order to get to the climbing).

Comments

[niqaeli]

I did read that line and go, "That's on the cinematographer and the editor, you know." But I am a film nerd firstly. *g*

But seriously, it is. I mean, Hikaru no Go, admittedly it is animated but: it's a show about kids who play a board game. And they make it exciting and dramatic and suspenseful and fascinating. It's about playing a board game. If you can make a board game an exciting spectator sport, I mean the most exciting sequences in that show are all games of Go, you ought to be able to make climbing quite exciting with good cinematography and sharp editing. (I've seen climbing videos where... well, you get neither. But that's not the fault of the climbing! Bad camera angles and amateur editing will ruin the excitement and interest in any kind of video except for the people who know exactly what is going on already.)

That said, I think that opening sequence very accurately represents the kind of movie you will be watching; truth in advertising and all. And Tom Cruise is surprisingly bendy! (I can't speak to his technique beyond the obvious ridiculous.)

[rydra_wong]

I'm wondering if part of it is contextual. I mean, you're talking about a short sequence in a film aimed at an action-movie audience, 99% of whom don't know anything about climbing (and so are very limited in their ability to judge what's difficult or dangerous) and who don't want to have the plot stopped for five minutes while it's explained to them. And who expect the protagonist to have superhero physical powers anyway.

They don't understand what the ropes do and whether or not harnesses spontaneously fall apart like in Cliffhanger, so roped climbing is too confusing. But huge leaps and swinging about on big holds looks impressive.

(At the bouldering wall, I regularly see teenage n00bs who point at the slab and explain confidently to their friends, "This is the easy wall." Me doing a V4 on the slab: not impressive. Me doing a V1 on the roof: super-impressive OMG SPIDERWOMAN.)

I've seen incredibly exciting climbing films, and ones that work for non-climbers too (I have inflicted enough of them on friends and family to test this). But they do tend to invest some film time in communicating to the audience why something is difficult or dangerous or skillful or important. Which you can't do if it's your credits sequence.

[niqaeli]

I hope I didn't imply that there aren't any exciting climbing films! Like I said, I think it's hugely a matter of cinematography and editing. Context is a lot though, yeah.

The thing is, having multiple camera angles, having a good soundtrack, having a good editor, those all make a big difference in being able to make something exciting. If all you've got is one or maybe two camera angles to work with, it's a lot harder to string together a narrative that's exciting to an untrained eye. Of course you, can take the time to provide context, but that takes time. But if you have those other things, honestly, I honestly believe it's ought to be perfectly doable to make a perfectly sane (or at least, one that shows all normaly, sensible precautions taken) climb exciting as hell, even in a short credits sequence.

But... that wouldn't really be Mission: Impossible. (I mean, aside from setting the tone of ridiculous for the movie, I think it's totally relevant characterisation that Cruise's character is actually deranged enough to pull that nonsense. *g*)

[rydra_wong]

I hope I didn't imply that there aren't any exciting climbing films!

Oh no, you didn't, the cameraman did -- I was responding to that. And generally thinking aloud.