Video Friday: Bouldering In Fontainebleau & The New River Gorge

Video Friday: Bouldering In Fontainebleau & The New River Gorge

Posted April 23, 2010 at 8:22 am · Comments { 15 } ·

It’s Friday.  That means tomorrow is the big UBC Earth Treks Roc Comp which starts streaming online at 2PM EST for semi-finals and 7PM EST for finals.  If I wasn’t going to be out attempting to teach a climbing class in the rain tomorrow I would definitely be checking it out.

So, while watching indoor bouldering videos is fun, watching outdoor bouldering videos is even more fun.  Here are a couple of videos of the latter to help get you psyched for whatever it is you’re doing (or not doing) this weekend.

The first video is a 30-odd minute compilation put together by Lee Payne that chronicles his 50 day trip to the HP40 of France Fontainebleau, France last year.  The video does a nice job showing problems of all difficulties from the massive 300 problem ticklist Payne compiled during his trip.  A cameo by Chris Schulte on a couple harder lines (including the classic Karma) is thrown in for good measure.  Check out the video here.

Lee Payne in Font

The second video comes from the guys at Louder Than 11 and it follows Jon Glassberg, Nate Draughn and Carlo Traversi as they explore the potential for bouldering at West Virginia’s New River Gorge.   As you can see in the video things didn’t quite go as the guys had hoped, something Glassberg summed up on his blog like this:

We planned for this video to be feature length, epic, and just plain awesome but we ran into some serious trouble along the way.  This video is about the CURSE that we were faced with on our trip and despite our best efforts, nothing really went as planned. Regardless, Carlo, Nate and I were able to put up some really great first ascents and certainly wont forget the experience.

Check it out:

For a FREE download of extras that didn’t make the video check the LT11 store

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  • Fritz

    Is it just me or is the extreme (artificial) depth of field in every shot in the second video somewhat distracting? I think it can be a nice technique/tool to use, but sparingly. When it is in every single shot, and it isn’t authentic DoF but just a portion of the scene being intentionally blurred post-production it just seems unnecessary. Videos should be interesting enough to have the audience fixate on the subject naturally without blurring the rest of the shot to force their gaze. I dunno, the climbs looked freaking sweet, just a small gripe.

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    • http://www.louderthan11.com Jordan Shipman

      Fritz – Thanks for the constructive feedback! Its not artificial in every shot tho. We shot this video with two cameras, one on a crane and the other on a tripod with a 35mm lens adapter. In post we tried to go for a more consistent look throughout by adding soft edges where we thought it looked cool . . . however, I agree with you completely that the cinematography should be interesting and strong enough to stand on its own. Maybe we over did it a bit? :) Thanks for watching!

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      • Fritz

        Thanks for the reply Jordan, I am sorry if I seemed harsh, the video was really great, I just felt like DoF was being added in some shots just for the hell of it, for instance I really liked the shot in front of the river/creek but found it distracting that the water was all blurred. I think I am just soured by a photo recently published in the Rock and Ice photo issue: it has an older shot of Lynn Hill on a climb in the RRG, where there is a clear post DoF added to the bottom quarter of the picture, and the delineation between clean shot and blurred shot just made the photograph look crappier.

        It’s really a shame because I think depth of field is a really powerful tool, but it’s like the fish-eye lens, it is awesome in some respects, but abused it can become more of a gimmick

        I don’t think you took it way too far, and it looked really nice in some of the shots. Keep up the good work!

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        • http://www.louderthan11.com Jordan Shipman

          You were not harsh at all! I value all feedback. It helps us improve the videos we make for you guys! I really appreciate the comments! Thanks again! Psyched for the next video release in May!!! :)

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  • http://jonglassberg.louderthan11.com Jon Glassberg

    The EXTRAS are FREE to download from the Louder Than 11 Store! Lots of good climbing and a lot of projects that still need to be done…

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    • http://climbingnarc.com Narc

      My bad. I should have made that more clear!

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      • http://jonglassberg.louderthan11.com Jon Glassberg

        no Problem! Thanks for the post! Do you have a Spanish site a well?

        http://escalamax.com/

        It has a suspicious feel of Climbing Narc…

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        • http://climbingnarc.com Narc

          Oh my. How…flattering??

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          • http://jonglassberg.louderthan11.com Jon Glassberg

            HA! Something like that….

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  • Paul Campbell

    Hey Jon how tall are you? On your 8a profile it says 255cm but thats like 8 feet :)

    I’m 6’7 and its cool to watch someone tall crush hard boulders!

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  • http://jonglassberg.louderthan11.com/ Jon Glassberg

    Hey Paul! No I’m not quite 8′ tall. more like 6’3″ so 190.5 cm sounds about right. 6’7″! That is tall, maybe some kind of record… How has that treated you as a climber?

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    • http://thelifeandclimbs.blogspot.com Mark

      As another 6’7″ climber, I’ll say that its harder in gyms because a lot of the times, boulders are set low to make up for a lack of height in the gym, so feet are often put in close to the body and its far too scrunched to be useful for tall people. Outdoors, its not that much different it doesn’t seem. A lot more weight to haul around, but I’ve skipped through my fair of cruxes outdoors because of my height and reach.

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  • Tye W.

    Hey Jon, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on being a tall climber, in a blog post or something. (Specifically a tall, strong climber.) I’m 6’3″ also, and I have very mixed feelings about it.

    I will say, I often scam your beta for climbs, haha. Freak in Joe’s for instance.. the bump beta is dope.

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  • Paul Campbell

    Just like Mark said being a tall climber feels like more of a disadvantage in the gym then outside.

    The biggest problem I have in gyms are sit-starts that are difficult for my body type, or not having other options for feet during a climb where I get forced into scrunched positions.

    Outside I find bouldering in general is a bit harder for the tall guy then route climbing. Climbing routes you can constantly skip holds or change sequences to your liking where in bouldering you are more frequently forced into a certain sequence.

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  • http://jonglassberg.louderthan11.com Jon Glassberg

    Tye, good to hear that someone is using my beta for something! Height can make a huge difference both good and bad in a lot of instances on a lot of climbs. I am going to do a nice long blog post about it but I have to do some research first. I’ll be posting as soon as I gather some information and analyze a bit! Tall climbers UNITE!

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