A few weeks back, Skyler Weeks opened a new dyno at Clear Creek Canyon, CO called Zion. You might be asking yourself, who is Skyler Weeks and why would I care about some dyno in CCC? It turns out that Skyler Weeks is the world record holder for dyno-ing, so when it took him 76 days to stick this dyno it raised some eyebrows and caused Jens at 8a.nu to wildly speculate that Zion must then be V16. Weeks’ efforts were captured on film by Chuck Fryberger for a segment in his upcoming film, Pure, which is how the news was first publicized. Remember this last part, it will be important later.
Skyler Weeks sticking the dyno Zion
Photo: Chuck Fryberger
Obviously, when someone comes out with news of a new, hard problem in the Frontrange of Colorado it is going to draw some interest from people looking to repeat it. With that in mind, Mark “Cookie” Hobson went to Clear Creek Canyon last week with filmmaker Brian Solano to check out Zion. Hobson nearly flashed the line and sent it within a few attempts immediately calling into question the grade of the problem. Hobson felt like the line was in the V8 range, not V13 or V16 as previously suggested. Solano captured Hobson’s send on film and it was to be posted on MVM in short order.
Mark Hobson sticking the dyno Zion
Photo: Brian Solano/MVM
Now, the point of this post is not to debate the difficulty of Zion. As has been pointed out in a discussion on 8a.nu, the grade is irrelevant and the realization of this climb is still a great personal achievement for Weeks. The point of this post is something most people probably haven’t even noticed: the video of Hobson sending Zion was quickly and mysterioulsy removed after briefly being posted on MVM. The Hobson footage has been replaced by a brief news blurb.
To me, this story exemplifies the ongoing debate within the climbing community over the effects commercial considerations are having on how news is reported. It doesn’t take an episode of CSI to speculate what happened to the Hobson footage. Certainly sponsors and filmmakers have their reasons for sharing/withholding information, but the question must be asked: How much influence should sponsors and/or filmmakers really have? It seems that nowadays they have an impact on the distribution of not only the news they’re directly involved with, but also in related news being distributed by others.
All your news are belong to us.
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the spectre organization made me the head of a subcommittee bent on oppressing all news about dynamic movement on stone. this is my crusade and i will not aplogize for my religious beliefs that dynoing is the devil’s work.
suk it trebek!
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I thought Brian shot the footage of cookie? If so then Brian owns it.. Brian (if you read this) why was it taken off MVM? And “All your news are belong to us.” may be true but what about 8a editing cookie’s log book? (is that true or speculation?)
I would really like to hear cookie’s side of this. Chuck could you give us some of the story that “we” (the people on the outside of the circle) do not get?
oh and by the way…that dyno should get a “D” grade, no?
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It’s a pretty simple story, really. I felt like the video with Mark took away from the commercial value of Pure, so I requested a news item instead of video footage. It’s cool to be able to do DVD’s but it becomes hard to do a high-quality feature if by the time it comes out, all the content has been replicated and released on the net.
So, not surprisingly, it basically comes down to money… one of my least favorite topics. 🙁
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The simple issue with this is not (for me) holding back the release of footage to make Chuck’s video more “pure” (sorry, I could not resist) but that a push to hold the v15 grade (or D15?) along with the footage.
and as for holding footage to hold value..
what about Jade? do you think the release of the footage (pre-dosage 5) affected the sales of that feature?
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ALL dynos should get a ‘d’ grade, or more appropriately, an ‘f’
george w. bush’s administration had refused to implement dyno reform, but now the people have spoken and they demand better
all this “dynos don’t kill tendons and ankles, people do” bullcrap has got to go! dynos are evil and make people who use them evil. PROHIBIT DYNOS! MAKE A BETTER AMERICA!!
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What about a mid problem dyno…and SOCK HANDS….if I recall correctly, not only have I been witness to you in the act of dynoing but I also remember you enjoying it! (i.e. Sunspot)
Pull the plank for your eye before you pick the splinter from ours.
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the sunspot move is a “controlled hop” and not a dyno. controlled hops can certainly be fun. balls-out dynos are the issue here; don’t keep trying to use your fancy political double-talk on me, fool!
and yes, i will keep interjecting this pointless dribble into every discussion… even if i told myself that the internet is off limits after 7:45 am
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so i’m confused chuck, was it your request to remove the footage, or did sponsors that support both the website and the upcoming release of your film cry out?
either way it is a particularly disturbing thing to read about in our burgeoning industry, where these new incidents could be setting precedents for things to come.
for example, silencing one climbers accomplishment for the sake of pushing a highly sponsored/advertised public face in the media? (oh wait…)
i don’t think one segment would make that much of a difference in sales, as referenced with jade, though i’m sure it leaves a bit of an ego bruise.
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OMG!WTFADSF
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Chuck, I wasn’t planning on buying your DVD to see one climbing move. If anything, the recent MVM footage intrigues me more- I want to see how it could take one man 76 days to ‘climb’ Zion and another 30 min. I don’t see how the recent footage could be considered detrimental to the value of your production.
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medic-
I can not speak for all of the sponsors/advertisers in the world but I have worked for 2 of the largest in their respected fields (leaving nameless because I do not want them tangled in my web).Never have I been apart of or heard about sponsors influencing how media is distributed. I have heard of things being re-shot in order to do sponsors justice and Climbers re-climbing things in oder to “get the shot”.
So…here are the major problems we “outside the circle” face.
1.The media we face comes from only a handful of sources (call it a monopoly). they control how, when, grade, who, and if we think it is cool.
2.from 1st hand experience, Climbing companies have no money and is a small market. All of the people “in the circle” need to work with/against each other in order to have $$$…
3.We “outside the circle” want info/news/something pretty to look at now!
The only way any of this will be solved is when the athletes have the sexy little ladies and or men…depending on whom we are talking about, who carry pad’s to the project start shooting video and post it on a blog or some secret video site (I can neither confirm or deny that “secret video sites” are available).
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by the way… thank you for the media…. I love it… keep shooting… and doing dosages and other flicks….good work MVM..i JUST LIKE TO BITCH.
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i want some men to start carrying my shit… wait i mean women. damn you Freud
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i didn’t mean to make the climbing community seem important, but i don’t think we need to be any more petty than we already are.
let’s just all go back to filling out our scorecards.
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lolz sweatty
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I’m kind of surprised more people haven’t thought that this move by Chuck is bullshiz. But I guess he needs some kind of hype to get an audience for his new movie after he nearly bored us all to death with Specimen.
Hopefully, someone else will get Cookie back out there and make a new short.
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Fryberger’s move was total BS. Chuck, if you read this, you should be ashamed. Cookie tore that route apart, and to take that away from him is ridiculous.
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I realize this is effectively a long dead topic, but I felt the need to voice an observation. The footage of Weeks sending Zion was not shown in Pure. I can’t say whether it was in the DVD extras, but regardless, it discredits Mr. Fryberger’s claim that Brian Solano’s footage “took away from the commercial value of Pure”.
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I can’t wait to post something thought-provoking on this topic in 2011.
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