As much as I love the number and quality of climbing videos being put online these days I have a real soft spot for older footage. Take for example these highlight clips Mike Call put together about the PCA, a bouldering competition series that ran around 2001-2003. The clips show highlights from two comps in Salt Lake City and one in Boulder. Many faces that are still making news today make appearances along with a long cast of climbers in the “where are they now” file. See how many you can recognize!
If you don’t like rap music with potentially offensive lyrics please turn off your speakers now…
Battle Footage- Part One from Mike Call on Vimeo.
Battle Footage – Part Two from Mike Call on Vimeo.
Battle Footage – Part Three from Mike Call on Vimeo.
Battle Footage – Part Four from Mike Call on Vimeo.
I can’t tell if the older videos are
a) just plain better
b) seem better because of the “things were better in the old days” complex
or
c) seemed better because the internet wasn’t so saturated with them (there were only a handful of sites with climbing videos, and only one good one, ClimbXMedia).
Regardless, I wish every video on ClimbXMedia was still available.
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This is ‘climbing porn’ at its worst. And it’s really a shame that such excellent raw material has been turned into utter crap.
Fast cutting is OK for a minute or two, but 20 minutes of ‘1 second action segments’ is mindnumbing.
And loud music does not ‘enhance’ the pleasure of watching. Mostly (in climbing flicks) music ‘all over’ serves to cover up that there is no narrative.
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I agree. I couldn’t make it past the first video. What is up with this editing?
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awesome videos, cool to see some now older climbers tearing it up when they were younger too. Got me psyched for climbing today
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Thanks for posting these! ClimbXMedia and the PCA definitely produced some good stuff.
@Arcane: I think this is climbing porn at its best. The loud music does not cover up the fact that “there is no narrative”, there just simply is no narrative and no need for one. This isn’t supposed to be a documentary or a contribution to cinema, just some awesome climbing porn with small holds, ridiculous moves, big name climbers and big falls.
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Climbing Porn – lol. Sorry, I’m slow.
What is the difference in the route setting compared to then vs now? In other words, what was the average grade of a competition route then vs now? Or is it just to hard to tell…
Climbers seem so focused in competition now, and a lot more calculated in approach. Could this be why current competitions seem less exciting now? I’m definitely broad brushing here but I’m under the impression that bouldering comps these days are just not interesting to watch – were they ever? Or, is it that the excitement is far and few in between because only dudes like DW can do a one arm campus from a gaston position hanging from a microcrimp over to another microcrimp.
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i concur toothbrush.
it’s more excited so see women’s intermediate where people struggle on normal shit.
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exciting… sorry.
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excited = exciting
so = to
…sorry.
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I was psyched to see Mike put these up too. Brings me back for sure.
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according vintage footage and the stuff climbxmedia produced, just have a look at this: http://www.zanik.pl/filmy/
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i don’t like hip hop, i don’t like flashy fast cutting..
but this shit is great! looks like a lot of fun and adrenaline.. just great stuff!
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