Hi everyone

Just wondering if anyone went to the Leeds premiere last night. Hope you enjoyed the films, just wondering what you thought of the Singletrack Advert at the beginning, before the films?
Love to here some feedback on it.

Cheers

Dom
Dominic John Films

Yeah, the ad was good, fitted the main film very well.

Tell you what, it was a million times better than “vast”, what the heck was that all about?

“Here are some people riding bikes, just riding bikes, normally, plus, lets play some really cack loud euro rock at you!”

Are you kidding? Life Cycles was the worst bike film I’ve ever seen. Ever!

Lots of slow-mo trees and ground. Someone driving a truck. Some slow-mo riding. It was 40 minutes of slow-mo of which about 20 mins was riding so I guess if it was played at normal speed, 10 minutes worth of riding of which was a type and standard you see in every other bike film. Utter toss I reckon. I’m glad we’d been to the German market beforehand because if I’d been 100% sober I’d be even more scathing.

Thought in comparison, Vast was alright. Crap music, pretty average riding but some stunning scenery and shock horror, some riding at proper speed!

More ramblings.

I feel that a bike film should portray to non-bikers what mountain biking is about to put to bed the common idea that we’re a bunch of neon lycra clad idiots riding on fire-roads. This didn’t do that – if it had me shaking my head and questioning what the hell I’d just endured then I’m sure a non-rider would feel even worse… thinking that yes, we’re not lycra clad weirdos but so up our own arses we create films shot in slow-mo babbling on about rivers and their grandpa.

Sod it – I want to see decent riding (see MacAskills vid, the GoPro stuff on youtube, Yorkshire Lads stuff on Vimeo etc). In my eyes a good video that shows what riding is, is Seasons. Awesome riding, awesome soundtrack and no ‘slow’ Yank doing stupid narration between each 60 second slowed down riding clip.

I still can’t get over just how much Life Cycles seems to polarise opinion.

Personally I thought it was fantastic

+1 DaveyBoyWonder

I think cinematography wise it is beautiful, stunning scenery with a lot of work put in to it. But riding wise its, of course really good, but its not crazy amazing like some other films. I think the type of film that does better in the market is a more narrative based one, something that the audience can relate to. Thats what i’d like to see anyway.

Nice ad Dom. Especially as I was in it.

Haha thanks Ed, it all came together really well 😀

I thought lifecycles was OK. Whoever came up with the idea of the summer/autumn/winter wipes should hang his head though, those were rotten. Just served as a way to make 20 seconds of riding take up 5 minutes. And far too much slo-mo as said up the page. But mainly it was just so po-faced and up itself. the core life cycle idea was great and when they were working with that, they had a good movie going (I really liked the knackered bike/fixed bike section, and the trailbuilding bit too… but they seemed to run out of mileage completely. I reckon if it was almost exactly half as long, it’d be brilliant but as it turned out, half the film drags the other half down.

Liked Vast a lot more. Nothing amazing about it, just some nice riding, some brilliant landscapes, some decent filming but most of all a sense of humour. And a jump section that I actually enjoyed for once. Not as clever or as artistic or as well filmed but still more enjoyable for all that.

Oh, and we got no STW advert in Edinburgh. Is it viewable online?

It was because the mag sponsored the Leeds premiere. I will talk to the guys tomorrow and try and get it up either on here or my blog for everyone to have a look at 😀

I went. I thought the ad at the start was good. Lifecycles was ok but too much slo-mo and not enough riding. I also thought that VAST was ace. It was all spoilt by the peanut gallery at the back chatting rubbish all through both films.

I saw it in London a few weeks ago. LifeCycles was okay but too much interstitial stuff and slow motion. Even my other half who is not a rider watched it and said that there was too much narration.

Vast on the other hand didn’t feel like it was about the best riders (actually Ionate’s blog says exactly that), just about riders having fun where they like to ride. In terms of making me want to go and ride, Vast was a better film for me.

Glad I wasn’t the only one then. Speaking to other mates who went on Friday, they felt exactly the same too.

Lifecycles was prettier and had better riders than Vast but I still managed to fall asleep during both. 😳 I generally only watch most MTB DVDs once so it was well worth going to see them at the cinema..

Northwind – was 20 minutes of adverts at the beginning not quite enough for you? 😉

Andyhilton – why didn’t you tell them to STFU at the time?

Cos 3 of them were big and scarey! 😈

GW – They were kids and had already had a fair few WKDs. Not sure a polite request, or otherwise, would have worked.

One of them didn’t have a big beard did he? 😉

How did the Edinburgh screening go anyhoos?

Good turnout?

Genuinely surprised at how Lifecycles has divided opinion. Having said that, the opinions of one or two folk good or bad aren’t necessariliy representative! Ha! Ha!

Cheers

Sanny

Nice to watch some trees and leaves – but riding wise it was tosh!

Saying that I enjoyed it in a visual way but was relieved I hadn’t spanked £22 (!) on the DVD on the way in

Enjoyed the ‘throwouts’ – we bagged some X-Lite Carbon bar ends – nice touch to the evening!

Better still was visiting my ol’ local – The Royal Park pub beforehand 😉

We went in there. What a ‘hole.

Saw it at Penrith IMAX.

Great HD photography and some good riding but painfully pretentious and a bit corny with it. And I fell asleep at least once.

Much preferred Follow Me, which was the other half of the bill that night. Great riding and a bit of humour.

GW – Member

“Northwind – was 20 minutes of adverts at the beginning not quite enough for you?”

Heh, we figured 2 films so we got 2 films worth of adverts. Including that one that went on for days and was either for drink or perfume or perfume you can drink, but whatever it was it looked suspiciously like they were knocking back glasses of wee. Don’t think I’ll be buying any of that.

But critically NO ICECREAM BREAK 👿

but riding wise it was tosh!

WTF?

What were you expecting? tripple backflips? 720 drops? 100ft gaps?
I thought the actual riding was pretty excellent! fast and flowing and packed full of difficult moves/tricks exectuted seriously smoothly`which is the only reason the albeit overdone slow motion actually worked.

Northwind – showing your age there, Strawberry mivi? 😉

GW – bless you, but no thats exactly the sort of riding I dont want to view on DVD’s / MTB films

What I was expressing was ‘my’ opinion – just didnt see anything particularly inspiring / notable in the film

Now its probaly time you get back to youre desk matey! 😉

desk? 😯
haven’t had a desk since school but talking of which, I’ve marked your spelling for you. You can hand it back corrected tomorrow.. er.. matey 😉

Now its probaly time you get back to youre desk matey!

Seriously tho.. What were you expecting? what sort of riding do you want to view on an mtb DVD?

You can watch it on You Tube at the moment, I dont know how long the actual film was but the film on there is 46 mins long. Dont know how to do a link sorry

GW – Member

“Northwind – showing your age there, Strawberry mivi?”

Pleased to say I had to google that

I left the theatre after watching life cycles feeling I’d never get that 40 minutes of my life back again. Truly terrible. Trying to be cool for the sake of being cool rather then putting a good bike movie forward.

Vast on the other hand I can watch over and over again (Virtuous too). But that’s basically because I know and get to ride regularly nearly all of the trails in both of them.

Fascinating … as Mr Spock would say. Genuinely surprised by the polarisation of opinions from what is, after all, just a film! I guess you really can’t please all of the people all of the time. I wonder if there is any film folk will universally praise or criticize? As I recall, all the previous films I’ve screened have also divided opinion so nothing new there!

GW What was the name of the orange lolly that was similar to the Mivi? I’m sure it wasn’t called a Mivi. I wonder if King Cones and Quenchy cups will ever come back?

I was at the Edinburgh one. It was full I think (not sure how many people the cinema holds though).

Lifecycles had some nice ideas (eg the season fade thing) but it felt like they were worried people wouldn’t notice so they repeated it 20 times. Ditto with the ultra slow-mo. I wouldn’t have minded the commentary so much except at the start it said the commentary was written by one person and spoken by someone else. If you’re going to have personal childhood stories about how you got into cycling – maybe don’t point out until after that it’s all lies?

Vast on the other hand I really enjoyed. It made me want to ride my bike 🙂 Also had my sort of music on the soundtrack – so much so that I looked up a couple of the artists afterwards.

Genuinely surprised by the polarisation of opinions from what is, after all, just a film!

me too! oh, and.. Orange Maid? 😕

Embra one was busy but def not full.

..and yet wierdly.. despite the consensus on this thread seemingly suggesting most people didn’t like it, there was a genuine round of applause from most of the cinema after both Life Cycles AND the Danny Mac film. No round of applause after Vast though.

I saw it on YouTube… I’m glad that I could fast forward through the talky rubbish.

I don’t think I’ve ever applauded a cinema screen.. have boo’d tho (the first Batman film)

I thought it was great. Not so much a riding film as an arty film about bikes though, that’s for sure. The commentary was a bit up itself and cringe worthy in places though.

I wonder if there is any film folk will universally praise

Maybe Home? That’s a much better attempt to do an MTB film with an arty sensibility IMO.

Likewise Clay Porter’s DH world cup films F1rst and Between the Tape are both excellent. Anyone not like them?

Home is the second worst bike film I’ve seen.

Universally praised bike films? All the Sprung films? Earthed? Seasons? Collective? I really like Counterparts by Aaron Chase but I know thats hated by some…

I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that watching stuff on YouTube and Vimeo is the way to go. Choose what you want to watch and its gratis. The Mojo trail diaries, MacAskill and Akriggs stuff, Yorkshire_Lads on Vimeo (I like that since its mostly local to me) etc.

Home is the second worst bike film I’ve seen.

Haha, there you go. What’s the worst though?

Collective was boring for me, btw.

😀