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Just wanted to canvas opinion on how welcome a documentary on fellrunning would be - say, one that might appear on BBC4 or the like.
Could the sport benefit from having its profile raised in that way?
Or do you think it more likely the sport and the fells would end up being changed for the worse by too much exposure?
What if it was specifically about the BGR? Or Joss Naylor?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZootHornRollo
Personally I would rather be out on the Fells meeting the folk in the flesh, rather than wasting my time sat in front of a TV watching something that has been heavily edited in order to appeal to a large audience.
BGR IMO is already suffering from overkill and will ultimately fall victim to it`s popularity, Loads of footage already on the master (Joss Naylor) if folk care to look,
I reckon Fellrunning already has enough momentum to ensure its future I can`t see that more exposure would benifit it.
Zoot;
Documentaries these days usually need to have a dramatic structure. They'll only attract funding if there is an engaging character. And something interesting happens to that character.
If Haile Gebrselassie decided to do a record breaking, unsupported, BGR with Ian Holmes, then they both flew off to Africa to establish a HGR in the Ethiopian Highlands, somebody might put-up the money. And it would be marvellous to watch. But it's unlikely to happen.
Anybody got a fantasy fell-running documentary idea?
Well maybe.
But I think with the growth of smaller digital stations means that there is more room for niche, independent programme-making.
I don't think you'd struggle to make an interesting docu about fellrunning that would appeal to a wider audience - there are so many great stories. Look at FITC.
And look at all the countryside / bradbury / wainwright progs there have been in the last few years (for better or worse) - who'd have thought that 10 years ago?
A friend of a friend was thinking of this anyway, and was asking me if I would like to be involved. Maybe for instance following an attempt at the BGR, should I decide to do that, but also about the history and characters of the sport. That makes it sound very much like Feet in the Clouds on film.
I'm just not sure I'd want to be involved or whether in general it's a good thing.
I don't want to attract more attention to fell running then it has already. Whilst it falls under the radar it keeps away some of the less desirable effects of a 'popular' sport (higher entrance fees, difficulty getting places in events due to high numbers, charity saturation, restrictions, santising routes etc etc etc).
To be honest I am also sick of the whole BGR thing. Obviously I have the greatest respect for anyone that completes it as it is outside of my capabilities but it has become so 'popular' that it feels like it's the only thing some people think is worthwhile anymore. I think 'Feet in the Clouds' has a lot to answer for in that respect as I think it has bought more outsiders in to complete the challenge for the sake of completing a challenge (and ticking that box) rather than being fell runners that progress to BGR and other challenges for the love of running in the hills.
Reading back what I've written makes me sound like a selfish, grumpy old sod but maybe that's what I am!! - I should change my forum name!! :wink:
I'm not sure you need to worry too much about over-exposure if it's going to be on BBC4!
Seriously though I think a documentary on fellrunning could be really good and, if the budget was there (which I appreciate it probably won't be), even spectacular. Get some HD cameras up in helicopters doing wide angle shots of a banzai race descent - I'd tune in for that.
And I think I should definitely be in it.
I think thats why it would be a bad idea
You'd get a load of "Tough Guy", thrill seeking dudes turning up thinking they can pop a "radical" "banzai descent" and end up with a bunch of guys hospitalised like poor old AMEX, and one of them might just think it worth sueing.
If it had to happen I'd hope to see a dyed in the wool fell runner with total editorial control. And since I guess thats unlikely I think I'd rather it didn't happen.
Flopsy
I'm with you on the BG, too much noise. (which is not to say people should not aspire to doing it)
I was looking at the Fell Runner just this morning and flicked past yet another picture of the Moot Hall and thought, " Couldn't they maybe do just one BG free edition?"
I don't really follow this line of argument - yes you might get a few new people taking up the sport (though I expect a documentary on fellrunning on a digital channel would be watched predominately by fellrunners), but so what? Everyone that is now a fellrunner once wasn't a fellrunner, and there won't be many who took it up for its unexciting undemanding nature, so I don't think that these 'Tough Guy' types would necessarily fare any worse than you or I did when we first started out.Quote:
Originally Posted by andy k
And the thing about people suing - as a lawyer (boo, hiss etc), I can tell you that so long as the race is organised in the same way as every race I've ever done, with a kit list and route description and a bit about the type of experience required, then they wouldn't stand a chance.
I'm with you on the editorial control bit though - we don't want James Corden's Celebrity Fellrunning or some such sh***!
There really is no need for it.Go out and experence it in proper full HD widescreen colour,real life.
It used to be like that but that was before runners signed up the photographer before they had done their first recce.Quote:
Originally Posted by andy k
I don't have a tv so I don't really have a vested interest here but I am intrigued by the idea that people see something on television and then go and have a go themselves. How true do you think this idea is? I'm not asking because I don't think its true, I really don't know, I'm just genuinely interested if anyone knows the statistics. Personally, I should think the number would be pretty small especially considering that the majority of people I know think that fellrunning is a crazy idea. I have enough trouble getting any women from my club to join me to get a team together and they actually like running already!
I have been watching "TRANSWORLD SPORTS" which is a weekly? magazine type sports programme on Sky Sports. This seems to cater for everything from International Football to Village Cheese Rolling. The programme makers apear to hi-light a less well known sport and focus, in a 5 min section, on one of the top participants. I am amazed that they haven't as yet picked up on fell running, unless I have missed that episode.
I would think they would do a really good job of producing a 5 min report into the sport without trying to promote it for the masses.
FITC is in the process of being made into a film, they're just waiting for the last bit of funding. I think of the existing documentries, 2x2 has been the best, though, it was done in 1985 so possibly of interest to do again. Otherwise enough has/is being done.
Wondered what happened to Transworld Sports, it used to be on Ch4, shame you'd have to pay extra to watch it now.
I am absolutely brand new to the fellrunning community and have never run a race (though I've stewarded a couple), but the thing that impresses me the most is the grass-roots nature of it; it's a genuine community. I'd hate to see macho gear fiends out on the hills pushing past people, or moaning about changing rooms and showers and stuff like that. I'd hate to see people who drive over sand dunes in 4WDs bragging to their mates about how fellrunning is their "summer thing". The community would be lost.
If niche activities get too popular, they lose their spirit. I don't see how a documentary would be shown on TV unless it was heavily edited to show only the glamorous bits, and if fellrunning starts to look glamorous, it will pull people in, rather than be there for people to find.
In the same way, the music festivals that get shown on TV are the ones with big name branding, strict curfews, lots of crime and high admission fees. The ones that don't get shown on TV still have an amazing atmosphere, low entry fees, little or no crime and masses of personality.
Nope!Quote:
Originally Posted by ZootHornRollo
"Griff Rhy-Jones, Jordan, Rory McGrath and Howard from the halifax adverts are on a mission. We have given them seven days to become fully fledged fell runners before throwing them in at the deep end. They'll be competing in the tough and challenging Round Latrigg fell race. Training them will be fell running legend Ben Fogle. Can they rise to the challenge?"
I'm thing of "Horny Mountain Goats" as a title. Living Tv are in a bidding war with Adult Filth (the jordan market) on this one.
Just about every sport has changed for the worse by too much exposure, nuff said.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZootHornRollo
That's tickled me mudclawed:DQuote:
Originally Posted by mudclawed
might happen yet mate!
OK interesting stuff. I do tend towards the wary and sceptical side of things myself.
Although I would like to see a well-made documentary film about the sport myself - it could be a valuable record. One great thing FITC did was to record some of the oral history from great figures in the sport who are not going to be around forever.
Maybe it doesn't have to be for general release - just shown at special screenings etc. Which would make it a labour of love, I suppose.
i think any 'tough guys' who fancied a dabble at fell running would be put off after their first serious ascent. they wouldnt have the energy left to run down any banzai descents!
And the loser would be gassed. On TV. I'd watch that.Quote:
Originally Posted by mudclawed
Seriously though, the idea that "getting more money/people/exposure into the sport" seems to be taken for granted in most sports. Most grass roots participants have actually very little to gain from this.
Fell running is one of the few sports left where there is no "us and them." At the moment I am just as much a fell runner as the bloke/woman who wins the race and I love that. I am a "real" fell runner.
In contrast, for example: the fat blokes playing football on Sundays are not real footballers.
Rock climbing is going the same way - with every mention of some new achievement being followed by a list of the guy's sponsors!
Don't promote it - leave fell running for people to find. If they find it and like it, they will find a unique and welcoming community.
Orienteering is in pursuit of media exposure.
The powers that be at the international level think that they need to be olympic, they think to do this they need media value. They keep inventing new types of race in order to try and appeal to the media.
Over the last 20 years the World Chamionships have become more and more devalued / dumbed down, with courses getting shorter and simpler all the time in the hope that they can be more easily televised.
Where once the race was 100 minutes for the winner through remote forest and encompassed every navigational challenge that could be thrown at you we now have 12 minutes running round a city park. Where the Men's realy was 4 legs of an hour now its 3 of half an hour, with talk of moving to mixed teams with shorter legs, possibly urban.
The sport is selling its sole in its attempts to interest the media, which they never will. The sport is far too esoteric.
Sounds awful.Quote:
Originally Posted by andy k
I agee with Mark L above about letting people find it. If I do want to see any footage of fell running (which I have quite a bit in the past), I'm more than happy with the great little films on Youtube, done by some of the contributors on here. Simple films of a simple sport, but nonetheless beautiful for that.
And, not being flippant, but I liked Andy K's slip of the tongue with his 'selling its sole'! Does sort of work both ways.
Interestingly I’ve just spent the past two days as an extra in the filming (which finishes today) of a cinema/TV commercial for Hovis. It’s a big budget ad featuring a race in the countryside amongst Hovis wheat farmers. Full of clichés, characters and obstacles such as gates, walls, cattle grid, barbed wire fence, river crossing, mud, steep climbs and even steeper descents. The setting is a farm near Macclesfield, with Shuttlingsloe as the backdrop to several shots, and the weather couldn’t have been better for it given that it’s still March.
I’ve never been directly involved in anything like this before, so it was a bit of an eye-opener. Huge numbers of people were involved – over a hundred with crew, actors and extras (background).
I’m not sure when it will start being broadcast, but too clichéd I think to do fellrunning any harm or good.
Attachment 4592
British Cycling doing the same in league with SkyQuote:
Originally Posted by andy k
Quote:
Don't promote it - leave fell running for people to find. If they find it and like it, they will find a unique and welcoming community.
Absolutely right
As someone who makes films professionally and is a modest runner, it doesn't surprise me that this idea has received such short shrift.
But those posters who have turned up their noses at the idea sound too much like Richard Feynman when he said that philosophy of science is as much use to scientists as ornithology is to birds. Well, birds may have no use for ornithology, but that clearly doesn't mean it is useless in itself.
So it follows that a film about fell running could well have an appeal to an audience well beyond those who take part in the sport.
It should also be said that there are so many different things that a film can be, and that it's foolish to be dismissive of the idea without seeing a proper outline proposal or treatment, or reference material. A film is an artefact in itself and should be seen as such rather than as a poor relation to any actual experience that it represents.
(Experience tell me to anticipate gruff responses...!)
Good post eardstapa, you're right: I would have to know a bit more about what sort of film it would be before I got involved.
One of my passions and interests is cultural history, especially that which is distinctively English and tied to locality. Many rural traditions and ways of life have died out since the around the time of the first world war and much of it is forgotten and barely documented. Much of what was characterful about English life has been bleached away by retail parks and motorways, bland commercialism and homogenous corporatism.
I'm not saying fellrunning is either particularly ancient or in danger dying out - but it is very distinctive of location and in its spirit of community and volunteerist ethics, and that makes it a thing of interest, I think.
Wake up Leacock-Mayles-Pennebaker-Grierson-Flaherty: your time has come!Quote:
Originally Posted by eardstapa
“23 Days in July”, “ Pour Un Maillot Jaune”: of course an interesting film can be made about fellrunning.
Maybe it will be the forthcoming FITC film but the Yorkshire TV Programme (actually an independent production) on the 50th Three Peaks Race wasn’t bad and this was at least the third significant film about this one race.
There is no subject on earth that cannot be made interesting if you apply imagination and funds (and the credits of the aforementioned YTV film illustrated how much that cost with teams of cameramen and helicopters everywhere) but it all comes down to the cost/audience ratio.
Documentaries cost a great deal of money compared to cookery/auction/house move programmes and making documentaries for the cinema is a fast route to bankruptcy (these days).
"The Bedlamites” Quosh film is excellent (declaration of interest: I appear in it), was supported by the fellrunning community and its larger audience is probably that community. Were it to appear on television it could only attract viewers to try fell running (the unimpressed would not, but they are not fellrunners anyway so it’s win –win). The Quosh team with more money (the imagination and technique they already have) could do even better.
Now whether or not the fellrunning community wishes to increase the number of fellrunners is, I suggest, for debate. On the one hand some people think the more fell runners the better but on the other hand I receive complaints from runners who cannot enter races because they are full because there are now so many fell runners.
Go figure.
But whatever the FRA, or the fellrunning community (a trite expression, but never mind) thinks, if a producer can get the funds for what he promises the money men will be the next Touching the Void it will happen.
But by then Championship races might be restricted to elite runners by invitation only so I will not receive any more complaints from disgruntled runners anyway.
Im not so sure the issue is that the film/docu wouldn't be any good. It seems the bigger concern is that some may not want Fell Running to be on the radar at all other than to those that go out an find it.Quote:
Originally Posted by eardstapa
yesQuote:
Originally Posted by shaunaneto
so a good analogy might be Feet in the Clouds. Some people presumably wish, that even though it's a very good book, that it hadn't been written, for those reasons?