I ran into Justine on the Barron canyon in Ontario Canada; and your absolutely right how wonderfully nice she is. I was a bit shocked to see her run out of the woods in basically my backyard…in rural Canada!

There are other film makers who I see as cocky, arrogant who I would have no issue downloading their movie (if I bothered to watch it). However for me anyway I think it comes down to supporting the artist and supporting the kayaker.

She’s got my support.

However, I do get concerned for the future when I discuss this issue with young people. As a IT teacher I find that whilst the older students I teach (16-19 year olds) pay for some content, the younger students only seem to buy physical media as gifts for parents/relatives – anything for themselves is downloaded/shared for free (often breaking the law). I think they are growing up learning that it is easy to obtain content for free and genuinely don’t realise the implications of doing this although they are aware that a good proportion of the content is copyright.

For them its not a case of finding creative commons alternatives that of equal quality and not needing to pay for it but wanting the top quality material that should be paid for and knowing they can get it for free.

Having said all of this, looking at paddling media, this is still a niche market and paddle sports appeal to certain types of people. As a sweeping generalisation, the people I meet whether online or in the real world who participate in paddle sports tend to be the sort of people who would pay for top quality content rather than source it elsewhere. I could be wrong on this so would be interested on other people opinions. I think there will always be a market for this content because of this.

I think switching to canoeing was a really wise move sales wise as there are quite a few good productions available now and that market is slowly becoming saturated but canoeing looks very exciting and Justine’s production skills are obviously still getting better and better. The best of luck to her.

Geoff

Seems to me that it is a long way from good equipment and expertise in using to the ‘good stuff’ that will come out at the end. You still need the good old imagination, creativity, vision, and also a good sense of the social climate. “What do the masses want?”

When technical aptitude intersects with a creative genius brewed in a receptive environment, we all win a lottery. There also are many creative visionaries without the hi-tech arsenal and without the knowledge of all the how-to alternatives. They are diamonds in the rough that can readily be found in the multimedia wasteland, YouTube and Blogosphere. They are definitely worth my time and attention as well as the price of the fast internet access–not free by a long stretch! Finally, there are plenty of ‘professionals’ who have not produced anything I would want to spend my time or money on despite flawless camera work, clean production, glorious special effects, and exotic locations.

Pop multimedia realm is definitely good for the ‘professionals’ who need to reach small niche markets like paddlers! At the same time they better have something to show that is a cut above the grassroots level if they expect to get paid.

The same realm is also good in a sense of flushing out the creative forces lurking everywhere to the surface. Browsing the inexhaustible MM supermarkets the future great creators say: “Hey, I would like to do something like this, except I can make it much much better!” Without the supermarket, they may never have conceived the vision.

I think MM is also much superior to the old-fashioned shower or apples falling from the trees for inspiration.

So as a pragmatist, I am all for the maximal multi-media immersion. I think it benefits both the demand and the supply part of the equation.