production

The Complete Film Production Handbook, Third Edition
$60.95
This book has it all. Forms, procedures, etc. If you are looking for a book that teaches you how to be creative and successful, this isn't the book. I am not sure that book even exists. If it does, let me know. But this is great if you already have that talent.

Kreg KMS7800 Solid Production Stop
$19.99
We have been using the Kreg track system on our miter saw for a couple years now. It has eight feet of track on both sides of the saw. The system came with one of these Solid Stops and the Flip stop. Once calibrated to the saw and track, this stop was our favorite. Never do we mark our boards but just set this stop on the track per the measure tape on it, then cut.

However, one of our guys thinks all knobs for tightening are housed in cast iron, thus the aluminum hole on this stop has stripped out and the unit must be replaced. With workers who pay attention to what they are doing or care about the tooling, this would not have been a problem.

We are going to get a couple more of these cus they are good and solid once tightened down where you want it.

In Deep, the skiing experience by MatchStick Productions
$27.95
I'm a big fan of Matchstick Productions and have pre-ordered each of their movies for the past few years and "In Deep" was no exception.

Last year's BluRay was a nice addition but a few of us suspected than only part of the movie was actually recorded in High Definition since there seemed to be gaps in the quality. We hoped this would be remedied for the 2009-2010 movie.

The consensus among the 8 of us watching the film was that it was boring. There was no central theme, there was no storyline, details on skiers and locations was lacking, and the soundtrack was lame (either too slow, too drawn out, or both - i.e. Phil Collins and Billy Joel).

On the positive side, the segment to Shane McConkey was very tastefully done. I never met Shane but as an "old" skier (currently 32) I always looked up to him. I always though that if he and Chris Davenport were able to pull of their insane skills then I had no excuse to ski short of 100%. I would have loved a documentary on Shane - a sequel to "There's Something About McConkey" but given the limitation of it being a ski movie first and foremost, Shane's segment was great.

Overall, however, I would not recommend this movie to my friends - or purchase it again. While the BluRay is nice I'd recommend several other movies instead, including MSP's older "Ski Movie" (one of my favorites).

Some of my other ski porn manufacturer's to check out include; Poor Boyz, Teton Gravity (aka TGR), and the notorious Warren Miller Entertainment (don't hate - it may be corporate but his roots paved the way for the small guys!).

Cheers

Seven Sunny Days: Short Stories From A Long Winter
$27.99
And the locations are superb.

What a great production - the folks at Matchstick should be very proud - for good reason.

J.