The Monday Rant

There's a couple things on my mind today. I know, you should be so lucky. Allow me to clarify. There's a couple of paintball-related things I want to get off my chest, (Three things. English is a weird language. I've got something on my mind but need to get it off my chest. How's that work?) Nevermind.

As you may recall I have, in the past, been unkind to some paintball photographers in suggesting that purity of heart and possession of a camera don't a photographer make and despite all the bleating to the contrary limiting the presence of photographers at events was a good way to help support real photographers and materially improve the quality of their product. Well, today it's gonna be videographers. And I'm not even going to mention the musical choices that typically run the gamut from brain-damaging to soul-crushing. Look, I hate to be that guy but somebody needs to set the record straight. 80 or 800 disconnected clips of so-called paintball action do not a film make. Granted even a short clip can contain a lot of aesthetically positive values but alone or in aggregate those don't a film make either. They simply help shorten the already ridiculously short attention span of the average viewer. And possession of a video camera and a dream do not a filmmaker make. If you wanna make a film, even a short film, you gotta tell a story. A coherent chronological story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Simple as that--and yet obviously not so simple 'cus we almost never see real films or movies about paintball. Instead we get strings of clips, a special effect or two and the trendy soundtrack of the moment that assures even if it isn't cool it's loud. Enough already.

And there's Facebook. VFTD has a page and so do I. The problem is that you people, yes I mean you people, tend to treat them interchangeably or worse, you or the mindless drones behind Facebook pretending to be you are constantly inundating me with stuff I don't want to see and things I don't want to do. Nothing personal. Here's the thing. I am happy to friend like-minded paintballers on Facebook but that doesn't mean I want to play any Facebook games or join your groups or like the pages you like or do any of the myriad of utterly pointless time-wasters that are Facebook. So knock it off. Truth is I remove most of ya from my timeline too because I don't care what you had for breakfast or that the neighbor's dog kept you up last night. Sorry. (Okay, not really.) If on the other hand you want to contact me directly, with a question or just to say hello, I'm fine with that. I always respond to messages or you can post up on VFTD's page any time you like.

Tomorrow, the MS Paris-Chantilly field breakdown.