the book

I've been watching "the book" for a couple of weeks now.
I really like the instruction
it has helped me some already...but!

what's up with the brown water
is that the way it is in Florida?
yuck !!!!

it seems pretty normal for a lake to be brown.. or atleast not crystal clear.. the only crystal clear lake i know is lake travis here in texas

not really talking about clear
P.K., Whitney, and some others here are somewhat clean, but not clear
the whitewash is still somewhat white

the whitewash on the video is brown

yea
thats in clermont. most of the lakes in florida are brownish in color. i have been told its because of cypress trees which dye the water the color that it is.
i am moving to a lake called black lake around christmas time and it is darker than the clermont chain!!!

Yeah that was filmed at the wakeboard camp wich is in clermont FL as sam said but i have been there and there wasnt really anything wrong with the water except it looked ugly. i love clermont

I guess being in Florida would make any color of water tolerable

The color is easy to deal with when the temp only gets in the mid 60's in the winter, lol. Some lakes are brown and some are not. A lot depends on the bottom, vegetation, and how much residential and commercial development in on the lake. Brown water is usually a result of runoff from homes that have been there for years. Less development usually means a cleaner lake around here.

i was going to start another thread, but get your copy
http://www.thebookdvd.com/freedvd
90 minutes of free video from the book

yeah it's an awesome set! and yeah i noticed the nasty water too... so with gators, huricane season and brown water... what really is it that draws everyone to florida? meh i still love it! awesome party scene and warm(er) temps all yr round sounds good to me! no frozen lakes!

-ashley

p.s. not to be spamming up this thread or anything but i have some dvds from the set i'm willing to sell... watched each a couple of times but i don't really want them anymore... i have the "getting started" one, "building a foundation" and "intermediate and advanced tricks"... each are awesome vids i just need some money right now... ipod got stolen when i was in new york and i want to buy a new one i just spent all my spending money on my set-up for this yr...

I also like The Book generally speaking.

With that said: I think there is too much animation, titling and the segways are too long betweeen sections. Over-all it's probably about 50% actual instruction. It looks like they tried to justify the price by extending the length of the DVD's with fluff. Now please, don't get me wrong, these are the guys to be learning from and they do a great job. But they could have done a service by reducing all the extra, un-needed footage. In this case more is definitly not better.

I agree. The segwayes are too long. It was our first projet. Live and learn. It wasn't to try and make it longer. We actually had to cut stuff out to make it fit. Kyle is like that. He is a perfectionist and didn't want to leave anything out.

It may be long but it is way better than any other instructional video I've seen. I think I have most of it memorized. I really like how each trick is totally broken down. Detention is a fun viedeo to watch but not very helpful in learning tricks. Every trick I can do is from watching that video. I think you guys did a great job PJ.

Hey PJ, I didn't know you posted on here.

Bruce,
We definetly didn't have to stretch anything out to extend the running times on The Book. Like PJ said we actually had to cut some stuff out at times. We are already about half the price of every other instructional on a "$/per minute" scale. So there is no need to try to extend our running times by adding fluff. A lot of the stuff was added to help break up the action. Some people liked it, some didn't. We definetly listen to all of your guys' criticisms, recomendations, and praise. Obviously we are making these instructionals for you, so we might as well make them how you want them. I think in the Wakeskate Series you'll see a few of the complaints that we had from the Wakeboard Series addressed. The animated chapter intros are shorter and more to the point, for example. Anyways, I want to thank all of you for supporting The Book. We have several ideas in the works for our next instructional DVD. Email me sometime and let me know what you'd like to see us cover next.

I ordered my copy yesterday - I'm pretty psyched about it.

Mike
my comments were just to poke fun at the Florida water
...'cause there isn't much else to harass about
the videos are great

only suggestion...and I've only watched the 1st 2...cause that's how much instruction I need..lol

is...since alot of us here are pulled by wives, girlfriends or new to pulling friends

....a bit more instruction for the drivers might be helpful
..like I said, it might be in there and I haven't gotten that far yet

If you've got the chopper rented out, how about some aerial views of how to properly drive the double up. I've seen partial clips in a few "Freeride" videos and tried to get my drivers to watch which helps, but a true overhead view from start to finish from both the drivers and riders perspective in instructional format would be truly awesome. I'm ready to grab a new copy if/when you do a version II. Still, great job on the original!

Yeah, thats one of the reasons why we did the double-up using 3D graphics, so we could get a straight overhead shot (since we couldn't afford a copter at the time). Believe it or not, the whole Wakeboard Series was made with about zero budget. You'll notice we had no sponsors for The Book, except Wakeboarding Mag. The reason why is because we didn't want politics to get in the way. We didn't want to have to put a certain board in our equipment section because that company is a major sponsor of the video. We wanted to stay true to the content, but that also meant no budget. I basically had to max out every bit of credit I could to help pay my bills while making it. Now that we have established ourselves a bit more, we have more budget to work with (which I think shows in the Wakeskating series). We will most likely redo the whole wakeboard series from the ground up, but thats at least 3 years away. When we redo the wakeboard series it will be in HD and it will be on either BluRay discs or HD-DVD discs, not DVDs. So as soon as DVDs are out, and the next optical disc format is in, we will start thinking about redoing everything in HiDef. Also, with all of these great new camcorders coming out like the Panasonic HVX-200, we are really going to be able to do some beutiful slow-mo effects that will really enhance the series.

OK, about this whole Florida water thing. It is because of the Cypress Trees (which was previously mentioned). Also, only certain lakes have this brownish water. The Clermont Chain is definetly one of them. If you wear white boardshorts in there, eventually they will be stained. The funny thing is that when I used to ride in competitions, it would throw me off when I was aaproaching the wake, and it was either clear or blue in color. It kinda freaked me out. It would be hard for me to find the base/peak of the wake. I was so used to riding in "tea-colored" water that every other color looked strange to me. Kindof weird huh? Also, as a side note, the water tastes and smells normal, it just looks like tea, thats all.

Heres an offshoot question for the DVD gurus out there.. I have a portable DVD player (Samsung, so its a decent model) and some of my wake dvds play just fine, including The Book, but others like my copy of Metronome and Relentless do not. Did I get knockoff copies of these or what?

Mike....what up. DC from S.C. STILL watching my set bro, and since then I've taught more than 10 people to ride, and two that can't even SWIM...just from what I learned from The Book. Everyone that's came to my house to watch it(I don't loan it out!) gets so stoked with it, and are antsy to go ride after. You guys covered it ALL....even the little things like giving up gas money. It's a definite "must have" for anyone that rides....no matter what level.
Good luck wiht the next project! Tough act to follow!

DC