The most anticipated wakeboarding dvd in history lives up to the hype. Take a trip through wakeboarding's past, present, and future by seeing Scott Byerly's story unfold with the sport.
A criticism I've heard is that some people don't want to see a video just about one rider. Well, that's not what Retrospect really is, it's focus is on Byerly, but it's a balanced set of riding from the sport's greatest riders.
Concept
Retrospect is essentially a video that captures wakeboarding legend Scott Byerly from his beginning in wakeboarding to where he's at today. Along the way the video shows riding sections from other wakeboarding legends and up and coming pros who have been influenced by Byerly.
The footage in Retrospect is a mix of footage you may have seen in wakeboarding videos over the years with never seen before footage shot by Sidewayz. There are also short interviews with pros, friends, and family members about Byerly as they relive memories and talk about what Byerly means to them.
The combination of these types of footage is a fascinating way to see how the abilities and styles of riders have changed and improved over the years, as well as how the sport has evolved and improved. You'll see some of the most legendary moments in wakeboarding history, and it's amazing to see a trend that Byerly was involved in many of them.
The riders in Retrospect include:
Scott Byerly (what a surprise)
Gator Lutgert
Darin Shapiro
Mike Weddington
Cobe Mickacich
Randall Harris
Parks Bonifay
Shaun Murray
Thomas Horrell
Chase Heavener
Matt Staker
Greg Nelson
Erich Schmaltz
Bill McCaffray
Josh Smith
Danny Harf
Gregg Necrason
Brannon Meek
Drew McGuckin
Brian Grubb
Aaron Reed
CC Roberts
And more...
Cinematography
The video footage shot in Retrospect is probably the widest range of cinematography seen in a wakeboard video.
It encompasses about 8 years worth of footage from videos from various filmmakers, contests, and even some home video.
I guess you could say that provides for an inconsistent feel, but the majority of the riding footage is 16mm film or high quality digital, and there are all kinds of angles including helicopter footage, tube footage, chase boat, from the boat, from the shore, and anything else you can imagine.
Length
Retrospect is a long DVD by wakeboarding standards coming in at an hour and a half. There is a bit more off the water footage than most videos due to the interviews with pros, but you don't feel like any of it is wasted, and those interviews are interspersed with riding action so it's far from boring.
Music
The music in Retrospect is all over the map featuring classic rock, hip hop, some mellow tunes, and everything else.
Riding
The riding in Retrospect is both outstanding and inspirational. You might think it'd be boring to see old footage of riders. But in many cases it's great to see some simpler tricks done with incredible style, and see actual improvement from great riders like Parks Bonifay, Shaun Murray, and many others.
It's a great way to get a fairly comprehensive history of the sport in a short period of time. You get to see contest and riding footage back befoer there were extended pylons, towers, and fat sacks. You get to see footage on directional boards, and see Byerly throwing down mobes way back then.
You'll get highlights from legendary wakeboarding incidents like the Byerly/Schmaltz pool session at Lake Powell in Spray, Byerly sliding his own Volkswagen Bug in Hit It, Murray and Byerly throwing back to back 720s in Mayday, the original Carnival slider contest, Byerly's 1996 wakeboarding world record, and other historic moments.
Besides the history there is some flat out great riding that isn't in previous videos. Randy Harris has two outstanding sections featuring a lot of stuff never on film before. Byerly has lots of footage, there is the Gator's Dad's house pool gap session and other new segments from many of the sport's finest.
Bonus Features
Retrospect only contains sponsor information and Sidewayz video trailers as bonus features. The video is full of enough action that it's not really necessary to add lots of additional footage.
Overall
The downside of Retrospect is that the wide range of footage styles and types combined with such varying music kind of makes it feel a little disjointed and not quite as clean as some films that have a consistent style and flow. That is easily overcome though for the sheer historic factor and huge number of riders and great footage to see.
Overall I highly recommend it. If someone asked me to show them what wakeboarding was, I would pick Retrospect to show them. It captures the sport and Scott Byerly well, and that's an entertaining thing to watch.
