Dab88's Stunting Documentary Thoughts

[G FoX]

Hello Stunting.net, I'm someone who comes from the GTA5 scene and i was very excited for a large scaled stunting documentary and to see one produced is great. Although to me while it has great writing/storytelling i think the topics tackled in this video miss the mark on stunting videos that really impacted the stunting landscape. Videos like Supernuva was a video that had to be mentioned for its impact, but he misses some of the great older videos that helped shape stunting in the the older games or even newer videos that define GTA5 stunting as it stands now. went on a little rant but i posted here because I was curious on what takes people from the older generations of GTA would have to say about this video and what they liked/disliked in it! thanks.

Video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a7HzT7kpGQ&ab_channel=dab88

[dab88]

it's impossible to cover everything. There's 18 years worth of history! I focused on what I knew, what is publicly availabale knowledge along what I could derive from the people who engaged with me (not everybody did) and finally what fit with the story I was trying to tell. I'm more than aware that much detail was missing, both through lack of knowledge and because it wouldn't necessarily fit. The idea was an introduction to the wonder of stunting and think I achieved that goal. I appreciate your criticism though and would be keen to see other peoples interpretations of a "stunt history" or "documentary" because although I used those words, really I was focused on the idea of an entertaining story and very much edited things to facilitate that end. My bad (Werner Herzog moment)

[G FoX]

Yeah man I understand about the 18 years but to me its more about the videos you decided to focus on or highlight in the video. I think a lot of my problems boil down to that you should've reached out to more stunters to get a wider range of information. Videos like furr are great videos but you mentioned it while talking about the greatest achievements (or something around) without a single mention of an Evolve Stunting or an Aero reaper video. A 5 minute talk to any GTA5 stunter would've helped you get on track with videos i would deem more important. Not so much the storytelling of the video but just more on the information side of things. definitely since this is the first video really made in such a capacity of this it would've been very nice to get a wider scope of things. With that i'll add the video itself is great introduction for new people, not so much for old comers.  I appreciate the response.

[dab88]

you mentioned it while talking about the greatest achievements

*stories

greatest stories. Pay attention lol

Also, I spoke with Marston for hours. He's the GTAV encyclopedia and look, you'll see his greatest GTAV moments listed in the video.

Anyways, I'm being too defensive. You have a point but I can only talk about what I know.

[G FoX]

Yeah sorry i have an awful attention span. i think we can agree to disagre. great video either way 

[DeathCobra]

Yeah, I'd agree that a timeline and general 'story' with key developments would be neat. Some aspects were touched on like the earliest VC vids and the ampt forums (the fact that the ampt forums were researched and highlighted at all impressed me a lot). But there were some aspects I'd have loved to cover in more detail - e.g. the emerging of those early crews like ampt, vert, DA, ZS, ATS etc. Early techniques like packer bumping, taxi boosting and grinds. Eventual SA release and what that brought e.g. XSA, TMS and quite big moments like the SA Smackdown prominance on youtube. RADs discovery and the 'door opening' into quite hardcore stunting, with revolutionising videos being released like Barney solos, Taz+Burn stuff, AR/MO and in some respects 'end points' being reached in the engine where stunts are landed that seem to represent the limit of what's possible. Perhaps some coverage on the tension between 'stunting to impress' and 'stunting for creative/self enjoyment'. And the general 'modding' challenges around that.

Nevertheless it's about what the writer (dab) has most interest in and wants to write about, as well as what they're familiar with. I got the impression dab comes from a Just Cause related background and perhaps also has a GTA5 inclination so it's understandable to not dwell on the games long in the past in relation to that. Ultimately a lot of the techniques and such from Renderware era have no carry over into the modern era, at least outside of the most basic stuff like bumping and 'grinding'. Even there there's significant differences.

[Kingjad]

As a dinosaur of stunting who's mainly stuck in the past of 2005-2011-ish era of VC stunting, allow me to say to folk that I feel like this video has done what it set out to do.

This was not about being a history of specific periods of stunting history (and specifically GTA stunting, even though the GTA titles are the main stunting playgrounds), this is about introducing the neutrals and the ignorant (to stunting) to what stunting in video games is about, and how it roughly came about from what we know are the earliest records.

It was for the most part well structured, covered the important points and I can't think of much being 'wrong' which is most crucial for videos such as this. There's always room for more in videos such as these but when those videos misrepresent things then that's a red flag. That does not appear to be the case here.

I'll just copy and paste what I said to DC earlier too to further convey what I'm trying to say:

it's a good documentary about stunting in general, but one gripe is that he's quite dismissive of stunters not 'evolving' with the newer games. He also appears to go along the route of memory-holing the older GTA games when a new one is out as if the older games are not touched again by stunters. This can be misleading to a neutral viewer. The fact is that stunting within VC and SA was at its height in the mid-2000s, and was still growing strong 2010 onwards after GTAIV was long out, but people mainly didn't 'move on' to GTAIV for various factors such as computer limitations or a dislike of the rage game engine for stunting as you were quite floaty on those bikes when in the air.

He does cover that issue of the game engine well but kinda glossed over it being a contributing factor on why the older names did not just hop over to each subsequent GTA title and keep stunting away.

I know that the purpose of the documentary is simply to introduce neutrals to what stunting in games are. i enjoyed most of the video, and I am nitpicking for sake of nitpicking. I am a self-confessed dinosaur of stunting though.

[dab88]

He also appears to go along the route of memory-holing the older GTA games when a new one is out as if the older games are not touched again by stunters.

This is so legit it came to mind as I watched it back fresh this evening! I've been watching loads of VC/SA videos lately over the past month or two and they're all contemporary. Didn't really realise how much I separated things within the context of the video. Might have to add some clarifications to the description.

[Kingjad]

He also appears to go along the route of memory-holing the older GTA games when a new one is out as if the older games are not touched again by stunters.

This is so legit it came to mind as I watched it back fresh this evening! I've been watching loads of VC/SA videos lately over the past month or two and they're all contemporary. Didn't really realise how much I separated things within the context of the video. Might have to add some clarifications to the description.

It's understandable you not trying to push that from the purpose of the video of introducing stunting to newbies, and you also did have what looked like a VC video clip from Ltab that was somewhat more modern compared to the other VC example shown, so it is somewhat nit-picking. For the casual gamer it's hard to really point out that regardless of the newer games coming out, those previous games were, quite often, just as popular (if not more popular) than the newer GTA titles to stunt in.

Most of the old-school stunters prefer VC and SA. There are VC guys who, when SA came out, stuck to VC as they weren't a big fan of that engine. There are SA guys who discovered VC and some hated it and some loved it. And most SA and VC guys did not really dig GTAIV that much. You're right in pointing out the RAGE engine was a contributing factor to that, as bike stunts being quite floaty (as well as the packer, a crucial stunting vehicle, not having a full ramp to utilise for stunts) seriously putting off that older generation of stunters.

GTAV was a game-changer as you said for the popularity of stunting. The massive Nomad Union video was one of the only times that my old TMS crewmate Turtle Dick earned money from stunting - every single previous stunt video had music that invariably meant we could not monetise our hard work in showcasing our abilities. With some videos getting mildly viral (SA Smackdown probably the best example of that) the first generation of stunters somewhat missed out on potential extra money from their talents in stunting.

Saying all this makes me feel like I'm talking about brilliant boxers of the 90s and 00s who are envious of the big paydays that today's heavyweights get to enjoy and so are coming back for 'one more fight', though.

You did a great job with the video and I feel like people who might have expected every single nuance of GTAStunting's history to have been included in the video to think again as to what the goal of the video was.

I'm not sure how easy it is for dubious stunters to cheat in GTAV (I know it is quite anti-modding in general but people still find ways), but the fact of the matter is that the VC and SA games are frustratingly simple to get away with cheating in. Unless it's obvious when looking at it, anyone can get away with slightly modifying the data file of vehicle properties to give themselves maybe a touch more speed or their bike slightly less heavy. If the sort of YouTube popularity and general social media scene was as prominent back then as it was today I can only assume the incentives for people to adopt such measures would've grown a hundredfold. The older generation of stunters never had a monetary incentive to stunt so it simply boiled down to trying to impress your peers.

Anyways, as I said it's a good video. I gave it a like.

[Ltab-]

Thanks for the shout out Dab, glad you used one of my clips! the video was really good, you should probably post it on a dedicated topic and maybe get it to the frontpage, altough i guess most people watched it by now?
honestly i would have really liked to help you out more, but i just found out when you were finishing the project, i bet many people would've wanted to contribute with a little bit of history and sources here and there.
anyways, really great job! i can really see the effort you put in this, i might leave a longer review when i have time!

looking forward to the documentary of VC/SA stunting

[Blaze]

When you're talking nearly two decades worth of stunting history, it's very hard to condense the subject matter into something that's easily digestible that gets the point across without going off on a tangent. For (to the best of my knowledge anyway) someone with an outsider looking in perspective, it'd be very hard to truly understand the nuances and impact of certain videos, stunters and crews - even then, a lot of it is subjective and no doubt no matter how much research, time and effort you put into it, there'll always be someone with their panties in a bunch over not being included. If this was intended to be a comprehensive documentation of GTAStunting as a community I could understand the issues with x video or x stunter not being included, but as a general overview and history of stunting I think Dab has absolutely excelled himself here with the research he put into this, and that shows in the final product.

What this really proposes is why it took someone from outside the stunting community to put in the time and effort to create a documentary on this, as opposed to stunters themselves? Not to take away from any of Dab's work, but a lot of the information contained in his video was taken directly from here, and creating a stunting wiki has been discussed a few times but never came to fruition.

With the creation of GTASDB and the archival of videos, the recent discovery of what video was truly first, almost two decades worth of history right here on the forum alongside plenty of older stunters still being active, we could arguably create a comprehensive timeline of GTAStunting from inception to current day. This could also potentially help bridge the disconnect between the older era of stunters, and those stunting in newer engines.

Of course, it's a lot of work and I'm personally willing to put in the time if others are.

[Kingjad]

A long and detailed video documenting the history of GTAStunting might be interesting to a niche selection of people but it'd probably be at least a couple of hours long and may need broken up into a couple of parts.

The Rise and Fall of GTAStunting (Or the Rise, Fall and Rebirth? Is this a renaissance that the forums are undergoing? Not sure).

[Diaz]

To the two guys above me: it would be amazing to have a comprehensive timeline of GTAS from the earliest days to present. I would definitely read or watch it. But that being said, we are talking about almost 2 decades so covering all of that would be an immense effort. Still, I hope it happens one day, GTASDB was just created as well so a documentary could happen, too.

About the video, it's indeed great and I can see the true purpose of it, so it's really well built up in its topic. What makes me wonder as well is that why it is someone outside of this community who took the time and effort to make this video. Well, thank you Sir.

[Kingjad]

To the two guys above me: it would be amazing to have a comprehensive timeline of GTAS from the earliest days to present. I would definitely read or watch it. But that being said, we are talking about almost 2 decades so covering all of that would be an immense effort. Still, I hope it happens one day, GTASDB was just created as well so a documentary could happen, too.

About the video, it's indeed great and I can see the true purpose of it, so it's really well built up in its topic. What makes me wonder as well is that why it is someone outside of this community who took the time and effort to make this video. Well, thank you Sir.

I might be jumping to conclusions but I think the core element of this community don't have much to do with the current stunting scene - as in, GTAV, which is without a doubt the most popular one generally. Even though the preferred stunting games for the hardcore GTA stunters will be in VC and SA, the fact is there's extremely little I am aware of when it comes to stunting outside of that, and I pay little attention to. These forums, and the people in it, myself included, are not a part of the current popular stunting trend.

I speak in generalisations and for myself, I don't question that there will be some who are quite savvy with stunting across all the platforms, but I feel here the most popular topics and videos gravitate towards those older GTA games of Vice City and San Andreas, even today.

I know Aries has expressed a desire to document GTAStunting's history before, but as you said it'd be a gargantuan task and you'd risk infuriating specific people should you accidentally omit something they felt is important to them.

[dab88]

we could arguably create a comprehensive timeline of GTAStunting from inception to current day.

I guess it really depends what you mean by this? If you guys are thinking about making a video there's a chance the scope is too wide to complie every moment that mattered form teh last 20 years into an entertaining and informative video. By the time you finish writing another 5 years will have passed that need to be covered! You could always just make more focused videos so that you don't have to brush over certain topics and can cover everything adequately. For instance, you could do a video on every significant team covering the members, video releases, collaborations, controversy and impact on the scene. You could do the same for individual stunters. There's so much you could do that would both appeal as a story, get views on youtube and inform others over the history. "The Best Stunter You've Never Heard Of!" is one of my favourite ideas (Dannye?). Or "What the Heck is HEGC?" with a decade long forum thread. Somebody do it!

Even if it wasn't videos you wanted to make you could still make incremental moves toward something more comprehansive. Just start small. Use the stunting database with all the video data and create a visual timeline of every video released. From there you could add all sorts of entries (e.g. milestones such as new techniques or game releases). You could use it as a starting point to put together something more elaborate like a wiki or a longer video.

If anything, somebody needs to start something. The only reason I ended up making this video is because nobody else had.