I need some ideas for the start of our movie. I want to have some text at the start informing non-unicyclists about certain things. At the moment I have:
"All non-unicyclists please note…
‘MUni’ stands for mountain unicycling
…and we DO NOT land drops sitting down."
I really don’t like the misconception that we somehow enjoy jumping off things and landing sitting down with all our weight on the seat.
Any other things I should add?
Please forgive me if this is not Rec.Sport.Unicycling-worthy.
explaining the 2nd statement to non-unicyclists may be problematic …
non-unicyclists don’t know unicyclists’ “land”
non-unicyclists don’t know unicyclists’ “drop”
non-unicyclists may not realize that one can sit on a uni
non-unicyclists may not realize that one can stand on a uni
and sometimes, in a video of a seat-in drop it may appear that the landing is made sitting down, because the transition from legs-extended (standing) to seat is so fast it may happen between video frames. I.e. the first frame that shows the wheel on the ground may also show the butt on the seat.
They’ll soon realise all these things as soon as they watch the rest of the video though, and if they didn’t know them to start with, it will whet their appetites
Maybe change it to
MUni stands for Mountain UNIcycling…
And we DO NOT land sitting down.
If you want to make absolutely sure everyone understand what you mean, show a 2sec clip of a drop.
“No balls where harmed during the making of this film”
Construction workers stopped to watch me ride today . . .
one started with “You lost some ‘wheels’” (?!)
and continued with “that hurts my balls just looking at it”
non-riders don’t know that we don’t sit on our balls
they don’t know that they could probably learn to ride if they tried enough
they don’t know that we don’t like the redundant comments
they don’t know that unicycling is a SPORT enjoyed by non-entertainers
they don’t seem to know how we stop, slow down or “ride that thing”
they don’t know that it is SAFER than most other sports
That’s good, especially if you add “Except here.” and show a great, painful outtake. You can follow it up with something about “This is not the recommended method.”
Yes there’s lots you can say to your audience. But show them first. You could even do a dialogue with a bystanding non-rider, or imaginary one. Then you could tackle the common questions one by one, such as “You can’t ride those uphill, can you?” and show it. Make sure you include something about how people can learn to ride. The first thing toward doing it is not closing yourself off from it. It amazes me how people do that. It’s okay to not be interested, but to be absolutely convinced it’s impossible for you to do is not the same thing.
Yeah, I tell people when they ask me if it’s hard, that it’s hard at first, but you gotta practice. I’ve had my unicycle out at the youth center and of course a bunch of kids wanna ride it, so we juggle my 20 inch and 24" with my three different sized seats and posts between them, and kids try to ride while two more hold them, it’s hectic, but fun. Noones really ridden by themselves, but I don’t expect it, I think some of them do, although I know if they had more then one or two tries they’d get it eventually. But I think it’s helping me at least by trying to teach them, plus it’s fun when they say, " can you ride that?" and want to see me, even if I can only ride forward, hop, and idle for a second.
Then, why bother combating prejudice here?
Your friends know you well enough to know that if landing a drop felt like being kicked in the crotch you probably wouldn’t do it. Right?
I just reckon that somewhere along the way non-unicyclists (most likely friends and family of unicyclists) that don’t know these things will probably see the movie. It’s not like there’s any harm done in adding these few lines. A few of the titles have the word ‘MUni’ in them and I thought that that at least could use some explaining.
There will be links to the movie (available for download) on www.unicycles.com.au and there may be some not-yet-unicyclists watching bits and pieces at some stage. I think it would help for them to know these things.
