Couldn't finish it, super boring. I was asleep within 30 minutes.

Posted by Esoterik Couldn't finish it, super boring. I was asleep within 30 minutes.

I have a hard time imagining walking away from any 'Urbex documentary" really feeling all that satisfied. I've never actually sat down and watched one of these things, and I don't keep up with any particular famous urbex person, lol. The larger than life thing throws me off a little, maybe because it's nice and low key for me. That's the way I prefer it. It's hard to explain. If anyone knows of one of these documentaries that'll change my mind, feel free to offer suggestions.

*Esoterik, your avatar is tripping out! I feel slightly psychotic when I look at it.

Posted by Dee Ashley I've never actually sat down and watched one of these things, and I don't keep up with any particular famous urbex person, lol. The larger than life thing throws me off a little, maybe because it's nice and low key for me. That's the way I prefer it. It's hard to explain. If anyone knows of one of these documentaries that'll change my mind, feel free to offer suggestions.

Yeah same. The best of seen is this...
https://www.youtub...-DQm6wwyxA2humTCQm

Series 2...
https://www.youtub...m47Ni-Riq6jK1RpO5D

They are about as real as can be.

Posted by Doug Yeah same. The best of seen is this... https://www.youtub...-DQm6wwyxA2humTCQm Series 2... https://www.youtub...m47Ni-Riq6jK1RpO5D They are about as real as can be.

Oh, my! Any relation to you? That's pretty funny, I almost laughed hard enough to spit Snapple out of my nose. That's a first.

Posted by Dee Ashley Oh, my! Any relation to you?

Um, no comment ;)

Posted by MrsRoger My favorite part is that Jim runs everywhere.

Haha, this is like the main thing that sticks out in my mind with this documentary.

Posted by Dee Ashley I have a hard time imagining walking away from any 'Urbex documentary" really feeling all that satisfied. I've never actually sat down and watched one of these things, and I don't keep up with any particular famous urbex person, lol. The larger than life thing throws me off a little, maybe because it's nice and low key for me. That's the way I prefer it. It's hard to explain. If anyone knows of one of these documentaries that'll change my mind, feel free to offer suggestions. *Esoterik, your avatar is tripping out! I feel slightly psychotic when I look at it.

It trips me out too!

Posted by Dee Ashley I have a hard time imagining walking away from any 'Urbex documentary" really feeling all that satisfied. I've never actually sat down and watched one of these things

I wouldn't say Into the Darkness is truly satisfying, but it's hard to make any judgment if you won't actually sit down and try watching it.

Posted by Dee Ashley The larger than life thing throws me off a little, maybe because it's nice and low key for me. That's the way I prefer it.

While I won't defend Into The Darkness as a great film, I wholeheartedly will point out that its independent production and focus fits the "low key" bill completely.

It's not a great film, but not a total waste either. It's a great time capsule and record of where we were as a sub-culture in the first decade of the 21st century, back when urban exploration was a lot more unknown than it is nowadays.

Posted by cavemonkey I bought him Ice Cream once

I ate a sandwich in his presence once.

The oldest footage in UE:ITD is now thirteen years old, and the movie itself will be ten years old this summer. It's maybe worth writing a bit about what it is, what it was, and how it came to be.

You can thank the Landmark Six incident for UE:ITD. That big high-profile (in MN) December 2003 incident first brought UE to a lot of peoples' attention, including local independent filmmaker Melody Gilbert. In very early 2004 she contacted me about shooting an urban exploration documentary for... a large cable network, name starts with the fourth letter of the alphabet.

That was the genesis of what became UE:ITD.

To get to know Melody, and to help her explore the difficulties of shooting video in less-than-ideal locations, a number of us who were active in MSP back then got together with her a few times and took her to a few locations. The drain footage that's in UE:ITD, with the snotsicles and the drain-surfing and everything, dates to this period, the spring of 2004.

Mercifully, the network's lawyers quashed the idea for the show, several months later. I say "mercifully" because the network wanted a documentary that portrayed UE as a hip "extreme sport". They wanted, like, strobe lights and a soundtrack of techno music, and while Melody was game, I don't think any urban explorers I knew locally were.

With the network out of the picture, Melody decided to make what UE:ITD eventually was, a fairly honest look at the hobby as it was, in 2004-2006. It was entirely independent, funded out of her pocket, with the assistance of a couple of small grants. She wound up in I think six countries, and I believe she once said the total amount of raw footage was somewhat over a hundred hours.

Nobody got paid. There were no corporate sponsors. Everyone who appears in it did so voluntarily, on their own terms. Some folks didn't want their real names used, or locations shown, or whatever.

It wasn't the most fascinating documentary the world had ever seen. Documentaries about hobbies or movements or activities are usually more about the people involved than the activity taking place, and UE:ITD is no exception. There's a reason the movie is called "Urban Explorers" and not "Urban Exploration", after all. (It was my second suggestion for a title, and sort of accidentally stuck. The first, only half tongue-in-cheek, was... Drainspotting, so things could have been worse.) It was not a movie for urban explorers. If you don't, or didn't, like it, or "get" it, that's fine. We're not the intended audience.

It was a successful documentary, insofar as it depicted the hobby in an accurate, generally positive way, and made us all look, in the words of the late Douglas Adams, mostly harmless. Melody toured the film-festival circuit with it, and it won an award or two, and was quite well-received.

Even when it was released, it was already kind of a historical artifact, in a way. Post-production and editing took over a year, and shooting had taken almost two. Some of the locations shown were already gone or inaccessible by 2007. Even more are now. Many of the people who appear in UE:ITD were already moving on from the hobby when the documentary was released, and even fewer are still around today. We're old, we're sore, we have careers, families... we grew up, dammit all.

Now, a decade later, it still isn't the most fascinating documentary the world has ever seen. But now it's a weird nostalgic bit of history, a look at the tail end of the golden age of UE and a few of the colorful people who shaped it. For better or worse, things have changed, since. No longer is UE:ITD about what UE is, if it ever truly was; now it's a look back at what UE was, during thirty or so pretty wonderful months back in the Bush years.

I reached out to Melody a year or so ago, seeing if she had any interest in some sort of Youtube anniversary retrospective or something, but never heard from her. I don't know if any of the unused raw footage still survives. I hope some of it might see the light of day, eventually; she filmed a lot of very cool, now long-gone places that never made it into the final film. Among other things, I believe she shot an interview with Ninjalicious, which I'd very much like to see released.

tl;dr: it could have been worse, and it gets better with every passing year, you damned kids. Now get off my lawn, it's time for my nap...

Posted by Krenta The oldest footage in UE:ITD is now thirteen years old, and the movie itself will be ten years old this summer. It's maybe worth writing a bit about what it is, what it was, and how it came to be. You can thank the Landmark Six incident for UE:ITD. That big high-profile (in MN) December 2003 incident first brought UE to a lot of peoples' attention, including local independent filmmaker Melody Gilbert. In very early 2004 she contacted me about shooting an urban exploration documentary for... a large cable network, name starts with the fourth letter of the alphabet. That was the genesis of what became UE:ITD. To get to know Melody, and to help her explore the difficulties of shooting video in less-than-ideal locations, a number of us who were active in MSP back then got together with her a few times and took her to a few locations. The drain footage that's in UE:ITD, with the snotsicles and the drain-surfing and everything, dates to this period, the spring of 2004. Mercifully, the network's lawyers quashed the idea for the show, several months later. I say "mercifully" because the network wanted a documentary that portrayed UE as a hip "extreme sport". They wanted, like, strobe lights and a soundtrack of techno music, and while Melody was game, I don't think any urban explorers I knew locally were. With the network out of the picture, Melody decided to make what UE:ITD eventually was, a fairly honest look at the hobby as it was, in 2004-2006. It was entirely independent, funded out of her pocket, with the assistance of a couple of small grants. She wound up in I think six countries, and I believe she once said the total amount of raw footage was somewhat over a hundred hours. Nobody got paid. There were no corporate sponsors. Everyone who appears in it did so voluntarily, on their own terms. Some folks didn't want their real names used, or locations shown, or whatever. It wasn't the most fascinating documentary the world had ever seen. Documentaries about hobbies or movements or activities are usually more about the people involved than the activity taking place, and UE:ITD is no exception. There's a reason the movie is called "Urban Explorers" and not "Urban Exploration", after all. (It was my second suggestion for a title, and sort of accidentally stuck. The first, only half tongue-in-cheek, was... Drainspotting, so things could have been worse.) It was not a movie for urban explorers. If you don't, or didn't, like it, or "get" it, that's fine. We're not the intended audience. It was a successful documentary, insofar as it depicted the hobby in an accurate, generally positive way, and made us all look, in the words of the late Douglas Adams, mostly harmless. Melody toured the film-festival circuit with it, and it won an award or two, and was quite well-received. Even when it was released, it was already kind of a historical artifact, in a way. Post-production and editing took over a year, and shooting had taken almost two. Some of the locations shown were already gone or inaccessible by 2007. Even more are now. Many of the people who appear in UE:ITD were already moving on from the hobby when the documentary was released, and even fewer are still around today. We're old, we're sore, we have careers, families... we grew up, dammit all. Now, a decade later, it still isn't the most fascinating documentary the world has ever seen. But now it's a weird nostalgic bit of history, a look at the tail end of the golden age of UE and a few of the colorful people who shaped it. For better or worse, things have changed, since. No longer is UE:ITD about what UE is, if it ever truly was; now it's a look back at what UE was, during thirty or so pretty wonderful months back in the Bush years. I reached out to Melody a year or so ago, seeing if she had any interest in some sort of Youtube anniversary retrospective or something, but never heard from her. I don't know if any of the unused raw footage still survives. I hope some of it might see the light of day, eventually; she filmed a lot of very cool, now long-gone places that never made it into the final film. Among other things, I believe she shot an interview with Ninjalicious, which I'd very much like to see released. tl;dr: it could have been worse, and it gets better with every passing year, you damned kids. Now get off my lawn, it's time for my nap...

Holy shit! Thank you for that read and insight!

I, along with a good friend of mine, have taken the task of independently producing a feature length documentary on the hobby and can relate to a lot of what you are saying. As the film is finally coming to a close, I look back through the movie and over half of the places we filmed at are now demolished, or at least inaccessible. We have over 3 TB of RAW footage from maybe around 40 or so different places, and a lot of those shots will not be making the final cut.

At one point we did get sidetracked for about a year when there was slight interest in changing the production to be more "TV-friendly". While we weren't too thrilled with the idea of that, we went with it to see if we could make it work. They ultimately wanted more of a "character driven reality show" type thing, so we went our separate ways.

We have been doing it from our own, non-existent budget and everyone involved did so as volunteers, as with UE:ITD. The experience really brought me closer to everyone that was involved, the UE subculture, and preservation as a whole. I had a ton of fun and exciting adventures that I can look back on, and can almost say I have a feature length film under my belt! We plan to take it around to film festivals to see if there is any interest and who knows what will happen with it.

The preview I saw of your UE documentary was awesome CatAndTie. I've seen a bunch (including ITD which I really liked) and your approach is unique - still waiting for the final release!!

this film was how I found out about UER

Posted by fiftyone_eggs The preview I saw of your UE documentary was awesome CatAndTie. I've seen a bunch (including ITD which I really liked) and your approach is unique - still waiting for the final release!!

Man... hopefully within the next few months we will wrap it up and start the festival circuit! I will definitely be keeping all parties (including UER) involved as much as possible.

Post your preview here!?

Posted by RescueMe1060 Post your preview here!?

I can't really post it on a public forum yet - the preview FiftyOne saw was actually a rough cut of the entire movie, so it's still kind of under wraps for the time being!

Believe me, I want to release this thing to the world at this point! It's been years in the making!

Posted by Krenta You can thank the Landmark Six incident for UE:ITD.

Thanks for the great explanation about its production! But now I'm curious - what was the Landmark Six incident?

Posted by CatAndTie I can't really post it on a public forum yet - the preview FiftyOne saw was actually a rough cut of the entire movie, so it's still kind of under wraps for the time being! Believe me, I want to release this thing to the world at this point! It's been years in the making!

when you do release it I hope you make a huge announcement on the forum some how so I don't miss it

Posted by DJ Craig Thanks for the great explanation about its production! But now I'm curious - what was the Landmark Six incident?

Phhht!

Landmark Six is nothin'.

Landmark Twenty is where it's at!

Posted by Krenta ... a look at the tail end of the golden age of UE ... ... things have changed, since. No longer is UE:ITD about what UE is, if it ever truly was; now it's a look back at what UE was, during thirty or so pretty wonderful months back in the Bush years.

I frequently hear about how different UE is from +/- the year 2000, 2005, pick a year. I'm curious what y'all think is so different from "back then". With the exception of former sites being demolished, I can't think of anything that's different.