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That's a nice video--cool idea to overlay and animate the climbing paths.
You mention that you see a gap between what you do and what others are doing, and you want to be there.
What others? Can you link us to examples of something that you think is better than your work?
I watched these examples, and also got a chance to see some of 14DegreeFilms' videos on YouTube. You guys are producing a huge volume! How many of you are there?
So what these three videos have in common are that they are each based off of a personal narrative.
The first video you posted is kind of a "no-brainer." What they have going for them there is an oral narrative where the stakes are extremely high (lives are at stake) and it's just naturally emotional and tragic. So for that video, the strength starts with the "script," and follows up with what is basically good b-roll. The music is almost certainly an original score, and they have a few clever extra sounds in there, too, but they don't really make or break the piece.
The second one doesn't really strike me as leagues better than yours, to tell you the truth. I think that the most material difference (besides the impressive slow-mo aerials) is again the strength of the concept in pre-production. The director of that piece didn't just show up to interview Nick Geopper and say "tell me about skiing and let's see where it goes from there." I'm just speculating, of course, but it seems to me as though the director developed the concept pretty specifically, if not ahead of time, at least in good time: "break down for me, step-by-step, the execution of a freestyle trick. From the beginning, in present tense. And i'm going to show each one of the steps as you say them." In fact, sometimes it sounds almost as if he is READING something that he had the chance to prepare ahead of time--which seems even more likely since his interview is never shown.
With regards to your self-critique about music and sound, sometimes no music is the best music. In your Boulder Problem piece, if it were mine, I would cut the main track entirely and just use sounds from the climbing wall. Then the viewer could really listen to the climber and watch his hands, instead of having the attention split by the lyrics and uptempo soft rock. That's the first thing I would do. (The opening track is cool though).
After that, I would just keep honing your concepts. You are already doing that with the animated climbing paths, but what's the payoff? What's the audience SUPPOSED to feel? The climber talks about fear, and fear of heights, so maybe it's a story about conquering fear. But the piece stops just a little shy of committing to that. Why is it important for him to conquer this fear, what's the big deal? Everybody's afraid of something, right? Is there some specific personal battle that he's fighting that he could share to bring us closer to him?
Or maybe that's a dead-end, and what you want is just to make the audience feel some of his fear of heights so that his victory over that fear becomes more personal to us. You could have a lot of fun with that, but the music DEFINITELY works against you for that narrative. That music is not scary at all.
Does this guy do any free climbing or bouldering outdoors? That would raise the stakes for sure, from a viewing perspective.
You know, just thoughts. Here is a link to a piece that we did not so long ago: https://vimeo.com/32974513
It might not be your cup of tea, stylistically, but it's a good example of how a documentary short is carried by its concept (and also of how you don't necessarily need music). We won some festival awards for this one, and it was definitely a rewarding experience. It's not always like that: you may notice that this video was uploaded 2 years ago. Not every passion project is so open-end-shut, and not every one is a winner!