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Documenting climbing feats
Documenting climbing feats is an interesting challenge because you deal with issues of accessibility, projects that can last for months or even years and in some
In my free time I have watched a lot of documentary films about climbing. Some are short, filmed over just a few hours and others are about longer duration projects that can last for a week or two. When I heard that Alex Honnold was free soloing El Cap I didn’t realise all of the preparation that he had been through. It’s only after watching his TED talk that I understood and my respect for his process grew.
I like his TED talk because he really goes into detail about his preparation. You see that it is a process that takes years. Moves are practiced over and over until they are perfect. This is repeated for every pitch. Nothing is left to chance.
Aside from the mental preparation of the climber there is also the process that the cinéma verité crew must go through. In the documentary that I have included below you learn about the questions of ethics that are posed. Questions such as “how do we film this without distractions, how do we film this without endangering his life, how do we make this as safe as possible. The answer is using professional climbers and friends as camera crew. People that know the sport know when to be quiet and what move to expect next.
It’s interesting that in this feature they discuss the use of remote cameras for one or two sections, so that Alex feels alone and focused on the task at hand. Remote cameras on a cliff hundreds of metres off of the ground.
If a documentary is well made, like The Dawn Wall was, then you watch a documentary on a niche topic without growing bored or distracted. If it well filmed then it is as complete as a book. A well made documentary is as complete as a book.
The beauty over documentary films, as opposed to news
Two years ago I volunteered at the Festival Du Film Alpin and I was really happy to watch a genre, that until then I had seen mainly on youtube appear on a big screen with a large audience. Recently I was at the Magnetic Film premiere and this was an interesting experience and last night I was at Pathé Balexert, a mainstream cinema watching a documentary about climbing. The next step would be for one of these documentaries to be screened on an IMAX screen.
The Dawn Wall film
One of the reasons for which this film is so powerful is that it’s written in the way that Heinrich Harrer wrote about the Eiger. It’s documenting not just a single attempt but the entire process. In doing so we get to know the people well. It gives us some context about their early days and then it spends a big amount of time on the process that led to a
When we watch short films about climbing we sometimes see the trials and errors but those trials and errors are over days and weeks, not seasons and years. It documents the process by which Tommy Caldwell spent years exploring the entire rock face to find a route that was practicable. This is the level of detail that we got in The White Spider. You even have some of those ice falls in this film although only briefly.
One of the nicest moments in this film, and in this story, is when Tommy Cadwell gets to the Wine Tower and decides that, instead of continuing up the climb he would wait until Kevin Jorgenson made it across pitch 15. That’s a great example of friendship, companionship and compassion. It’s great when people suspend their own goals for another person in this fashion. That’s what makes climbing and practising other people so much better. It’s finding people that want you to succeed as much as they want to succeed themselves. “I don’t want this victory to be alone,”
I also like how this film is shot. I like the use of tight shots on the hands, of tight shots on the feet, of shots from down in the valley looking up and of wide shots where you see the climbers and the crew filming. I also like the use of timelapse. This, to a great
It does have some great mapping of the routes on that wall. These maps are used to show the routes that other people have created, the routes that he climbed to get to know the wall and then the routes that he opened himself. The most fascinating use of mapping is when you see all of the variants that he explored before climbing the Dawn Wall successfully. You see a few metres here and there, you see how some create longer routes, and then you see the variants. You also see the gaps where they’re facing a challenging climb.
I think that one of the strengths of this team is that it’s made up of a boulderer and a rock climber. With this combination you have two distinct climbing specialities, that when combined offer a great pairing. One example is the dyno move. As a boulderer part of the game/art of this discipline is being able to make jumps that catch tiny finger holds. The strength of having a rock climber is that he has gained experience of climbing techniques, route finding. In this case the fact that Tommy Caldwell has spent so long studying this problem is that he knows the climb by heart.
I would definitely recommend watching this film if you like climbing as a sport, like reading about climbing and like watching it. I would also recommend it if you want to see a film about collaboration and compassion. How it was filmed and edited is also worth the time. I never found bits long or boring. It’s an excellent film.
A Curious Little Fox
I enjoy to go on walks that last from one to two hours and to explore the area where I live. In doing so I see interesting wildlife. Just yesterday I came across a furry little fox. I didn’t have my proper camera so I had to go home and get it. This is some of the footage I managed to get.
He’s cute isn’t he?
The Earth Race Documentaries.
Sometimes I stumble across documentaries that I feel excel in their genre. One such documentary is Earthrace: The Power Boat Race around the World. This is a one and a half hour documentary charting the fundraising, awareness building, race preparations and then the actual race, including logistics and more.
I like this documentary because the editing rhythm is in keeping with the story. The story is told in a logical and chronological order with no excessive editing, no breathless commentary, no excessive use of music. It is one and a half hours exploring the project from its start until its temporary conclusion.
I like the use of timelapse for the Panama canal where we see the boat move in next to the container ship. I think the explanation of why the skipper had liposuction could have been explained much sooner in the documentary. I think it’s in the second documentary that we hear that the bio-diesel that was made from fat was used to first start the engines.
Some documentaries are filmed within a period of weeks or months but this one was filmed over four years. As a result the chronological structure of the documentary also makes sense. I was able to watch over an hour before I took a break, and then watched it until the end.
If you find this documentary interesting then there is a follow-up documentary about the successful circumnavigation of the globe.