The Earth Race Documentaries.

Reading Time: < 1 minute
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.