It was around 10pm, 2 days before the race and a large stack of A3 print outs of 1:50 000 scaled topographical maps was placed on my desk by Stephan Muller - the race director. This was my first experience with Adventure Racing and my first time filming one. The routes are a close kept secret because competitors only get to see it at the start of the race and so we were also kept in the dark.
It took me the next day to wrap my head around the first of 9 legs of the race enough so that I had somewhat of a media plan on paper. "Get up at 4:30 drive for 2 hours to the start.." I quickly realised I couldn’t plan out the rest of my 5 days as there’s just to many variables. I had to take it day by day. Shooting in such diverse locations such as the biggest dune field in the Southern Hemisphere, the Karoo, mountains, rivers and sea. The weather was just as unpredictable with everything from flash floods to 35 degree heat.
So how do you capture the story of chaos? Participants having little sleep, racing through the night. Leading teams in the mountains while back teams are hundreds of km’s away still kayaking on a river somewhere. I wasn’t alone which would have made it impossible and my main role was just to get footage back daily to Sven Musica which was also challenging at times.
This showreel doesn’t tell a linear story from start to finish because that’s not what I experienced. It was flashing moments scattered over 2000kms. Front teams, back teams. I lost complete track of time with days blurring into one another. It was wild but a beautiful thing to reflect back on and in between the chaos there was so much beauty not only in my surroundings but in the teams I encountered. Love for one another that you seldomly see in competitive sport.
Thanks to Heidi and Stephan Muller for the opportunity to experience this.