Ironman Weekend

We recently headed over to Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) for the Ironman Triathlon event that was being hosted on Sunday 30 March. I had been preparing for this weekend for quite some time, wanting to create a little content “mini-series” from the weekend’s events. Seeing as I have been trying to get into the videography side of things lately this seemed like the perfect opportunity to grab some great video and set myself to creating something new. This is something I had actually done last year with the Half-Ironman event that was hosted in Mossel Bay at the time. Once I had gotten back home though I felt slightly disappointed with the footage that I had shot, and that project seemed to be dead in the water.

However, in the weeks and months since I have done my research, watched a ton of Triathlon based content and felt I had a much better image in my head of what I should be shooting. All that was left was to do was for the weekend to unfold, for me to shoot what I wanted to shoot, then get home and see what I could create. So here we are, I have been home for 48 hours, I have actually not yet watched through any of the footage, but I am here to give my overall impressions of how things went. I may change my tune once I run though everything that I shot, for better or for worse.

Let’s start with some context to set the scene for how video was to be shot and what environment we were in. Zander, Philip, Michael, Ewan and Joab were all competing in the Ironman on Sunday. Myself, Zander, Joab + 5 other supporters (affectionately known as the IronWAGS) were staying in our Uncles house together, creating a wonderfully fun and supportive atmosphere, with just a hint of chaos thrown in the mix. Spending the entire weekend together and basically traveling everywhere together.

From the start the aim was to capture the experience of the weekend, primarily focusing on the athletes and their preparation, mindset and feelings. While also showing what the weekend looked like from the experience of the supporters. Documenting life at home, Ironman registration, lunch, evenings at home and everything in between. Friday and Saturday would be more focused on long form content i.e. vlog style videos speaking to the athletes and supporters. While Sunday would be more geared to the race itself, showing the atmosphere of race day, the support, the athletes etc.

Sitting here as I write this, I like to think that the weekend went well (from a filming standpoint), I will discuss how the actual weekend went in a later post. Sure, you always feel that you could have taken better videos somewhere, could have found better spots, been better prepared, the list goes on. I felt much better prepared that I did last time round in Mossel Bay, I had more purpose, vision and understanding of what I was trying to achieve. Where previously I had been aimlessly trying to video as much as I could without much consideration for what story I was trying to tell. So let us hope that it went well.

I will probably get to starting the video editing process in the next few days. Then I should be able to critically analyse how the weekend went from a videographer’s perspective. I just have a previous project that I am busy with that if I put on the shelf now I may never complete. So, once I have gotten to viewing all the footage from the weekend, I will get back to you and let you know how it went. Then possibly in a few days/weeks after that I should hopefully have some finished product for you in the form of some Ironman videos… Enough babbling, let me get to work 

P.S. Thank you to Morgan for all the photos.

Also Another P.S. Thank to Morgie B, Gabes, Hailey, Mila, Emily, Zander & Joab for a stellar weekend <3