Baseclimb & Baseclimb 2

BASEclimb & BASEclimb 2 is a collection of two Australian documentaries that chronicle the mountaineering and BASEjumping adventures of Dr Glenn Singleman and his partners in thrill seeking.

BASEclimb
In 1992 Glenn Singleman, an avid and skilful climber, decided to team up with BASEjumper, Nic Feteris, in order to scale and leap from the 6258 metre high Great Trango Tower in Pakistan. BASEclimb Follows the pair through their training period, where Nic must teach Glenn to BASEjump and Glenn must teach Nic to climb, right up to the grand finale on top of the Great Trango Tower.

BASEclimb is an enjoyable adventure that is worth watching purely for the last ten minutes. The lengths that Nic and Glenn went to in achieving their goal is inspiring stuff, and the final moments of their adventure are intense to say the least.

BASEclimb 2
Taking inspiration from her husband's achievements in 1992, Heather Swan decided to tackle the same challenge in order to prove to herself that she could do anything she set her mind to. Ordinarily a dedicated mother and businesswoman, Heather steps outside her usual comfort zone in order to pursue this dream. The documentary is two years in the making, and follows Heather and her husband Glenn throughout parachute, climbing and BASEjump training, right up until the final goal of Ama Dablam, a significantly taller mountain than that of the Great Trango Tower.

Primarily because of Heather's 'everyday' mum stature, BASEclimb 2 seems more inspiring than the first outing. The conflict and confrontations that she faces throughout seem more real, and as a result the programme is also more emotional than the first.

For budding extremists, there is plenty to like about these two documentaries. Plenty of astounding BASEjumps have been captured and certainly keep the thrill factor at high gear throughout. Enjoying the remainder of the two programmes, however, depends on your ability to empathise with the people they are about. While I was certainly moved by what they achieved, as an individual I found it difficult to relate to them. Even so, there's no denying the exceptional feats that these people have achieved, and if they inspire even one person to chase their ultimate goal, even if it means doing things they never thought possible, then it will all have been doubly worth the effort.

This DVD is literally a 50/50, mixed bag in terms of quality.

For the first documentary, the presentation has been transferred in full frame. It was largely captured on film, and while most of the footage is relatively free of film artefacts, they dramatically affect some portions of the programme. It is never enough to distract too much from the overall viewing experience, but they are very noticeable nonetheless.

Other problems here surface primarily in the form of poor detail and an overall soft image. Generally, these can be attributed to aging, despite the fact that the film is only ten years old.

In this area, the second documentary is almost flawless. Filmed entirely on video (not to mention much more recently) and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 ratio, it not only has the benefit of being entirely free of artefacts, but also has a significantly higher level of detail than the first programme.

While the video quality of the second programme is of excellent quality, I have rated the video as an overall, taking both examples into account.

Again, the situation we are presented with here is split in two in terms of quality.

The audio for the first programme is generally acceptable, but is marred by several nasty problems. Instances of dramatic instability result in dialogue and voice-over levels dropping out and appearing out of phase from time to time. However, the biggest problem here is the overall mixing of the programme. Quite inexplicably, the music and background audio has been banished to the left speaker only, while the voice-over primarily inhabits the right. Why this has been done I do not know (although it is possible that the problem lay within the source material), but the result is an extremely unnatural listening experience.

Thankfully, this does not occur during the second programme, which is in comparison a largely flawless transfer. Voice-over and dialogue levels are clear throughout, while the music and background audio has been mixed appropriately.

Both programmes are presented in Dolby Digital 2.0.

Once again, this section has been rated with both examples on the DVD taken into account.

Additional Footage - This is the only major extra available here. Adding up to just over ten minutes, it consists of seven pieces of footage that were cut out of BASEclimb 2. They are certainly a worthy addition, showing off more BASEjumping, training, hiking and other areas of the adventure.

Photo Gallery - A largely useless gallery consisting of six pages of small images that must be viewed in a group instead of individually.

BASEclimb and BASEclimb 2 are both inspiring and often moving documentaries that should appeal to fans of the genre. While the video and audio quality of each programme are dramatically varied, it doesn't greatly hinder the viewing experience.