As the divers drop from the helicopter, you get an immediate sense of how high they are. The smoke trail gives you a feeling for the wind and the speed of the fall. You can actually see the roundness of the earth in the foreground as they fall quickly towards it. The veining of the roads through the surrounding hills and mountains is clearly visible along with the multitudes of homes that signal civilization. The landing field far below looks like a small green domino as they speed towards it. The cars and the people are still so small that they become a mass of grey within the confines of the stadium.
The whirling in circles, diving toward the little patch of green is enough to get many of us running for our Dramamine. As the ground gets closer, the vehicles in the lots start separating from the pavement they sit on and the spectators begin to take on color of their own. The patch of green is getting ever larger though still impossibly small looking. As the shoots carry the divers down, the spectators begin to look like individuals rather than a mass of color. The words San Diego can be plainly read on the green patch and things are becoming clearer quickly.
As the divers quickly drop to the deck for a landing, the patch of green suddenly looks much more like a landing field as they come in over the yard lines, an accidental meeting with a rather unfortunate bee, a skim over the helmet in the center field and a successful touch down.
Starting off slow, you can see the two people almost right next to each other. The sled is moving slowly, but that won’t last for long. As the sleds picks up in speed almost immediately, you can see them flying past the grass between the two slides. You can see the vibration of the sled of the individual wearing the camera as he darts through the turns and down the straight aways. You can almost feel the sled rise on the sloped curves as he rockets down the hill with his partner slightly ahead of him. The trees come into view and almost as quickly are gone as the sleds race by, I’m sure the individuals in the sled don’t even realize they are there, attention fully focused on the slippery path ahead.
The camera sees what the sled rider doesn’t. It takes in everything without focusing down on one particular thing. The signs are understandable (if you can read that quickly), you can even see the branches and forest litter to the sides of the slides as the sleds roar past. You can feel the motion of the sled as it winds its way quickly down the hill, mounting the curves and dropping down on the straight aways. You can almost feel the cold wind whipping in your face drawing tears from your eyes and adrenaline into your veins as you watch video.
This is a simple but effective edit of an epic failure. VholdR.com member lamoson shows us multiple speeds of his bike heading into the mud and him going over the bars. Check out the full post here.
