Thursday, March 28, 2024
OceanChange Your View On The World - Documentary "Racing Extinction" Airs Tomorrow

Change Your View On The World – Documentary “Racing Extinction” Airs Tomorrow

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The team behind the Oscar Winning documentary “The Cove” are getting ready to watch the global premiere of their new documentary “Racing Extinction” on the Discovery Channel around the world at 21:00 around the world on Wednesday 2nd December.

The film, created by Oscar-winning director Louie Psihoyos along with his Oceanic Preservation Society team, Performance Freediving International (PFI) and GoPro, aims to expose the hidden world of extinction with never-before-seen images that will change the way we see the world.

Racing Extinction - The Blue Whale - Courtesy Of GoPro
Racing Extinction – The Blue Whale – Courtesy Of GoPro

We caught up with Kirk Krack, Founder and President of PFI, who appears in both The Cove and Racing Extinction about his work on the film in capturing the amazing Blue Whale footage:

“Racing Extinction is an exceptional and important film and I’m very proud to have worked on it and to have played a part in bringing Oceanic Preservation Society and GoPro together for the project.

In the past I had worked extensively with both organizations on different filming projects, first with OPS on ‘The Cove’ and then with GoPro on ‘Whale Fantasia’ and their Hero 3 launch.  I knew their separate strengths and accomplishments and figured that together, they could create something really special. 

By pure chance, I was teaching a freediving course in Kona, Hawai’i when both Louie Psihoyos of OPS and Bradford Schmidt of GoPro happened to be on the island. Both of them contacted me to meet up, but neither knew the other was there. I saw a chance to put two amazing organizations together for a common purpose. 

After a few starts and stops and meetings with the two, the details eventually worked out and we all came together to try and capture something very special—a recording of the largest animal the earth has ever seen alongside a human being for scale.

How is this accomplished with an elusive, unpredictable and majestic animal that has little acknowledgement of your presence, and in waters that aren’t conducive to filming? And with a timeline that’s far too short and on a budget that’s barely enough? These pressures take their toll, as is seen in the GoPro trailer, but strong friendships weather stress and tension and good teams complete objectives by coming together and working as a single, efficient and determined unit.  That’s what we had with OPS and GoPro and that’s how magical moments are created.”

In August 2015 the team behind Racing Extinction broadcast images of endangered species onto the Empire State Building in New York to help promote the film
In August 2015 the team behind Racing Extinction broadcast images of endangered species onto the Empire State Building in New York to help promote the film

We also were lucky to grab some time with Brad Schmidt Senior Creative Director from GoPro about their perspective on filming with The Blue Whale sequence:

“Filming with one of the world’s largest, oldest, and most elusive creatures helped us all respect how far they’ve come as a species. The sheer size underwater felt like a commercial jet was soaring towards you. The Blue Whale has survived millennia upon millennia – until now.  Along with a vast majority of species, they are on the brink of winking out of existence. We drove these species to this critical point, and we are the only ones who can get them out if we act now.”

You can see a GoPro made mini-feature on the Blue Whale that appears as part of the documentary below.

This is set to become the most watched documentary ever and has the potential to be a wake up call to humanity.  Don’t miss it.

For more information on the film goto http://racingextinction.com/ and check your local TV listings for details on seeing the film on your local Discovery Channel at 21:00.

GoPro: The Search for the Blue Whale - A Prelude to 'Racing Extinction'
Stephan Whelan
Stephan Whelanhttps://www.deeperblue.com
Stephan is the Founder of DeeperBlue.com. His passion for the underwater world started at 8 years old with a try-dive in a hotel pool on holiday that soon formulated into a lifelong love affair with the oceans. In 1996 he set up DeeperBlue.com and has grown the site to be the most popular diving website and community in the world.

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