Fittest On Earth was added on Netflix this weekend, but released on Tuesday 2/23, and, as documentarians ourselves, we wanted to review the film from the standpoint of CrossFitters and filmmakers. This review is written by Cliff Bogart, a CrossFitter and one of FloSports' film editors who has put together some of FloElite's best documentaries including Going Team: Inside CrossFit Games Training Camp. Here are his thoughts: 

The 2007 CrossFit Games are still shrouded in myth and legend because they are the only Games thus far not covered by CrossFit, Inc. with beginning-to-end, decent-quality, documentary-style media. And, with the exception of the 2008 Games (Every Second Counts), all of said media thus far has been free. So the big question going into Fittest on Earth is, "will HQ step up their game a whole 'nother level with this whole 'charging us money like a "real" movie' thing?" And the answer to that question is: "not quite, but you should still buy it anyway because you are spoiled, and it was pretty darn good."

We live in a Golden Age of documentary filmmaking, and the standards audiences have become accustomed to are high and getting higher. Great sports documentaries are starting to be created by actual filmmakers who are already successful making actual films out there in the wild. They are proven quantities. Heber Cannon, director of Froning (2015) and co-director/co-editor of Fittest on Earth, is, unfortunately, not quite there yet. He's a nice a guy, no doubt friends with the folks at HQ, who does an alright job, but he's a guy who needs a couple lessons in Documentary Filmmaking 101, lessons you don't learn in film school (trust me, I know from experience), but that you do learn from getting a ton of reps in making documentary films for a living, hired by people who do not know you or like you (the folks at FloSports are great, but I'm never more than one bad documentary away from getting my ass canned). Thus begins the lesson...

Lesson One: black. It's totally okay to cut-to-black, fade-to-black, stay-on-black-for-a-second-or-two throughout your documentary. It allows the audience to catch their breath, put the previous section behind them, and get themselves mentally and emotionally prepared for the section that is to follow. It creates a sense of development, which is crucial if the audience is to feel they have been on a journey, one with a beginning, middle, and end; a journey where the audience ends up in a fundamentally different place, narratively and emotionally, from where they began. There are other ways to do this than by the use of black, but it sure is the simplest. And it's not like it adds a ton of runtime: a couple seconds will do.

Now, on first viewing, I do not think I can recall a single frame of black during the entire 1-hour 45-minute runtime of Fittest on Earth: it's just one section smashed into the next, smashed into the next, with nary a transition or reset. And, paradoxically, even though it adds a couple seconds of runtime here and there, the use of black actually creates the sense in the audience's mind that the movie is shorter, not longer; less boring, not more boring: like pacing yourself through a long, grueling hero WOD, even though it intuitively seems like it’ll take longer, for most folks it speeds them up and leaves them feeling fresher throughout the whole experience rather than having been through an endless slog. By providing the sense every few minutes that one is beginning something anew, the use of black (or some other, more sophisticated method of transition) gives the audience the illusion that they are not watching the same movie for two hours straight, but rather a series of short films, each distinct and refreshing.

Lesson Two: be ruthless. Documentary-film editing is a hell of a lot tougher than narrative-film editing because of the endless number of possibilities offered by endless hours of footage and no pre-written story to adhere to. Fittest on Earth appears to be operating under the impossible burden of comprehensiveness, covering every single one of the 13 events in great detail (including the events where nothing dramatic or interesting happens), and relating tons of moments and anecdotes that have no relation to the major characters or larger developments. Which brings us to our next lesson, wherein we explore the selective mechanism by which one can be ruthless...

Lesson Three: dramatic throughlines. They should be simple, and bold, and limited in number. They should be the basis upon which one takes a scalpel (screw that, a hatchet) to the endless hours of footage one has to deal with, selecting only those moments which relate to one's larger goals. Some examples: Mat Fraser is the guy driven to be better than second best and who frustratingly (and sometimes comically) falls short of his goals despite his best efforts, like Coyote never able to catch Roadrunner despite his "super genius" traps. Sara Sigmundsdottir is the bubbly and naive rookie, looking wide-eyed at all the bright lights around her, but who tastes crushing defeat for the first time in her life, thereby acquiring character and a chip on her shoulder that she will carry with her into the next year of competition. Annie Thorisdottir is the all-smiles-and-positivity former champ who's body and soul are crushed by Murph, thereby causing her to sink into the Swamps of Sadness like Artax in The Neverending Story.

All of the above throughlines are awesome, and all of them are present in Fittest on Earth to some extent, but they are somewhat lost in an endless sea of what-the-fuck-does-this-have-to-do-with-anything-ness. For example, EZ Muhammed is brought up exactly twice: one anecdote about him being "lost at sea" on the paddle-board, and one anecdote about him knocking himself out on the Snatch Ladder.  EZ Muhammed, love him though we do, is not a character in Fittest on Earth, does not have a dramatic throughline in Fittest on Earth, and these two moments do not in any way relate to any of the actual characters or actual throughlines of Fittest on Earth: they just happen to happen. These are the kind of moments you cut in order to focus on the things that actually matter. How do we decide if something actually matters? Something matters if-and-only-if it pertains (directly or indirectly) to the dramatic throughlines of the main characters.

By now what you're probably all thinking is, "yadda, yadda, yadda with all this 'drama' nonsense: what I want to know is should I spend my hard-earned money on iTunes in order to watch this thing?" And the answer is, "fuck yes!" The good people at HQ spent a ton of money on this thing, flew all over the world, recorded a mostly-original score with all sorts of wacky instruments, and the movie is full of tons of great moments and insights into the struggles of the athletes we all know and love. Despite its shortcomings, it's amongst the best things they've ever produced (maybe being a close second behind Froning), and for folks who spend $120-plus for each of their five pairs of exercise shoes (you know you do), it's well worth the money.

My complaints are only about what it could have been, not what it is. It could have been the kind of movie that plays at legit film festivals; the kind that people not already part of the CrossFit Cult (it's a good cult, and I'm a member) might be interested in seeing; the kind that spreads its reach beyond the limits of hardcore exercisers and into the wider culture.  Alas, that is not this movie. This is a challenge we run into here at FloSports as well: that balancing act between making content for hardcore fans while still appealing to a wider audience. Over time and with experience the quality of these documentaries will improve, even more, making entertainment not just for the CrossFit community but for the rest of the world too.

Here's one of the pieces Cliff has edited for FloElite, our peak into the CrossFit Games Training for Invictus: