Ben's Vortex

I just finished watching my copy of Ben's Vortex. It is a compelling story for sure. I have to think that those who have spoken badly of this video have a personal interest in the story. I can see why some of the information would be disturbing to a grieving family. Personally I am glad that the makers of the video did not sugar coat the facts in order to please people. There are things in the movie that certainly will not be pleasing to Ben's family. There are also things that the cave diving community (which I am a part of) are not thrilled with in this video. To me, it is a good sign that a documentary about a mysterious case ticks everybody off. It means the film doesn't pander to one side or the other. There were no quality issues with my video whatsoever. The underwater shots are superb. It is a compelling story and I am sorry for the family and all those who have been affected by Ben's disappearance.

I thought this was a well done film that tried its best to show all sides of a complex story. Our family watched it together, and we were all riveted to the twists and turns in the case, as well as the beautiful underwater footage.As for the reviewer who claims that only fans of Jill Heinerth would give positive reviews, I'd have to counter that he must be a friend of Ben's family in order to feel the need to belittle anyone who enjoyed the film. I am not a cave diver nor a fan of Heinerth; and I didn't come to the story with any preconceived ideas. There were absolutely no problems with poor quality production or sound problems either.This was a great film that tried its best to give an accurate, unbiased and interesting account. I consider it well worth the money spent.

I was looking forward to Jill Heinerth's documentary Ben's Vortex from the first day I've heard about it. Today it arrived, I unpacked it, threw it into my BD player and the first thing I saw was a home made "dvd menu" with a software related project title on top and I took it out because I thought it was a sample.The positive reviews you will read are most likely from Fans of Jill Heinerth and I guess it is like someone is a huge fan of an actor. No matter what they do it will always be "awesome". When I looked at it, I looked at it as someone who has worked in both TV and Movie industry and my review is not good. This production is 90 minutes filled with strange interviews, badly filmed footage above water, some really good under water shots but they keep repeating and repeating and repeating and at one point even those good shots get really boring. The interviews are mostly unrelated and basically just randomly filmed and glued together. They person who filmed the interviews had no idea of rule of thirds, angles or movements, lenses, depth of field, how to film free hand or where to find a tripod and clearly this whole project was totally unscripted. I've seen unscripted projects before that went well. This one didn't. They should have never released it that way. The quality of the production is not subjective. It is below any quality standard in regards to authorizing, editing, filming and planning and it gives you no revelation whatsoever.Jill Heinerth is an awesome diver and an acceptable underwater cinematographer but from a professional point of view, this production is so full of flaws that it hurts my eyes. The DVD is one of the cheapest productions I've ever seen. The picture quality is so far below standard that it looks like a youtube video. Cleary the wrong codec during the editing was chosen. There is not one line or curve that doesn't pixel. The sound clips and hisses most of the time. Color correction seems to be a foreign word and artifacts from really bad encoding pop up all over the screen all the time. What I don't understand here is, if she has a good idea for such a documentary, why doesn't she get professionals to do the "above water shots" and editing. My wife and I both worked in the industry and are still producing Music Videos and we would never dare to release something with a quality like this. I would accept a production value like this from a free youtube video but not from a $17 DVD. The documentary is filled with some facts and a lot of weird and really badly filmed B-Roll shots. Clearly the person who filmed those B-Rolls had no idea what to do, at least above water.Bottom line is that I am massively disappointed and I never regretted so much wasting $17.

I gave a somewhat scathing review of Heinerth sidemount DVD, so take these comments with that context in mind.The scathing reviews (1 or 2 stars) of this documentary are off mark. Yes, there are flaws, and I will come to that, but overall it's a watchable documentary with a decent flow and storyline. At the beginning of the documentary there were a number of clips of Heinerth cave diving, and I became apprehensive that the docu may turn out to be a self-promotion vehicle. Actually, that's not the case. The docu focuses on two scenarios for McDaniel's disappearance: dying inside Vortex Spring's cave system, and Ben making a disappearance act. Most of the documentary is spent on digging up parts of Ben's life and his family, including his recently deceased brother Paul, in order to support the "disappearing act" hypothesis. To Heinerth's credit, she was more open to the perishing inside the cave system hypothesis toward the end of the docu, in part after finding a foldable shovel inside the cave system that may have belonged to McDaniels.The main negative of the documentary is its unadulterated, speculative nature. Because so little seems to be known about McDaniel's dive per se, the docu spends time digging up information (some of it just plain dirt) of Ben's past, including his brother's, to make a tenuous case for the second hypothesis. I can see why some folks may be upset by this, and I certainly was put off by the unprofessional, sensationalist, and, yes, exploitative effort to make a video at someone else's tragedy and expense without shedding any real new facts or information. Instead, they might have engaged in some real detective work and relevant fact gathering, such as interviewing his past dive instructors, buddies, his (apparently) one previous cave dive to better gauge the person as a diver. That would have taken a lot of leg work, whereas talking to Ben Family, the late owner of Vortex Springs, and a few cave divers is much more expedient but doesn't provide much information beyond their speculation of what might have happened.As "entertainment" one can watch this documentary but it leaves a bad taste. I hope Heinerth and her husband don't end up at the other end of the stick where some film maker digs up their past and engages in speculation galore.