EVEREST OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
Background information for the film, “Everest: The Other Side.”

While we were actually at Everest Base Camp, a good deal of the downtime was spent thinking about the film and what we would try to say about the experience. Great attention was given to filming as much of the expedition as possible; we never tried to put our focus on any single type of experience or event. The result is 80 hours of footage that, in our opinion, gives a very well rounded look into just what goes into climbing the world’s tallest peak. There have been several theatrical films and television specials about Everest, and many have been very well produced. That being said, we’ve donned our critical hats and have found issue with the formula most filmmakers use to portray what it is like to climb this famous mountain. We’ve seen that there are many misconceptions about an Everest expedition, and we feel these can be summarized as follows:

1. Everest is nothing but a savage, man-eating mountain
2. All Everest climbers are extreme athletes, and
3. Climbing Everest is an every-man-for-himself pursuit
4. The goal of attaining the summit is the only reason for partaking in an expedition on Mount Everest.

We have a great desire to produce a film that is engrossing and entertaining for the audience. Of course, many Everest filmmakers have done exactly that by showing only the “D” side of the experience: Danger, Death and Disrespect. These films are engaging, but they perpetuate the misconceptions listed above. This is not our goal.

When you take the list as fact, it makes it very difficult for the average person to understand why anyone would even try to climb Everest. Can you blame them? There’s very little there for anyone to relate to their own life and experiences. Now, certainly, climbing has been used as a metaphor for life, and in essence it can be a good one: one step at a time, one small achievement after another incrementally moving forward towards a goal. Unfortunately, the reality of climbing Everest can seem much more difficult for the layperson to relate to. This is understandable. Most everyone has seen the pictures of high-altitude climbers, and with their Down suits, oxygen masks and geographical remoteness, they can seem much more like astronauts than hikers.

Our goal for the film, our challenge, is to tell the story of our expedition, and in the process give the audience an understanding of just why someone would travel halfway around the globe to try and stand on top of it. Our experience (and the footage to back it up) challenges the misconceptions about Everest and can easily be understood and digested by an audience. Let’s shed some light as to why we feel our experience can overcome the stated misconceptions.

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