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Filmmaker Nick Ryan on 'The Summit'

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

We recently had the pleasure of speaking to filmmaker Nick Ryan on his feature documentary 'The Summit' which premiered at this year's London Film Festival.

Coloured at The Mill, the feature documentary looks at the tragic events of the K2 climbing disaster in August 2008, which saw 22 international climbers set off for the summit of the notoriously dangerous K2 mountain, only to see half their party dead within days: marking the most shocking mountaineering accident in recent history.

Nick, Director and Producer of the feature documentary, employed a variety of documentary narrative devices, in the tradition of Kevin MacDonald, to piece together the tragedy and the terrible moral dilemmas that the team faced in the fight for survival. Working with experienced documentary writer, Mark Monroe ('The Cove', 'The Tillman Story') Nick also had on board one of the world's finest cinematographers, Robbie Ryan, to tell this story. 

We had an exclusive Q&A with Nick on his thoughts and experiences making the feature documentary:

How did you first get involved in The Summit?

The film started only several weeks after the tragic events when a climbing colleague of one of the 11 to die came to talk to me about the story. It was a fascinating story of both human survival and indeed tragedy. It was a world I knew very little about, but I wanted to understand what would make a person face the the odds presented by successfully summiting K2, One in Four. 

What were the highs and lows of the feature?

From start to finish, the film took just under four years, and there were many facets to getting it made. Raising finance in a post 2008 world for a documentary was difficult, and we funded a lot of the initial interviews from within Image Now. Asking the survivors and families to relive their memories was a very emotional time in many cases. Filming of the reconstructions in the relative safety of the Jungfrauand Eiger regions was also pretty tough. Making a film is like climbing a mountain, so making a film at altitude (3500m) compounds that! Just making decisions at that altitude is hard. But flying to K2 with a Cineflex attached to a Pakistan military helicopter was certainly a high point, as it let me personally witness the shear scope and scale of the Karakorum region and the breathtaking majesty of K2. We also flew much higher than we thought was technically possible, I believe breaking some records for aerial filming from a helicopter. 

What role did The Mill play in the final result?

The Mill worked on the colour grading for the final film. This consisted mainly of the reconstruction scenes which were shot on the RED camera with Anamorphic lenses. We felt the archive material should remain as it was, as it is historical. The interviews were shot over a few years in vastly different looks, the content of the subjects worlds being of prime importance rather than a specific aesthetic, and we balanced these a little. We also graded the CineFlex aerial footage shot on a flash memory device. Aubrey Woodiwiss did fantastic work keeping the look intense and bright, like the light in that region.

How was The Summit received at it's world premiers?

The film played to a completely sold out house in the largest screen of the Vue Leicester Square. The reaction to the film has been really positive, especially to the emotional aspects within the story, which is the most you can ask for as a film maker. 

What are the next plans for the feature?

The film was made for the big screen, and I feel it really works on that medium, as it immerses you in the experience. We hope to get some form of theatrical distribution and are talking with a few different companies at the moment. 

Do you partake in any climbing yourself? And has The Summit made you a keener, or more nervous, climber?

No, I have never climbed other than to get a sense of what is involved in the sport, and only in fairly safe and controlled environments with professionals making sure all was okay! Making the film hasn't made me want to climb K2 anymore than before I started, but I have a greater respect for those who choose to do so, and I feel that I understand the choices they make a lot more now.

You can view the trailer for the documentary just below: