Above the Tree Line

Atlas wanted to tell a story their customers would recognise themselves in, with their gear in the background, not the foreground.

A 12-minute documentary for festivals and the brand's channels, plus a trailer.

Twelve minutes is long for a brand and short for a festival, which is exactly the space we wanted. The film has no logo until the credits, and the gear appears only as what the warden actually uses.

The trailer was cut for the festival circuit first and the brand's channels second. A 60-second portrait of the hut followed for social, made from material that did not fit the film.

Three ascents over one summer, a crew small enough to sleep in the hut, and a drone that only flew when the weather let it.

We carried our kit up with the supplies, which set the limits of the shoot: two cameras, three lenses and batteries charged from the hut's solar panel. If it could not be carried on foot, it did not come.

Between ascents, we stayed in touch with the warden by radio and came back when the season changed. The film follows one summer from the first snowmelt to the day the hut closes.

Shown at nine mountain film festivals; Atlas now funds the hut's supply run each season.

At two of the festivals the film won the audience award, and the warden came down from the mountain to collect one of them in person.

Online, the film has the longest average watch time of anything Atlas has published. The comments are mostly from people planning the climb.