NOLS’ Expedition Denali Launches Kickstarter Campaign for Feature Film

Dubbed Expedition Denali, this National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) expedition, with support from The North Face, REI, and the Foundation for Youth Investment, will happen. How many people know about it—how far the team’s inspiration and awareness reaches—is another matter.

Through a Kickstarter campaign launched today, Expedition Denali will raise funds to create a powerful, far-reaching documentary on the team’s journey to the top of North America’s loftiest, most iconic summit. From putting a camera team on the mountain with the expedition to producing, promoting and distributing the resulting feature-length film, this project will increase awareness of the importance of exploring natural environments and make clear that it’s high time to invite all races, all ethnicities—all people—to inspirational outdoor playgrounds.

“This expedition is a game-changer. Not because of the summit, but because of the platform that it presents for this exceptionally talented group of individuals to inspire young people to be active and pursue their dreams,” said NOLS Director of Admissions and Marketing, Bruce Palmer. “After the expedition, the team will be visiting classrooms around the country spreading their message. This film will amplify and further broadcast those efforts. The story of these positive outdoor role models must be told.”

The documentary and Kickstarter campaign will be produced by Distill Productions in partnership with NOLS. Distill is a Bozeman, Mont. film production company that focuses on documentary projects exposing and celebrating science, conservation and natural history. The Distill team has produced documentaries for Polar Bears International, First Nations of Montana, the Montana Office of Tourism, as well as a variety of commercial projects with sustainable development organizations in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Distill is currently working on a documentary on the Indian Relay for PBS’ Independent Lens program.

“Film is a powerful medium that can communicate complex stories and make them accessible to everyone,” said Distill Producer George Potter. “This expedition has a lot going on—the diverse characters of the expedition team, the challenging and sometimes dangerous nature of the climb and the broader outreach and mission of NOLS. We’re excited to be a part of this adventure with an awesome group of people and look forward to telling these stories in a documentary and sharing it with the world.”

The Expedition Denali documentary will be coproduced by Julia Yarbough, a multiple Emmy-Award winning broadcast journalist with 25 years of experience in the media industry as an anchor, reporter, writer and producer, and James Mills, a freelance journalist and independent media producer who created The Joy Trip Project, a newsgathering and reporting organization that covers outdoor recreation, environmental conservation, acts of charitable giving and practices of sustainable living. MERCURYcsc will promote the film.

Given the powerful, reverberating echo of media—how it can trigger conversation and spark awareness to the furthest corners of our planet—this Kickstarter project and the resulting documentary is for anyone who has tapped into the inspirational, transformative, healing power of our natural environment. More specifically, it will create aspirational role models for African American youth and shine light on our great outdoors and the future they deserve.

Funding through the Kickstarter campaign will run for one month, ending May 10. People interested in making tax-deductible contributions to the production of the film can do so at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/676871108/expedition-denali-documentary-film.

Pledging to the Kickstarter campaign is incentivized by prizes that directly relate to the expedition and the film. Prizes include 30-day, fully transferable Wind River NOLS courses; downloads of the film; climbing equipment used by the athletes on the mountain; summit flags and Skype sessions with the team. Pledges can be made by going to “Expedition Denali” on Kickstarter.com.

Founded in 1965 by legendary mountaineer Paul Petzoldt, NOLS is the leader in wilderness education, providing awe-inspiring, transformative experiences to 17,000 students each year. These students, ages 14 to over 80, learn in the wildest and most remote classrooms worldwide—from the Amazon rain forest, to rugged peaks in the Himalaya, to Alaskan glaciers and Arctic tundra. Graduates are active leaders with lifelong environmental ethics and outdoor skills. NOLS also offers customized courses through NOLS Professional Training, and the NOLS Wilderness Medicine Institute is the leading teacher of wilderness medicine worldwide. For more information, call (800) 710-NOLS (6657) or visit www.nols.edu.

MercuryCSC connects brands to consumers who value travel, outdoors and community. Founded in 1998, independently owned MercuryCSC is based in Bozeman, Mont., frequently called one of the premier outdoor lifestyle towns in North America and the United States, with other offices in San Francisco, CA. MercuryCSC’s work has recently won a Silver Effie and receives ongoing recognition from HSMAI, and the company was recently ranked the #4 best place to work in the U.S. by Outside Magazine.

Distill is the sister company to MercuryCSC in Bozeman, Mont. The film production company focuses on documentary projects exposing and celebrating science, conservation and natural history. Distill Productions relies on documentary-style filmmaking, masterful cinematography, and intelligent distribution to create videos that mobilize messages.