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<ul class="summary-list"><li>The Documentary "<keyword id="12095478" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="the-rescue" source="Orion">The Rescue</keyword>" use the Thai cave divers who were really there in its reenactments.</li><li>The two-week shoot of the reenactments included challenges like a cave set that was too small.</li></ul><p>Filmmakers <keyword id="12307065" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elizabeth-chai-vasarhelyi" source="Orion">Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi</keyword> and <keyword id="12307066" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="jimmy-chin" source="Orion">Jimmy Chin</keyword> were instantly in a dilemma when they decided to take on "The Rescue," their documentary on how the thrilling <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/thai-cave-rescue-timeline-how-it-unfolded-2018-7">2018 Thai cave rescue was pulled off</a>.</p><p>With no footage of what really went on inside the caves during the daring 18 days, how could they show an audience what really transpired to get 12 boys and their soccer coach out of the labyrinth Tham Luang Nang Non cave in the Chiang Rai province of northern Thailand, many of which were completely submerged underwater?</p><p>They decided to film reenactments. But that can be a blessing or a curse for a documentary.</p><p>Done effectively, reenactments can be memorable like the HBO hit "McMillions" or the fantastic "Dark Side of the Ring" series on Vice. However, if they come off cheesy and unrealistic - think "Unsolved Mysteries" or ABC's "20/20" - it takes viewers out of the story completely.</p><p>But Vasarhelyi and Chin quickly realized they had an ace in the hole. The small group of divers - whose lifelong hobby of going into narrow underwater caves was instrumental in the saving of the kids - didn't just want to supervise the reenactments, they were willing to star in them.</p><p>"It had to be them," Chin told Insider of having the real-live divers star in their own reenactments.</p><div type="image" title="Diver in the water" height="2160" width="3840" msid="86998589" hostid="261"></div><h2>The filmmakers used the Thai cave divers in the reenactments because authenticity was essential</h2><p>Close to the end of doing their principal interviews for "The Rescue," Vasarhelyi and Chin traveled to the famed Pinewood Studios in the UK. Known as the site where some of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters are shot, the doc filmmakers were there to film the crucial reenactments using a cave set submerged in a water tank.</p><p>Rick Stanton, a retired firefighter; his friend John Volanthen, an IT consultant; and a handful of other cave divers who were involved in the <keyword id="12095480" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="thai-cave-rescue" source="Orion">Thai cave rescue</keyword> brought all their suits and equipment to Pinewood to recount what they actually did.</p><p>Vasarhelyi and Chin are known best for their death-defying documentaries like the Oscar-winning "<keyword id="12307067" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="free-solo" source="Orion">Free Solo</keyword>," which chronicled Alex Honnold climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without a rope. For them, being painstakingly accurate was essential.</p><p>"They were really keyed in that it was authentic," Chin said of the divers' involvement. "When we are going to shoot something climbing and your whole peer group looks at it and is like, 'That's complete B.S.'... How the participants feel about the film is really important to us." </p><div type="image" title="Cave divers in the water" height="1080" width="1920" msid="86998591" hostid="261"></div><h2>The filmmakers searched around Pinewood Studios for a larger cave set after realizing the one they had wasn't big enough</h2><p>The two-week shoot was done last October in the midst of the pandemic and included everyone being tested daily and working in pods, making the underwater shoots, which are typically filmed at a snail's pace, being made even slower.</p><p>And Vasarhelyi and Chin admit the cave set they started with wasn't the best.</p><p>"On a doc budget you can't really afford a realistic-looking cave," Vasarhelyi said with a laugh. "So we had a cave that wasn't big at all."</p><p>The first week of shooting was so frustrating, Vasarhelyi said the crew began walking around Pinewood to see if there was another cave option.</p><p>"The DP was walking around and he saw a piece of someone else's cave, like from some action movie," Vasarhelyi said.</p><p>"It was triple our size and he was like, 'Let's take that cave' and we got permission to get it," Vasarhelyi continued. "But we didn't know if it could be submerged, if it would disintegrate right when it hit the water. And it's too expensive to just drain tanks when things don't work so it was just a lot of hope it would work and it lasted just long enough for us to use it underwater." </p><p>Finally, with a proper underwater set, the filmmakers were ready for the final week of shooting. But there was still a nagging anxiety about the reenactments.</p><p>"We didn't think it was going to work," Chin admitted.</p><div type="image" title="Cave diver in an underwater cave" height="2160" width="3840" msid="86998593" hostid="261"></div><h2>'We were worried we were going too far with the dramatics'</h2><p>As the divers reenacted their remarkable rescue for the cameras, both Vasarhelyi and Chin were concerned what they were filming was going the way of bad "Unsolved Mysteries" reenactment footage.</p><p>The water was so dirty (bits of broccoli were put in the tank to make it look like the murky water in the cave) that the directors were concerned audiences wouldn't see closeup shots of the divers with their masks on underwater. And then there was reenacting the rescues.</p><p>"We were worried we were going too far with the dramatics," Chin said.</p><p>Particularly, they were worried about the first rescue Stanton and Volanthen make before even finding the kids. They encounter a group of scared men who were trying to pump the water out of the caves and got trapped. The reenactment footage shows the men flailing wildly underwater as Stanton and Volanthen get them out of the caves.</p><p>"I was like, 'But is this over the top?'" Chin recalled asking Stanton and Volanthen after shooting the scene at Pinewood. "They were like, 'Not at all.' It turns out that rescue was a full-on wrestling match because the men thought they were going to die."</p><div type="image" title="Jimmy Chin in a grey shirt and hat, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi in a jacket and blue hat" height="2124" width="2832" msid="86998595" hostid="261"></div><p>Chin said he and Vasarhelyi became less anxious about the reenactments as shooting progressed and Stanton and Volanthen talked them through it.</p><p>The result is <a href="https://www.insider.com/review-the-rescue-2018-thai-cave-rescue-documentary-is-masterful-2021-9">some of the best reenactment footage you will ever see</a>. With the mixture of the actual cave divers in the scenes and the footage having a look that feels more realistic than Hollywood gloss, it's hard at times to tell the archival footage from the reenactments.</p><p>"There were things that you can't understand until you see it, like binding the children's hands behind their backs," Vasarhelyi said, referring to how cave diver Dr. Richard Harris, an Australian anesthetist, injected each child with a mixture of Xanax, Ketamine, and Atropine so they could calmly be transported out of the caves (which was a two-and-a-half-hour process).</p><p>"There's a gravity of that when you finally see it," Vasarhelyi added.</p>

How 'The Rescue' directors made reenactment scenes featuring the Thai cave divers who were really there

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The documentary masterfully takes you inside <keyword id="12095478" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="the-rescue" source="Orion">the rescue</keyword>. </li><li>The hero cave divers took part in the movie's reenactments depicting their courageous acts.</li><li>"The Rescue" opens in theaters on October 8.</li></ul><p>Filmmakers <keyword id="12095479" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="e-chai-vasarhelyi-and-jimmy-chin" source="Orion">E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin</keyword> have spent their careers doing <keyword id="11898343" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="movies" source="Orion">movies</keyword> that feature people who find their thrills doing death-defying extreme sports. The one that found them the highest-acclaim, an Academy Award win, was 2018's "Free Solo," in which the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/free-solo-documentary-directors-interview-filming-alex-honnold-el-capitan-climb-without-rope-2018-9">duo chronicled the first-ever free solo climb of El Capitan at Yosemite National Park by climber Alex Honnold</a>.</p><p>Now the filmmakers have elevated their storytelling once more with "The Rescue," a perfectly made recount of the dramatic rescue of 12 teen soccer players and their coach from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in the Chiang Rai Province of northern Thailand.</p><p>You probably remember the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/thai-cave-rescue-timeline-how-it-unfolded-2018-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">worldwide news coverage of the events</a>. 15 days we were on the edge of our seats as thousands of volunteers, the Thai Navy SEALS, and cave divers from all over the globe went to Chiang Rai to help rescue the boys and their coach.</p><p>It doesn't matter if you know the outcome or don't going into "The Rescue" because either way, it delivers. </p><p>This story has to be seen to be believed.</p><div type="image" title="thai soccer team cave rescue" height="1333" width="2000" msid="86209700" hostid="261"></div><h2>The hero cave divers are amazing on-screen characters in the documentary</h2><p>What's so special about this documentary is not just the access Vasarhelyi and Chin got for the movie but how they used it.</p><p>Once more teaming with National Geographic (as they did on "Free Solo"), the directors have the resources needed to tell the story properly: underwater photography, 3D mapping of the long cave. However, the greatest attribute the filmmakers have is putting the focus on the cave divers who could do what the SEALS couldn't: find the boys and get them out.</p><p>After the realization that the missing boys were in the cave and monsoon-like rains were on the horizon, the rescue became a race against time. But it so happened that one of the greatest cave divers on the planet was going out with a woman whose hometown was where this was all taking place.</p><p>Rick Stanton is a retired British firefighter who for 40 years has been exploring the most dangerous caves on Earth as a hobby. He learned what was happening from his girlfriend and teamed with his cave exploring partner, John Volanthen - an IT consultant who is a world-record-holding British cave diver - to go and see if they could help in Chiang Rai.</p><p>Delving into not just Stanton and Volanthen's recollections but their lives is as fascinating as it is thrilling. They are men who feel most at peace being in claustrophobic underwater caves. It's the complete opposite of the "Free Solo" subject Alex Honnold, whose domain is high above the surface climbing mountains. But what they all have in common is an intense dedication to their craft.</p><p>For Stanton and Volanthen, the stakes are life or death in Chiang Rai.</p><div type="image" title="Cave divers in the water" height="1080" width="1920" msid="86209703" hostid="261"></div><h2>The directors used the actual hero divers for the movie's reenactment scenes</h2><p>What is also so special about "The Rescue" is how Vasarhelyi and Chin look back on the events.</p><p>There is a lot of archival footage to choose from. The event got attention from practically every <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> source in the world as well as countless phone video footage from volunteers. But how do you show what the divers went through inside the cave to rescue everyone? Reenactments were the answer.</p><p>It's not a revolutionary idea, the method has been done time and again in documentaries. However, they are often sloppy and filmed with actors who sort of look like the real people but not exactly, so the footage can take a viewer out of the story.</p><p>That did not happen here. Vasarhelyi and Chin used Stanton, Volanthen and the other divers who were there in the cave to film the reenactments. It results in some of the best reenactment footage I've ever seen. There are definitely moments where I wondered if what I was watching was reenactment footage or video shot on the day.</p><div type="image" title="thai team cave rescue" height="842" width="1773" msid="86209705" hostid="261"></div><h2>Expect a lot of Oscar buzz for this movie</h2><p>There are countless projects in the works looking back on the Tham Luang cave rescue, including the Ron Howard-directed movie "Thirteen Lives" starring Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, and Joel Edgerton. I don't know how they can be successful after "The Rescue" comes out.</p><p>Vasarhelyi and Chin have made the definitive retelling of this event and whatever I see after I will always compare it to what I saw in "The Rescue."</p><p>The duo are certainly on their way for another Oscar nomination and right now are the frontrunner to win it.</p><p><em>"The Rescue" opens in theaters on October 8.</em></p>

'The Rescue' - made by the directors of 'Free Solo' - shows the gripping reality of the 2018 Thai cave rescue with ultra-realistic reenactments

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Diana Nyad's historic long-distance swim from Cuba to Florida is the focus of the Netflix film "Nyad."</li><li>Since then, Nyad has kept busy by writing op-eds and co-founding a walking initiative. </li></ul><p>Long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad's story is back in the spotlight thanks to the Netflix biopic and awards season contender "Nyad."</p><p>Nyad is best known for being the first person to successfully <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/video/diana-nyad-completes-historic-cuba-to-florida-swim/50E05BE1-6192-4037-B5B2-AE2F3E818BC6">swim</a> 110 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. She completed the feat at age 64 on September 2, 2013, after five attempts.</p><p>The athlete's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/diana-nyad-cheating-conspiracy-theory-2013-9">milestone achievement</a> has been mired in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/sports/questions-and-doubt-after-a-record-swim-from-cuba-to-florida.html">controversy</a> since then, with some people<strong> </strong>questioning its legitimacy and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.openwaterswimming.com/wowsa-advisory-boards-decision-on-diana-nyads-2013-cuba-to-florida-swim/">World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA)</a> refusing to ratify her crossing. Nyad <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/marathon-swimmer-nyad-rebuts-her-skeptics-insists-feat-was-squeaky-flna8c11134626">insisted</a> that she didn't cheat to complete her noteworthy swim. </p><p>Here's what Nyad has been up to in the years since her landmark crossing of the Florida Straits.</p><h2>Nyad has written op-eds and co-founded the initiative EverWalk</h2><div type="image" title="Diana Nyad attends the &quot;Swim for Relief&quot; benefiting Hurricane Sandy recovery at Herald Square on October 10, 2013, in New York City." height="1997" width="3000" msid="108337094" hostid="261" sizebytes="469876"></div><p>In recent years, Nyad has written for publications like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/14/opinion/ocean-temperature-climate-change.html">The New York Times</a> and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/28/simone-biles-diana-nyad-olympics-gymnastics-withdrawal/">Washington Post</a>.</p><p>Nyad <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/diana-nyad-profile-cuba-florida-swim">previously</a> <a target="_blank" href="https://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/swimmer-diana-nyad-opens-up-about-her-sexual-abuse-video">alleged</a> that her swim coach, Jack Nelson, sexually abused her when she was 14 years old. She wrote about the effects of the alleged assault in a 2017 essay for the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/opinion/diana-nyad-sexual-assault.html">NY Times</a> and said that she experienced "years of covert molestation." No charges were filed against Nelson, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/sports/jack-nelson-swimmings-version-of-a-chess-master-dies-at-82.html">who died in 2014</a>.</p><p>Nyad competed on season 18 of "Dancing With the Stars" in 2014. She was paired with professional dancer Henry Byalikov and got eliminated during week two of the competition.</p><p>In 2016, Nyad and Bonnie Stoll, her coach and longtime friend, co-founded the national walking initiative EverWalk. The pair remain close, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3OBsV0O28v/">traveling the world together</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C2searyPyJc/?">competing in tennis tournaments</a>.</p><h2>Nyad's 2015 memoir 'Find a Way' inspired the Netflix biopic 'Nyad'</h2><div type="image" title="Annette Bening and Diana Nyad speaking onstage during Netflix's &quot;Nyad&quot; LA Tastemaker event at NeueHouse Hollywood on January 5, 2024 in Hollywood, California." height="1692" width="2256" msid="108337096" hostid="261" sizebytes="321950"></div><p>Nyad's memoir "Find a Way" was adapted into a feature film released on the streamer in early November, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. "Nyad" stars Annette Bening as Nyad and Jodie Foster as Stoll. Both actors are nominated for awards at the upcoming <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oscars-2024-nominations-winners-list-2024-1">Oscars</a>.</p><p>Nyad has been supportive of the film during awards season, attending screenings with the cast and appearing at events like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.thewrap.com/diana-nyad-jodie-foster-power-women-summit-2023/">TheWrap's Power Women Summit</a>.</p>

Where is Diana Nyad now? Everything to know about the athlete at the center of Netflix's biopic 'Nyad' 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>National Geographic's new series recounts terrifying moments when outdoor adventures went horribly wrong.</li><li>Narrated by climber and filmmaker Jimmy Chin, the series shows athletes at their most vulnerable.</li></ul><p>A backcountry snowboarder caught in an avalanche on a pristine Alaskan slope. A pair of explorers dodging polar bears while traversing the Canadian arctic. A professional climber experiencing a heart attack at 20,000 feet elevation in the Himalayas.</p><p>These are just some of the terrifying moments featured in the new National Geographic series "Edge of the Unknown With Jimmy Chin," which tells the insane stories of elite adventure athletes when things went disastrously wrong.</p><p>The series is the latest project from Chin, a professional skier, climber, and filmmaker, and his wife, E. Chai Vasarhelyi. The directing duo is best known for their feature-length documentaries like "Meru," "The Rescue," and "Free Solo," which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.</p><p>"I think of it as the greatest stories you haven't heard, because if you look at the roster, it's literally the greatest of the great, the most elite athletes in each of their respective sports or disciplines," Chin said in an interview with Insider.</p><p>But rather than tell the stories of the athlete's accomplishments, the 10-episode series focuses on some of their most vulnerable moments. One episode features big mountain skier Angel Collinson taking a 1,000-foot fall in Alaska. Another recounts a climb made by professional climber Alex Honnold in Morocco without the protection of ropes. One episode shows how big wave surfer Justine Dupont got crushed by a massive swell in Hawaii.</p><p>The series has the breathtaking shots one expects from stories about outdoor athletes, but it's also scary at times and emotional as the athletes describe their accidents — often alongside harrowing footage — the regret and embarrassment experienced over mistakes they made, and how they moved forward.</p><div type="image" title="Filmmaker and climber Jimmy Chin is interviewed in Los Angeles, CA." height="4480" width="6720" msid="94015412" hostid="261" sizebytes="3720862"></div><p>"This is real. This isn't some glossy version of 'We're pro athletes, we're always psyched, we're never scared,'" Chin, who also serves as narrator of the series, said. "It's rad because it's not that."</p><p>Fans tend to see professional climbers, snowboarders, and surfers in their coolest and most triumphant moments — after they've just won a competition, in slick footage sporting their sponsors' gear, and in glorious photos and videos shared on their Instagram feeds.</p><p>But Chin wanted to remind the audience that elite athletes aren't superheroes and highlight some of the mental challenges that come with doing these sports.</p><p>"There's so much external pressure and internal pressure to be perfect and infallible and yet we're all humans," Chin said.</p><p>"I think it's even more inspiring to hear how these athletes have come out of these really difficult moments than when they're performing at their peak," he continued. "It's an access point for people to understand what these athletes and people are really like."</p><p>Chin himself is the subject of one of the episodes. He tells the story of the time he was nearly buried alive after getting caught in a class-four avalanche while skiing in his home range, Wyoming's Tetons.</p><p>"I felt like if I was asking everybody else to lay it on the table, then it was only fair if I put it out there as well," Chin explained. He cited the episode in which whitewater kayaker Gerd Serrasolses recounts nearly drowning after tumbling over a 50-foot waterfall — and the accompanying GoPro footage that shows him on the verge of death.</p><p>"I was like, 'Okay I can't ask people to do that unless I'm willing to do the same," he said.</p><p>"Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin" premieres September 5 on National Geographic. All 10 episodes will be available for streaming on September 7 on Disney+.</p>

'Free Solo' director recounts his near-death experience getting caught in an avalanche for National Geographic series that explores what happens when outdoor adventures go horribly wrong

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/ford">Ford</a> is partnering with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/disney">Disney</a> to reveal its new Bronco SUV on ABC, ESPN, and the National Geographic channel, as well on Hulu and on <keyword id="6355174" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ford">Ford</keyword>'s YouTube account.</li><li>The Bronco was slated to be unveiled at the 2020 Detroit auto show, which was canceled due to the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> pandemic.</li><li>The Bronco is returning after being discontinued in 1996.</li></ul><p>On Wednesday, Ford announced that it would reveal its much-anticipated new Bronco SUV in prime time, partnering with <keyword id="46161" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Disney">Disney</keyword> and tapping the entertainment giant's multiple channels — broadcast, cable, digital, and streaming.</p><p>The Blue Oval and the entertainment giant will pull the cover off on July 13 at 8:00 p.m. ET. The content will move to Hulu on July 14.</p><p>Ford is expected to showcase a lineup of four-wheel-drive Broncos, rather than a single vehicle. The storied nameplate first appeared in 1965, but pioneering two-door SUV was discontinued in 1996. In 2017, Ford said that it was bringing the Bronco back.</p><p>The traditional reveal was supposed to happen in spring at the Detroit auto show, but the coronavirus pandemic compelled Ford to make a change (twice, actually, and the original date coincided with the birthday of O.J. Simpson, who infamously led police on a chase in a Bronco in 1994 in Los Angeles).</p><p>In a statement, Ford said, "Academy Award-winning director and acclaimed cinematographer, photographer and professional climber, Jimmy Chin, is collaborating with Disney CreativeWorks, Disney's award-winning creative agency, to co-create network reveal stories with the Ford team."</p><h2>Revealing new vehicles amid a pandemic</h2><p>Ford is getting good at unveiling new vehicles in a world that has made live events challenging. The carmaker revealed its critically important new F-150 pickup truck on YouTube on June 25.</p><p>"As a new era for Bronco begins, we're proud to tap the strengths of epic adventurers like Jimmy Chin and Disney storytellers to help bring Bronco to life and inspire millions of people to get out into the wild," Jim Farley, Ford's COO, said in a statement.</p><p>In terms of the particulars, Ford said the short Bronco films would be presented during breaks in programming for Disney major networks. On ABC, country music star Kip Moore will appear during "CMA Best of Fest," a three-hour broadcast concert. ESPN will air content in a break for "SportsCenter," and Chin will appear during a program titled "National Parks: Yosemite," on National Geographic's channel.</p><p>Ford plans to use YouTube and its own social-media accounts to promote the new Broncos.</p><p>"At Disney, we take pride in creating culture and leveraging our unrivaled portfolio of brands to authentically and creatively tell stories during meaningful moments," Disney Advertising Sales president Rita Ferro said in a statement.</p><p>"With Ford, we're reimagining what a product reveal can look like by drawing upon our best-in-class sports, entertainment and streaming brands to bring the new Bronco family to life in a way that honors its heritage and gives viewers an unforgettable experience."</p><p>If potential Bronco buyers like what they see, Ford said they could reserve a new SUV for $100.</p>

Ford and Disney team up to debut the wildly-anticipated new Bronco SUV on prime time TV

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>"Free Solo" directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin recount what led to them agreeing to film Alex Honnold's attempt to solo climb El Capitan.</li><li>The filmmakers also explain why filming what was going on in Honnold's life on the ground was just as important as his climb.</li></ul><p>&#xa0;</p><p>For Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and her husband Jimmy Chin, the idea of doing a documentary on rock climber Alex Honnold was more intriguing to them because of how he is on the ground than when he's thousands of feet above it during a climb.</p><p>Before Honnold became known the world over for his incredible free solo climbs (mountain climbing without ropes or other protective equipment), he was a kid who was incredibly intelligent but also scared of everything: people, physical contact, even vegetables. But that same kid blossomed into a young man who fights his fears by climbing mountains.</p><p>"It was the potential of being a story that spoke to a lot of people and could inspire," Vasarhelyi told Business Insider about her original interest in doing a movie on Honnold.</p><p>But Honnold had another idea. He wanted them to shoot him soloing up the 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall in Yosemite National Park.</p><p>"He said, 'If we're to make a film, the only film-worthy thing in my life is doing this," Vasarhelyi recalled.</p><p>Chin has filmed Honnold soloing for 10 years. He knew Honnold had the skill to pull off the climb. But he also knew how crazy it was to even attempt it. It would be a four-hour climb, at least. Every single step would need to be perfect. His level of concentration needed to be super sharp throughout the entire climb because his next move could be his last.</p><p>Could Chin say El Cap is the Super Bowl of soloing?</p><p>"It's beyond the Super Bowl," he said. "The mental capacity to do that is unlike any athletic achievement I've seen, whether it's extreme sports or professional sports of Olympic sports. You have to play the perfect game for four hours. You throw an interception in the Super Bowl, compared to this, it's not really a big deal."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>With that danger in mind, Vasarhelyi and Chin told Honnold they had to think about if they wanted to proceed. And they thought about it - for months. Could they go forward with doing a movie that could end with their friend falling to his death?<p>They say the moment that really pushed them to finally agree to film the attempt was a chat Chin had three years ago with author and avid climber Jon Krakauer,&#xa0;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Mount_Everest_disaster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one of the survivors of the disastrous 1996 expedition to Mount Everest</a>&#xa0;and the man who wrote "Into the Wild" and "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman."&#xa0;Who better to get advice from?</p><p>Chin told Krakauer he and Vasarhelyi were considering doing a movie on Honnold and his soloing of El Cap. The author simply replied: "Holy s--t."</p><p>"He was quiet for a while," Chin said. "And we walked for a little bit further, and I asked if it's even okay for us to do this. He was like well, 'Is he going to do it whether you film it or not?' And I said yes. And he said, 'Are you one of the best people to do this?' And I said yes. And he said, 'If this is one of the greatest athletic achievements of all time, shouldn't it be captured?' And I was like 'Yes.' We kind of went from there."</p><p>With Vasarhelyi and Chin on board, they set out for Yosemite to make "Free Solo" (in theaters Friday). For months they filmed Honnold's day-long training sessions on El Cap and his humble existence off the mountain living in a van.</p><p>Chin and his team of mountain climbers/cameramen used huge 4k cameras to capture Honnold on the wall, which he said is unheard of when filming climbing because of the weight of the equipment. But he and Vasarhelyi wanted "Free Solo" to be more than just a highlight video. They wanted to go a step further, not just visually, but emotionally. And that's what Vasarhelyi was doing on the ground, trying to peel back the layers of the complex Honnold.</p><p>"It was basically a conversation that kept going for a year and a half," Vasarhelyi said about creating a verite feel to the movie.</p><p>As "Free Solo" makes very clear, Honnold is not an open person. His life is completely focused on climbing and everything else comes second, including opening up to Vasarhelyi. But a fascinating thing happened during the filming process: He found a girlfriend who could tolerate his lifestyle.</p><p>Sanni McCandless is the complete opposite of Honnold. A big personality and not afraid to challenge Honnold, the relationship between the two is an interesting subplot in "Free Solo," as the driven climber begins to let his guard down (the two go climbing one time and a mistake by the inexperienced McCandless leads to Honnold falling and injuring himself before the El Cap climb; in another scene, the two look for a house in Las Vegas).</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Then there's the lead-up to the climb itself. At one point in the movie, Honnold starts his solo climb of El Cap but then dramatically stops and climbs back down to the ground. From that point on, it's unclear not only if Honnold will attempt the climb again but if he still wants Chin and Vasarhelyi there to film it.<p>"In our minds we're not allowed to push him one way or the other," Chin said. "But I would like to think he understood the amount of passion and heart that this whole crew was putting into it."</p><p>"But Alex responded in an honest way," Vasarhelyi added. "Which was, 'I have to be stronger and better.'"</p><p>It all culminates in a dramatic conclusion where the filmmakers capture the dramatics on the ground between Honnold and McCandless as well as Honnold's historic trek.</p><p>Audiences are already dazzled by "Free Solo." It won the people's choice award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, which inevitably thrust it into the race for the best documentary Oscar. But as much as Vasarhelyi and Chin love how audiences have reacted to the movie so far, the standout for them is how Honnold sees it.</p><p>"He says he has the opposite experience from the audiences," Chin said. "Everybody loves the love story and him as a fascinating documentary character and then are cringing during the climb. He loves the climbing footage and cringes during everything else."</p><p>&#xa0;</p><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-trak-explains-what-djs-actually-do-2018-8">Here's what DJs actually do</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The directors behind the death-defying documentary 'Free Solo' explain why they made the risky decision to film Alex Honnold's 3,000 foot climb up El Capitan without a rope

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Stuck on a ledge halfway up a 3,000-foot (1,000-meter) cliff in Oman, his climbing rope sliced in two by sharp rocks, Jimmy Chin did what anyone else would have done in his predicament. He took a selfie.</p>
<p>"I had some time to figure out what I was going to do," said Chin, a National Geographic photographer whose images of extreme climbing by the Straits of Hormuz appear in the magazine's January issue.</p>
<p>"That's when I took the selfie," he told AFP. "It was one of those moments when, 'Well, I'm a Nat Geo photographer'. I had to document (the moment). It was pretty classic."</p>
<p>Self-portraiture has been around for centuries, but the global proliferation of smartphones with built-in digital cameras -- plus the ability to share photos instantly on social media -- has taken the genre to a new level.</p>
<p>With 2013 coming to a close, the publishers of the hallowed Oxford English Dictionary, arguably the final authority in anglophone lexicography, declared selfie to be their "word of the year."</p>
<p>"Selfie: noun, informal. A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website," according to Oxford. "Also: selfy. Plural: selfies."</p>
<p>Internet search provider Yahoo meanwhile estimates that in 2014, about 880 billion photographs will be taken. That's 123 photos for every man, woman and child on Earth. Many will be selfies.</p>
<p>In Britain, a survey for Samsung found that 17 percent of men, and 10 percent of women, take selfies because "they enjoy taking good-looking photos of themselves."</p>
<p>"I think 'selfie' is a term of endearment for the self, in a way," said Sarah Kennel, curator of photography at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, who admits to taking the odd selfie herself.</p>
<p>"It does reflect a kind of narcissism in our culture," she told AFP.</p>
<p>US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron got tongues wagging when they took a selfie with Danish leader Helle Thorning Schmidt at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in South Africa.</p>
<p>"What an incredible sign of the times," children's photographer Sarah Sloboda, author of the e-book "How to Take the Best Selfies," told AFP.</p>
<p>"That's the kind of thing you can put in a time capsule to represent this period."</p>
<p>No one knows if Obama and friends had even heard of Selfies at Funerals, an equally controversial Tumblr compilation of, well, selfies taken at funerals, mainly by young people.</p>
<p>"When a teen tweets out a funeral selfie, their friends don't castigate them," its founder Jason Feifer explained in Britain's Guardian newspaper.</p>
<p>"They understand that their friend, in their own way, is expressing an emotion they may not have words for. It's a visual language that older people -- even those like me, in their 30s -- simply don't speak."</p>
<p>The year also saw Pope Francis in a selfie with teenagers at the Vatican, as well as pop diva Beyonce turning up in a smiling fan's selfie in Australia, to cite a couple of Time magazine's "11 most memorable selfies of 2013."</p>
<p>From Los Angeles, gossip blogger Perez Hilton declared a pink-haired Miley Cyrus posing for herself in a skimpy Lil' Kim Halloween costume his favorite among countless celebrity selfies over the past 12 months.</p>
<p>But there's no need to be famous to become famous for a selfie.</p>
<p>Thanks to Reddit and other social media websites, goofy selfies of a proud twentysomething dad in the Pacific Northwest state of Oregon mimicking the faces of his newborn baby daughter went viral overnight.</p>
<p>"We just watched the camera screen and copied whatever face she was making," explained Eddie Wheeler to his fellow Reddit users.</p>
<p>In Norway, popular fitness blogger Caroline Berg Eriksen snapped herself in a mirror, wearing bra and panties, showing off a firm flat tummy just four days after she gave birth.</p>
<p>Critics branded her selfie a "disservice" to women, but Eriksen struck back, saying she took it -- and shared it -- "because I'm proud of myself and my body for something as tough as a pregnancy/birth."</p>
<p>And then there was the young woman in New York who snapped a selfie with the Brooklyn Bridge -- and an attempted suicide leap -- in the background. That image caused a stir when it made page one of the New York Post.</p>
<p>"A selfie is a sort of perversion (and) a conquest of social virtual terrain," said Paris-based travel photographer Jean-Francois Vibert, who blogs at www.macandphoto.com.</p>
<p>"Happily, perversion is not prohibited," added Vibert, who namechecks the flamboyant pop star Nicki Minaj for selfies "so 'trash,' it's self-mockery. On that level, the selfie is decadence for a totally decadent era."</p>
<p>Kennel said self-portraits are as old as photography itself.</p>
<p>The National Gallery's current exhibition of the work of Charles Marville features selfies of the 19th century French photographer in which he styles himself as a suave Parisian boulevardier -- the hipster of his day.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in London, the National Portrait Gallery has just put out a call for selfies to be included in a panel discussion on January 16 entitled "The Curated Ego: What Makes a Good Selfie?"</p>
<p>In announcing the event, organizers identified Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia as "one of the first teenagers to take a selfie." That was in 1914, when she was 13. Alas, she had no Facebook or Twitter account to share it on.</p>
<div class="nc_footer">
<p>Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.</p>
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