Michael Brown has excelled as an adventure athlete and filmmaker in his career. He has been to the summit of Mount Everest five times, each time with cameras rolling. His work as a director and cinematographer covering adventure sports, including caving, kayaking, and mountain climbing, spans all seven continents. His work has won many film festivals and industry awards, including three national Emmy Awards and the Giant Screen Cinema Association (IMAX) ‘Outstanding Cinematography’ Award. Michael is also a recipient of the International Alliance For Mountain Film’s Grand Prix and the Explorers Festival’s Camera Extreme. Michael’s cinematography has captured mountain climbing for giant-screen IMAX movies, ice caves for NOVA, tornadoes for Discovery, science at the South Pole for National Geographic, and avalanches for the BBC. Outside Magazine describes the cerebral filmmaker as a “swashbuckling librarian,” and Men’s Journal calls him “a master of gut-dropping action. Michael’s previous film at VIMFF, The Weight of Water, was awarded the Best Adventure Film Prize in 2020, and this year he has returned to join the jury.
You can take your filmmaking to the next level. The secret to great filmmaking lies beyond any technical elements and enters the realms of psychology, brain chemistry, and human connection. This interactive workshop discusses the elements that take filmmaking beyond footage and sound or even the sum of these parts. What makes a film impactful and memorable?
Time permitting, we will also discuss methods of taking a collection of footage from an expedition or character and organizing it into a coherent story.
