The brief was to create a film for Nike's outdoor range ACG to land several key messages. Firstly, to build ACG’s authenticity and inclusion in the outdoors, with a focus on women. Secondly, to demonstrate the product’s innovation and style, designed for adventure and exploration ‘from the street to the trail’. And finally, to drive energy for the Nike brand and speak to its core sustainability principles.

The creative idea was to show traditional climbing in a new light by bringing rock climbing into a new space - drawing inspiration from Eugenie Lee and the four natural elements: Fire, Earth, Water and Air.

Big city life can feel like one big rat race led by consumer capitalism. We wanted to depict this in Eugenie's form of escapism - rock climbing.

The work maps Eugenie Lee’s climbing process from the initial preparation to the summit, showing the various processes that the body and mind must engage with in order to plan and complete a successful climb. The audience engages with the perspective of Lee’s hands, body and experiences as she calculates her route, and begins to climb. As Lee climbs, her world view becomes broader and more engaging; encompassing the various forces of nature and the beauty of the natural world, the experience is sublime, cathartic, and liberating.

To subvert the way that traditional climbing is seen, the film is intentionally as personal and intimate as possible, so that the audience is transported into Eugenie’s world. The script, design and stunts were developed in cooperation with Eugenie’s personal experiences as a rock climber. On boarding Eugenie, as opposed to an actor, made the film all the more tangible and rooted in genuine passion. The chosen location in Cornwall is also one of Eugenie’s favourite areas to climb. The film was purposefully shot without the guideline of the monologue, so that Eugenie had creative freedom throughout the edit. This meant her words could be more abstract, and create a poetic and unique narrative.

The total budget was £41,946. The film was shot on an Alexa Mini, Panavision minicam with 4mm wide lenses and an FPV drone, a lighting drone was used to light the side of the cliffs which was a first for our director, producer and the DOP.

The film was shot over one main shoot day on the Jurassic coast and a pick up day in Portland using some of Felix’s favorite climbing locations.

The location posed its own unique challenges - some moments were captured by climbing adjacent to Eugenie high in the cliffs with the Alexa Mini strapped to his back, allowing the cameras to capture close-up, intricate shots.

The video was released on Dazed Digital, a niche publication with a strong Gen Z audience, in partnership with Nike ACG. The Instagram campaign exceeded Dazed benchmarks by 50%, with the Reels of the four consecutive elements (Earth, Fire, Air, Water) exceeding Dazed benchmarks by 80%. The audience responded well to the serialized storytelling, with a consistent thread throughout the assets and no audience fatigue. The video has garnered 1,100 views on the YouTube channel.

Eugenie Lee, the subject of the film, posted the full video on her personal Instagram page, capturing her core audience of the climbing community with just below 5,200 Instagram views in the first month of its release.

The film has been nominated for multiple awards, and has won three British Arrows, for Cinematography, Sound Design and Achievement in Production.