Recently, China's first immersive experience of climbing Mount Everest documentary "Captain Everest" was released in theaters across the country and received an enthusiastic response. The film set a new record for drone aerial photography at the highest altitude above 8,470 meter

Recently, China's first immersive experience climbing Everest documentary "Captain Everest" was released in theaters across the country and received an enthusiastic response.

The film set a new record for aerial photography by a drone at the highest altitude above 8,470 meters, and is known as the "most difficult" documentary in the history of Chinese films. What’s amazing is that this unprecedented movie was created entirely by ordinary people. Because of their love for climbing, they overcame obstacles all the way, and finally reached Mount Everest and reached their hearts.

htmlOne day at the end of June, Mount Everest captain Sula Wangping accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily and told the wonderful story of his team climbing to the top of the world.

As the real captain of Mount Everest, Sura Wangping led the team all the way to the summit; as a climber, Sura Wangping made a cross-border movie. He said: "Everything has encountered many difficulties and has grown a lot, which is what I really want to do. I feel that I have helped a lot of people and changed a lot of people, which is more meaningful than anything else."

A cowherd Over the past 20 years, I have trained more than 60 professional mountain guides. Sula Wangping is a Jiarong Tibetan. He is very fluent in Mandarin and very funny. He said with a smile that the most intuitive change that 20 years of climbing has brought to him is optimism and determination.

Su La was born in Bajiazhai, a small village with only eight families at the foot of the snowy mountains in Aba Prefecture, Sichuan. He was deeply impressed by the extremely difficult living conditions there more than 20 years ago, with no roads, electricity, or running water. People in the village make a living by farming, herding cattle and sheep. Whether you go up the mountain to dig herbs or go down the mountain to purchase items, everything has to be carried on someone's back.

But also because they have lived on a snowy plateau with an altitude of more than 4,000 meters since childhood, the locals are naturally familiar with the mountains and have very good physical fitness. "If you can't run fast, you won't be able to catch up with your sheep. If you are grazing yaks, it will test your physical strength and ability even more." Sura said.

He was very grateful to his father who worked in the county, because there was no school in the village when he was a child, and there were very few people in the village who had gone to school. However, Sula's father took him away from the village to go to school in the county when he was nine years old. Later, Sura was admitted to a technical secondary school, majoring in mechanical and electrical engineering.

Sula was particularly fond of sports when she was in school, and participated in many sports competitions in Aba . After graduation, when Sura returned home and was waiting to be assigned a job, she heard that a mountaineering team was coming to inspect the San'ao Snow Mountain. The whole village went to see it out of curiosity. What kind of mountaineering team can you only see on TV? Sulla also ran to the village entrance.

The tents he had never seen before, the equipment he couldn’t name, and the strange clothes worn by the mountaineers... all of this made him extremely envious. Coincidentally, the mountaineering team wanted to invite 30 people in the village to help them carry their things, so Sulla joined without hesitation. On the way to climb with the team after

, because Sulla could speak Chinese and had gone to school, everyone in the mountaineering team liked to communicate with him.

A few months later, one day Sulla was carrying firewood on the mountain. Someone called him and said that someone from the mountaineering team was looking for him. Sulla threw the firewood away and ran back to the village. Someone asked him if he wanted to go out and work with the mountaineering team? When he thought about the opportunity to get out of the mountains, he agreed without saying a word. After

came out, Sulla realized that the job he was doing was called a mountain guide. He also learned that there were many senior members of the China Mountaineering Association, such as outstanding domestic climbers Sun Bin, Ci Luo, Ma Yihua, etc. in the team that inspected the San'ao Snow Mountain.

had role models around him, and from then on, mountaineering took root deeply in his heart. Being a mountain guide opened Sura's horizons. Two years later, Sulla gradually developed his own set of mountaineering collaboration techniques.

Once, he went home to visit relatives. When he got together with his friends who had grown up together, he saw everyone’s eager eyes, and an idea came to his mind: to set up his own guide team to lead the young people in his hometown to better The backer eats the mountain.

Everything is difficult at the beginning. With little money at the beginning, Sula only bought seven sets of imported equipment, and then carefully selected seven people from the village and took them to the No. 3 Snow Mountain Camp for training, which was closer and less expensive.

Sura not only taught them basic climbing skills, but also paid them 30 yuan every day out of his own pocket: "I'm worried that if I don't pay them, their wives won't let them go after one or two times. To change their perceptions, You have to take it step by step."

What pleased Sura was that the seven of them were very smart. About half a year later, Sura started to take them to officially climb San'ao Snow Mountain. He still remembered that there was a company that sponsored mountaineering clothing that was not only waterproof but also breathable. It was the first time for the seven friends to hear about it and they were very happy.

The development of folk mountaineering in China is only 30 years ago. Sulla realized that in order for more people to understand the Sichuan-Tibet team, he must take them to climb difficult and famous mountains.

It is very difficult to climb Siguniang Mountain . Sula remembers that she could not buy professional shoes at that time, so she wore Jiefang shoes to climb up. The climb took about a week, and we finally reached the summit around 5 pm. By the time they descended halfway up the mountain, it was already dark, so everyone put themselves in sleeping bags and hung them on the rock wall, freezing like that all night. "To be honest, I almost froze to death up there, just because I'm still young." Sura said with emotion.

That time, they not only conquered Siguniang Mountain, but also became the "first ascent" of Chinese people, and it spread instantly in the circle.

Sura remembers that later they went on inspection tours and traveled hundreds of kilometers from Aba by tractor. "Although it was very hard, it was also very exciting." Then, an established outdoor brand was willing to sponsor clothing for them. Since then, they have slowly begun to relax and continue to try to climb more difficult and risky mountains. Sulla also began to go abroad, going to South Korea, the United States and other places to learn techniques and explore more advanced experiences from teams with hundreds of years of mountaineering history. After returning, he would provide systematic training to the entire team. "For example, high-altitude first aid. As our country's helicopter rescue system is not yet very developed, the best way to rescue yourself when in danger at high altitudes is to rescue yourself. Therefore, each of our team members must not only be able to climb mountains, but also be able to lead and lead a team. First aid. We have first aid training from the International Association of Wilderness Medicine every year, and we are all first aiders from the Sichuan Red Cross Association. I dare say that every mountaineering member of the Sichuan-Tibet team is a very good first aider.” Said proudly.

Just like this, a cowherd boy spent 20 years bringing out more than 60 professional mountain guides from his hometown. Over the years, thousands of mountaineering enthusiasts from all over the country have realized different dreams under the safe escort of Sichuan-Tibet team members. Different climbing experiences of 6,000 meters, 7,000 meters, 8,000 meters... have made them a star of life and death. pay. What makes Sura even more gratified is that mountain climbing has changed the thinking of his friends, broadened their horizons, and increased their income. “In the past, they rode horses, and later on motorcycles, vans, and cars. Now almost everyone I drove the off-road vehicle . Each team member’s home was decorated more beautifully than the other, and some even bought a house in the county.” Sura was very happy and felt that he had "made a small contribution" to his hometown.

Brings the real climbing of Mount Everest into the cinema

Sula has always liked watching adventure documentaries and movies, such as "Vertical Limit", "Desperate Altitude", " Freehand Rock Climbing " and so on. "I have seen many foreign documentaries that specifically filmed Mount Everest, and I feel that our country has not yet had a real Everest climbing documentary that has been released in theaters, which is a bit regretful."

As he gained more experience in climbing, Sula The more sights you see. Every time he and his mountain companions were on the snow-capped mountains, he would exclaim: "My body is in hell, my eyes are in heaven." At first, he would use a camera or a small video camera to shoot some short videos to record the mountaineering process. Gradually, a bold idea rose in his mind: "It would be great if I could completely film the climb to Mount Everest and make it into a movie and put it in theaters, so that more people can see the beautiful scenery on Mount Everest!"

He secretly made up his mind, We must lead a team to climb from the international stage on the south slope and make a movie. Who took the photo? The only solution Sulla could think of was to turn the mountain guide into a mountain photographer.

Although they were a "grassroots team" who knew nothing about movies, Sura was very motivated - he began to explore systematic training, and also invested in a 190 professional camera, which he and Luo Rijia, a member of the Sichuan-Tibet team, took on. For each climbing shooting task, I continued to learn and practice various shooting techniques and lens language.

In 2008, Sulla spent 7 days editing 5 hours of footage into a 45-minute documentary "Snow Mountain Eagle". For the first time, the entire process of climbing Queer Mountain was presented to everyone in the form of a documentary. It received a lot of praise Good reviews. During this period, the Sichuan-Tibet team also "shocked" with many film crews, such as being responsible for all the logistics support teams in no-man's land of " Seventy-Seven Days ", assisting in filming the final snow mountain scene of "Captain of China"...accumulated After gaining some shooting experience, Sula and her friends gradually gained confidence in "making blockbusters".

In order to successfully realize the "movie dream", Sura officially registered and established "Mountain Climbing Film and Television" in 2018, and selected ten team members with photography potential for systematic training. Then we continue to use the money earned from organizing mountain climbing activities to invest in replacing equipment and training personnel. In 5 years, he updated all the equipment to 4K high-definition equipment, allowing every mountain photographer to try shooting at various altitudes of 5km, 6km, and 7km, and learn how to compose pictures in the mountains and how to better use the lens to speak. How to protect the machine in ultra-low temperatures... They are familiar with the different precautions and techniques in each season and at each altitude.

On April 8, 2019, a total of 15 people, including 8 mountaineers and 7 alpine photographers from the Sichuan-Tibet team, formed an Everest climbing team that set off from Chengdu and headed for Nepal on the southern slope.

html Among the 48 mountaineering team members, there are white-collar workers who live on the front line every day, shop owners who have sold their small shops, sales staff with heavy performance burdens, and entrepreneurs struggling between success and failure. This climbing team composed of ordinary people, with their own different stories and dreams, under the leadership of Captain Sula, embarked on the long-awaited journey to Mount Everest. On the day

arrived at the base camp, all the team members were shocked: thousands of tents were spread out at the foot of the snow-capped mountains like a small town.

They launched their first training there - climbing the Lobuche Snow Mountain at an altitude of 6,000 meters. When

was conducting "ladder crossing" training, the team members saw a sudden avalanche in the distance, and a person fell in the snow and fog. From Camp 1 to Camp 2, everyone truly realized that "every day is exciting" means more hardship behind the scenes. They climbed a 90-degree vertical ladder and encountered weather conditions and impetuous mentality when crossing terrifying glaciers. These experiences made the atmosphere in the team heavy, but everyone felt that "their hearts have become stronger."

The battery went into the sleeping bag with the photographer, and it was difficult to turn over.

Sura said that the most difficult thing during the climbing and filming process was how to gain the trust of the team members. When he told his team members that he wanted to put the movie they made into theaters, everyone actually didn't fully believe that he could do it, and they weren't particularly optimistic about it. So Sura's main job every day is to communicate with the team members after arranging tasks for the photography team. The

team members are not actors, and their "appearance" is completely impossible to repeat. Therefore, many times the photography team must set out in advance to set up the camera to ensure that all the processes are captured. For example, if we are going to cross the most dangerous and scary glacier today, Sura will first tell everyone how to ensure their own safety, and then tell everyone what to do to take the best shots when safe. Sometimes, when arriving at a certain place, for the sake of shooting effect, he would ask everyone to gather together first and then unify the shots. But there will be people who don’t want to wait and won’t cooperate, so they need to communicate carefully.

At the same time, Sulla will be particularly worried about the safety of the photographer, because one of the safety measures when mountaineering is: everyone is connected with a 60-meter rope, like grasshoppers on the rope, walking hand in hand. However, in order to avoid a single shooting angle, the five photographers could only break away from the safety rope connection and shoot alone at different points, which was quite dangerous.

Sura said bluntly that a qualified climber must be a responsible climber.All team members know that they are responsible for themselves, their families, the team, and the team leader and organizers. As a captain, you have greater responsibilities and great pressure. You have to be responsible for the safety of everyone's lives. The most important thing is that "everyone can reach the summit smoothly and descend safely." He told everyone that everyone has the right to ask questions on the mountain, but they do not have the right to make decisions. All decisions on the mountain belong to the captain, and everything must be obeyed by the captain. "My judgment comes from 20 years of mountaineering experience, and I have to stick to myself." principle. Mountaineering must understand, encourage, support and help each other before we can complete it together."

Climbing Mount Everest from a bird's eye view has become the highlight of this film. Many people find it difficult to imagine how a drone can take off at 8,000 meters? Sura said that these equipment were carried for five or six days in extremely low temperatures. No one can guarantee whether they will still work normally on the day of the summit. However, the high-mountain aerial photography team members have made the most adequate preparations. They use all the equipment 24 hours a day. For body temperature protection, I have more than 30 batteries for the drone alone. I put them all in the sleeping bag every night when I go to bed, making it difficult to turn over. They carried equipment weighing seventy or eighty kilograms and had to complete the shooting task. Every step was more difficult. "They have lived at the foot of the snow-capped mountains since they were young, and they have been training hard all year round, so they were able to capture these shots stably." Sulla himself sometimes feels incredible: "At the top of the mountain at minus 40 degrees Celsius, the wind was so strong that drones were allowed to fly. We only took two drones to capture so many shots of climbing Mount Everest. , and both planes came back safely, without crashing , which is really amazing. "Sura said that those few shots only took a few minutes, but it was really difficult, "We had to wear big and thick down gloves. I took it off to operate the drone and fly it well. When it flew up, the hands of the aerial photography team member were already extremely cold. Frostbite is the most common situation. I took over the remote control and used it for a while, and he poked his hand hard and recovered. I immediately returned it to him, and finally he flew the drone back. It was a pity that there was no other camera to record the process." Later I learned that they had inadvertently set a world record: China's first Everest film to complete a drone takeoff at the highest altitude of over 8,470 meters.

If I don’t have a dream, it’s possible that I’m just a porter.

On May 12, Sulla led the team to officially start climbing Mount Everest.

After passing the terrifying glacier, everyone climbed up the blue ice wall in one go, climbed through the "yellow belt" on the rock section of the mountain, and approached the top of the world step by step. Encountered a blizzard on the way, people were blown around, and there was a cliff at their feet. Sulla decided to find a place with a gentler slope and dug out steps with a shovel to use as a temporary camp to absorb oxygen and rest. It was almost 10 o'clock in the evening when we set off again. The weather was still bad, the wind was very strong, and the team members were very physically exhausted. They were panting every step. When

arrived at the balcony of Mount Everest, a female team member's heartbeat accelerated and her legs became weak. She grabbed the oxygen bottle to breathe oxygen but found that the oxygen bottle was broken. Fortunately, just when she was desperate, a mountain guide repaired her oxygen tank.

The time to reach the summit was a little later than originally planned, but after hesitating for a moment, Sulla made a decisive decision to start the summit immediately in order to avoid the "big traffic jam" on the ridge steps.

Why is there a "traffic jam" on Mount Everest? Sura said with a smile that most climbers who come to Mount Everest have a climbing cycle of more than 40 days, and the real "window period" for reaching the summit is only one week. Therefore, everyone will choose the day with the best weather in that week to climb to the summit. In addition, 2019 is the year with the largest number of climbers on Mount Everest, so he predicts that there will be a "big traffic jam." If you don’t control the time well and get stuck in a “big traffic jam”, you may not be able to reach the summit smoothly. Sulla's decision to rush to the summit in a hurry was also based on his belief that his mountain guide was capable enough to ensure the safety of his team members.

In the end, after more than 40 days of dangerous climbing, on May 15, they successfully avoided the "big traffic jam" on Mount Everest and all reached the summit.

set off ahead of schedule because of their accurate predictions. They became the first team in the world to climb Mount Everest in 2019. When they planted the five-star red flag on the top of the mountain, everyone was very excited."Many foreigners were not optimistic about us along the way, but they didn't expect that we would be the first to reach the top." Sura was as proud as the team members.

has experienced life and death climbing on Mount Everest, and each team member has different gains. What Sula wants to say is: "Live in the present and cherish everything around you. A person may not climb mountains in his life, but he must have a mountain in his heart. I believe everyone can become the Everest captain in their own lives."

Not long ago, Sura followed the screening of "Captain Everest" in various cities. After he noticed that the children particularly liked watching the movie, he also passionately encouraged the children to have dreams: "You are now climbing the peak of learning. , I will climb the peak of life in the future. If you have the chance, the captain hopes to take you to climb the real peak. Everyone must have a dream. If there is no dream, I may just be a porter. Even if I get out of the mountain, I may not have one. Confidence drives more people from home to climb Mount Everest. Only with dreams can we have hope, and only with hope can we change ourselves and our lives.”

Text/Photo courtesy of reporter Li Zhe

/Xiao Fuqiu

.