Toyota said they wanted to be 'King of the Mountain'. I asked if they'd go to Everest if we had a good reason to take it there. They laughed and said sure but nobody had ever had good enough idea to make it worth it. 6 weeks later we getting malaria shots. Through the Forbidden City up Everest on the Tibetan side. The 4Runner wasn't stopped by Everest, but around 19,000 ft. the oxygen became too thin it didn't have enough air to continue. So we turned around. I spent a week interviewing Hillary at his house in Auckland. It doesn't get much more fun that this.
I sat for 3 days on an apple box about 14 inches out of frame asking him questions. Each day was about 8 hours long. Nobody wanted it to end.
Autographed copies of Hillary's last book were given to dealers and used as incentives for customers to preregister for test drives. Extending the campaign from Everest all the way to the dealerships.
Digital content and print ads were shot by Simon Stock on location. This truck was a prototype worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. We weren't worried if it broke down though, we had another one with us.
Scenes were re-enacted in The Remarkables in New Zealand and blended with still photography, Ed's voice and personal accounts for the longer format In-Theater version.
Hillary is on the 5 dollar bill in New Zealand. He graciously signed them for us but only if we agreed to buy ourselves a pint with it somewhere. I asked him how long it had been since he had to buy his own beer. He smiled and said, "It's been awhile."
