Ellie Green | worklife
over time. And the bigger the bank of work you have on there, the steadier that income stream becomes.” They are also experimenting with YouTube and investigating other direct-to-audience platforms. The amounts involved might not replace commercial commissions yet, but the idea is important. Instead of starting from zero every month, the growing catalogue of finished films continue generating income. For independent filmmakers, that can be part of creating the financial breathing room that Green believes is essential for better creative work. Ignore the noise Her next advice is very hard to do in 2026, and that’s to stop looking at what everybody else is doing. “Close your eyes and ears to the trends that come and go on social media,” Green says. “It’s really easy to get caught up in all that noise – thinking, I should be shooting this, I should be doing that, or I should have this camera or that camera. Follow your own path and your own vision. Stick with it and trust yourself.” Then comes the lesson that takes us back to those first GoPros, which is – don’t wait. Green recently spoke to a younger filmmaker who had spent around six months preparing a project, working through storyboards, cameras and planning before asking what to do next. Her answer
Yet, it’s interesting that her ambition today isn’t simply to tackle progressively bigger mountains or more extreme expeditions. “If you’d asked me five years ago about climbing Everest, I’d have been, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ But now I’m much more interested in people, culture and landscapes. I used to love the summits, the fastest times and the biggest climbs. Now I love stories about people and culture, and I’m fascinated by how people, culture and landscapes combine. That’s where I see my storytelling going.” Perhaps that progression explains a lot about the work that ultimately earned Green her Pro Moviemaker accolade. The Greens’ gear has improved enormously since those first GoPros. Ellie’s main Sony Alpha 7S III bodies are joined when necessary by hired specialist lenses. They also use DJI’s drones, audio, gimbals and an Osmo Pocket that routinely goes everywhere. She remembers recently hiring a Laowa probe lens simply to create an unusual shot travelling down the sleeve of a jacket. Green’s guiding principles are simple: use whatever gives you the shot. Keep the equipment light enough to take where the story happens. Don’t get distracted by trends. Build a business capable of supporting the work you care about. And, above all, find interesting people and stories. n
Finding the balance Green says creative freedom combined with financial stability has allowed her to make longer-form documentary films
was: “Just start. Pick up your camera and go and film something. Even if you don’t use it later, just do it. Don’t wait for the perfect alignment of everything.” There may seem to be a contradiction between this and her advice to create financial stability before taking creative risks. But one is about making a sustainable career, while the other is about the destructive habit of waiting for perfect circumstances before making anything. There will always be another camera to buy, another plan to make and another excuse to delay. At some point, filmmakers just need to film. Beyond the summit Green’s own storytelling is continuing to evolve. Adventure filmmaking has taken her business, Summit Fever Media, from British hills and trails to much further afield. A recent production involved spending around two weeks hiking in Japan, following an ancient pilgrimage route through the forest, accompanied by a Yamabushi mountain monk. “It blew my little mind,” she says. “At times it felt like walking through an episode of Star Wars .”
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