National Park After Dark - Bringing the Mountain to the Movies ft. Andrew Kightlinger

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Director Andrew Kightlinger joins NPAD to give us all a glimpse into the making of the much anticipated film - Lost on a Mountain in Maine. From his upbringing in Madagascar to his working interview on Katahdin, Andrew shares how he became involved with Donn Fendler’s story and how proud he was to bring one of Maine’s legacies to the big screen.For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!The NoSleep Podcast: Visit TheNoSleepPodcast.com to learn more about the show and find hundreds of hours of archived episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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2025. Here we are. I can't even fathom that, 2025. Yeah. Crazy. It's been a wild ride for us because this month will mark our fourth birthday. We're four. We're four years old.

Yeah. Our four-year anniversary birthday is coming up towards the end of the month. We have a fun episode plan. to celebrate that. But today is a interview episode and it's with someone really cool because it ties into an episode that I actually covered earlier this year when I was still in Colorado, so I wasn't a mainer yet, but now I am. And the story that I covered was about Don Fendler and his survival story on Mount Katodin, which in the state of Maine and in New England in general is just kind of like part of the stitched into the local legend of this region. Like everyone knows this story and a lot of

children are actually taught it in school. Yeah. It's very, very popular in it. It's cool that you covered it because just being from New England, it's like, wow, that's so close to here. It's such a popular story. It's so well known. And yeah. Yeah. And now it's a movie. Yeah. And now it's a movie. So that episode back when I covered it was highly requested for us to cover on the show. So that's why I chose to do so. And I'm glad I did because through the research and just we'll give a brief synopsis, but if you want to listen to the episode in its entirety, it is episode 210 and I titled it The Lost Boy. And in it, I tell the story of Don Fenler's survival on Mount Catawton. After becoming separated from his hiking party on Mount Catawton in July of 1939, 12-year-old Don Friendler survived alone for nine days, struggling to survive by leading on both his Boy Scout skills and his faith until he was ultimately rescued. At the end of that episode, which was a wild one, go back and listen to it, I did mention that throughout my research process, I saw kind of whispers that this story was going to be turned into a film. and I couldn't get any concrete information, but that what I did see was like Sylvester Stallone's production company was rumored to be involved. I'm like, what in the hell? Which was really cool.

Everyone loves slang. Yeah. So that we kind of just left it at that. And we recommended everyone read Don's book, Lost on a Mountain in Maine. And so many people, especially from New England, and it's like, yeah, I actually had to read that in elementary school. But anyways, so we kind of left it at that and then fast forward to the end of 2024 and we were put in connection with the director of Lost on a Mountain in Maine. Yes, which is so exciting because we were put in contact with him and now today we're having him on the show to talk about the movie and the story and his experience with creating this movie. So today we are welcoming Andrew Boodhoo, Kightlinger, the director of the film to talk about how he worked to bring Don's story

to the silver screen. Thank you so much, Andrew, for joining us on National Park After Dark. We're so excited to have you here and talk about Lost on a Mountain in Maine. And I guess as we get started, we would just love to know how you got started in your journey to becoming a filmmaker. Oh, God. A lot of it sounds like a lie, to be honest, when I tell people, it's like, wait, you grew up where? But I was born and raised in Madagascar, and my parents were medical missionaries, so they would, they would trek into the rainforest, and they would stay in villages for weeks at a time and administer vaccines and build clinics and do all those things. And I was just this little, I was like Lindsay Lohan at the beginning of Mean Girls, you know, she had that African experience. That was sort of my life.

And, you know, it was just a little barefoot kid running around. And when I was five, you think that that would be enough escape. But when I was five years old, we got our first VHS player. This was in the 80s. And I saw E.T. for the first time. Oh. And that when that, I know, it's classic. We all remember that moment.

I just, God, yeah, love that phone. Yeah, it's still, it holds up. And so that movie sort of slit this fuse of what is that? is a five-year-old. You're not thinking, I want to be a director. I want to be an actor. But you're thinking, what's that feeling? I want to be a part of that. I don't know why I sound like I'm from New York and I own a pizza shop. Yeah, 1930s. Yeah. I know in 1930s pizza shop owner. I want to make pizzas in New York. But that was sort of like began my obsession with movies. And then I became further obsessed. And then I was an only child and my poor parents were both microbiologists. And they were both,

both very sort of woe is me about the fact that their only child wanted to be an artist to, like, apply. Why can't you just be a scientist like us? And then eventually when you moved back to the U.S., when I was 12, which is a weird time to move back, and I moved back to South Dakota. So we moved back to another sort of very outdoorsy kind of wild place, kind of like Madagascar, but totally different at the same time. And that began my kind of, the way I adjusted to American society was getting into theater and getting into comedy and all that stuff. And then that sort of led me down the path of making movies.

And then, you know, eventually in college I decided to double down on it and decided I was delusional enough to take a crack at the career. I just glossed over a whole bunch of stuff, but that's like the elevator version of like why I wanted to make movies. And I think thematically why I want to make movies is I am a storyteller at heart. And I have something to say, and I don't know how to say it any other way, except through like a visual medium. And, you know, I love the way E.T. made me felt. If I can be a part of that for some other kids someday or old person, whoever is watching, or the two of you, then I've done something worthwhile with my life.

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Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. It sounds like filmmaking is definitely your calling. And I really kind of going back to something you said at the beginning where you said you referenced mean girls as being an example of your life. I just love the progression of that too because then you're like, then I moved back to the United States and went into theater. And I'm just picturing Lindsay Lohan like on stage after. And then she goes in and she's just picturing everyone fighting like lions. And it just.

That kind of is. When I saw that movie, I'm like, huh. It feels familiar. It feels like me. Well, it's interesting because when we were reading up on your short bio and stuff, and we read that you were from Madagascar or you were raised in Madagascar, we have, of all the places that we've been on some group trips, we went to Madagascar with some of our listeners, which was a really cool experience.

And so hearing that you are from. from there is just like, wow, I like of all the people and all the connections and now we're talking about a story that's based in Maine where, you know, we kind of grew up around. It's just, it's really cool. But yeah, Madagascar is a, I can't even imagine that upbringing. It's just so different from. Yeah. From life here, you know, and how, how was that adjustment coming, especially at 12? 12 is a weird age to begin with. It's a very weird age. I'm in therapy now because of it. First question for you, is there an episode about Madagascar that I missed that I should be listening to? I don't.

Yeah. Do you be doing? We did. We did an episode with Dr. Ray Wynne Grant about her. It wasn't specifically a story based in Madagascar, but we talked about her lemur research while she was there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But we physically brought people with us to Madagascar. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, so Madagascar, that's India. I've heard of Dr. Grant, like Jurassic Park. But we actually growing up knew the Jane Goodall of Lemurs, who was Pat Wright. And so she was kind of like this family friend. Yeah, you know, like, you're right.

Madagascar is, I always say it's at the ends. It's literally the ends of the earth. You couldn't find a farther place to go. And it's, you know, one of the top ten poorest countries. in the world. And when you go there, there's something almost biblical about it. And I mean that in the religious sense. I just mean that in sort of the primordial sense. It feels like you're going to where like Earth was forged for the first time or something. There's something very elemental about it. And yeah, and when we moved, you know, as a kid, I obviously took that upbringing

for granted. I just wrote an article about it for another publication. And I was kind of digging back into my memories. And this is kind of gross, but we're in a national parks after dark podcast. I feel like I can talk about gross things. I sure can. One of my, like, core memories is running through the rainforest with all my friends. And I grew up with Malagasy kids. I didn't have, like, people think about missionaries. I think, oh, he went to a boarding school and he wore like a little suit. That wasn't my experience. My experience was like I was a jungle kid. And I remember running through the jungle with my

Malagasy friends who were barefoot and just like racing through it. And then one of them had a tummy ache and he had to relieve himself. And I remember him just pooping out just pile of worms that looked like linguine. You know, and that was, you know, and then he just, that was life. And then he just pulled his pants back up and we kept running, you know, and that was, but they were like, yeah, they were like alive. It was gross, but that's like, what my core memories as a child? Well, yeah, that'll stick with you.

It will. It will. And I have had my own share of war. My father, my father's a scientist, or he's weird inherently, and he's kept all of them in little vials of alcohol, which we still have in the house here in the U.S. He's like, oh, this is the tapeworm you had when you were six. I'm like, oh. Some people collect teeth. Some people collect worms, you know? Intestinal parasites.

Yeah, right. Usually they become serial killers. So, so, yeah, so we moved here when I was 12, which my parents just finally wanted to get out of the mission. and I think they wanted, I was becoming too French. This French was my first language growing up, and I think I was like, oh, yeah, on baguette. And I was becoming a little too, oh, ha-ha-ha. So they're like, okay, we're going to come back to the U.S.,

and we're going to americafy him a bit, for better or worse. And, yeah, so we went back in. It was weird. Like, I was, you know, we moved to Central South Dakota in Pier, Pierre, Pierre, but Pier, as we like to say here. And I was at the time, other than the Lakota Indian students in my middle school, I was the darkest kid. I'm not that dark.

You know, I'm like, olive-skinned. But the fact that I was from Africa just made me this kind of other, you know, and I had to decide as a kid, you know, at that age, especially, like, do I embrace this? Do I, like, push it away? And I kind of ended up making my origin story, my super weapon and kind of just leaned into it in a way. That was my response to it. And eventually, yeah, people just... just embraced me as like this, you know, kind of goofy kid from Africa and, you know, it worked out.

But yeah, and then throughout that process of adjusting, I think I, movies were always sort of like my baseline. Like, I would go and rent, you know, seven Friday the 13th movies at the local video store and then watch them, you know, in succession. My parents were like, oh, God, he's going to turn into a serial killer. So then they, like, forced me to be friends with people. And then I became, you know, got into theater and all that jazz. But yeah, it was a tough adjustment. I mean, how was, was middle school hard for you or did you love middle school? Yeah, I don't know if anyone loves middle school. I think everyone would just rather forget it happened. And I think many people do. They just kind of like glaze over that part. I wish I would forget

middle school. But yeah, well, unless, playing with the memories. I just, I see pictures of myself in middle school and I just remember things that I was doing in middle school and it was just as like a teenage girl. Like I remember this maybe is I just I remember just doing weird things and like I remember I would have like crushes on people and I would like write weird notes to people that were really embarrassing now. I remember this is maybe too much information but I like stuffed my bra and in math class all of it fell out onto the floor. There are things from middle school that I do not miss, but I will never forget about it. Well, there is memories in kind of like trying it back to the movie world of middle school for me.

It was like the blockbuster was the place to be. You know, like every weekend I had a ritual with my dad when I would go see my dad. Like he was a huge movie person and kind of passed that love on to me. me. And I don't know if it was a way of just being like, all right, I got you for the weekend. You go get some movies. I'll get my movies and we'll just, I'll order us a pizza and we'll part ways. But we, it was just so exciting because it was a big to do. Like you didn't have the access that we have now to streaming services and on demand things and on your phone and iPad and laptop. You had to physically go peruse around. And then like sometimes. you'd be like, I really want to see this movie. You get there and it's, you know, it's just the card. You're like, oh, shoot, somebody else has it. Or you open it? The DVD and there's nothing in it it because something took it. It's devastating. I mean, that, I miss that because now is streaming, you know, that's supposed to open things up, but I'm sure you've done the thing where you want to

watch something and you spend 35 minutes deciding what to watch and then you just end up not watching anything at all or just turning on an episode of Golden Girls again, you know? I do that. I do that. I don't know if anybody else does that. But what was great about the sort of prison of the video store as you go in. And if the movie, Chairman of the Board, I don't know why I just coined that movie, but it's a terrible movie with Carrot Top from the 90s. There's a great YouTube video with Norm MacDonald on Conan talking about it.

Google that afterwards because it's one of the funniest things you've ever seen in your life. But if you rented Chairman of the Board, because that's the choice that you made, when you took it home, you had it and you had to watch it. Right? Like you made your choice. But now it's streaming. if you get five minutes into chairman of the board, like, yeah, I'm bored. And then you can cancel and look at something else. And sometimes I'll watch like the beginning of six different movies.

And then it's back to Golden Girls in the end. So I miss the decision you had to make at the video store. The commitment. The commitment. Exactly. It was also a real, it was a real plan. It wasn't like now you just like hop in your living room or wherever and you turn something on. And you're like, all right, I'll sit down and watch this. And then you might get distracted. If you're renting a movie and you're buying the movie candies that are there and like the special popcorn you are going home and you are like you're probably with friends you might be with a sibling or your parents like it is a set event that is happening that night when you rent that movie and it's it's very different now with streaming because you can turn it off you can turn it back on later it's just kind of it's more you just

like hop on in and out well it's passive yeah passive now and it wasn't as like in gate like before you just had to really, again, make a decision, whether it be going to blockbuster or going to the theaters to see something, which to this day is one of my favorite things to do of all time. I love going to the movie theaters. And I'm always kind of bummed when things just kind of get directly out into streaming services and kind of bypass the whole theater. Or they're like, okay, it's in theaters for two days. You better get on that. You know what I mean? So, but anyways, yeah, So kind of going back to the movie we're all here to talk about, because we could talk about movies, every other movie for a long time. But how did you get specifically involved in this particular film?

So the boring answer, and I'll go to the more exciting answer, the boring answer is that I've managers and my managers procured it. They found it through, they did what they were supposed to do. And they found that Stallone's company, Balboa, who had been incubating the movie for a couple of years, though it had been incubating for a long time as a film for about 15 years prior with a producer named Ryan Cook, who's a manor. It would have been good to have on this podcast in hindsight. Whoops. Anyway, but he could be a great separate interview.

I think he's climbed Katad in like 35 times. Yeah, which is a commitment. But he had been gestating it for a long time. And then another producer named Dick Boyce came on, who used to be like the CFO of Pepsi and whatnot. He came on. And then it ended up at Balboa, and then they were trying to find, I think Balboa's so ethos, obviously because it's Stallone is underdogs. Like they, you know, obviously Rocky, Rambo, yada, yada, yada. Number one, this project was interesting to them because it was about a kid who was an underdog who overcame this amazing thing.

And they had never done, Stallone had never done a movie about a kid before. And then I think in finding a director, they were looking for an underdog as well. They were looking for somebody that nobody knew. They could have hired, you know, I was up against 10 other directors, some of whom I won't name. but had directed pretty big movies. But I think they wanted somebody who was kind of fresh and whatnot. They also needed to find somebody who physically could take the demands on of shooting a film in the wilderness.

And so after a bunch of interviews that went really well, my final interview for this movie was to fly out to Milanac at Maine and to climb Kataten. That was the final test. And I climbed with, we were out there for a week. I mean, we took a plane up and we saw where Don, You know, we saw where Don was stuck in the Klondike, yada, yada, yada, and all retraced his steps. We, like, bushwhacked through the silver maple floodplains.

And then, of course, we climbed the mountain itself. And I'm a long-distance runner, so I have endurance, thankfully. But I can't say that I'm, like, I love hiking. I love the outdoors. The badlands in South Dakota is, like one of my mechas, probably the mecca. So I'm a bigger outdoorsy person, but I'm not going to be one of those people that's going to do, like, the AT someday. as much as I think that would be a magical thing to do. Yeah, I don't need it.

Some people need it. I don't think I need it. But if somebody said, hey, we're going to, you know, you have three months to do the 18. Like, maybe. But so I didn't have like the hiking gear. So they sent me this list. I'm one of those guys, like, I'll hike in my sneakers. He's like, you can't do that.

You have to get boots. I'm like, okay. So I get the boots that I do the hike. And the hike was pretty hard, but I made it at the top and was exhilarating. I loved it. And then I got the job. And so that's how this all came to be. And then we hiked it again, which we can talk about later, at the end of the shoot, to actually film on the mountain as well.

That's quite the working interview to throw you on Katad in. It was. No, it was. What time of year? It was in September. So it was like the perfect time. It was, you know, the leaves were turning. It was stunning.

And it was like a beautiful day. Perfect weather. I kept stripping off clothing as we were hiding. It was getting too hot. Yeah. It was great. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people were turning.

A lot of people vastly underestimate New England hiking because if you look at the numbers on paper, you know, it's like four, five thousand feet, okay, like whatever compared to 14 plus out in the Rockies. But with the elevation changes and where you're starting out and the ascent, they're just way different. And they're no joke. And you kind of get a sense of that once you're doing it. And if you're not prepared, it's even for the most prepared of people, it can really humble you fast. Well, what's, what's interesting about Kataden is really like not only the grade, but that it is like doing the stephouse, the stair stepper for five hours. Because I did, I did a 14 year in Denver in March.

And I did that like with snowshoes. And that was pretty easy. You know, it was hard, but it was like pretty easy because you're not really climbing boulders or taking. like huge steps other than you're in snow shoes. Whereas Katadn is, it's almost right away. You're just going straight up. And it doesn't relent. And yeah, I think people do underestimate that. But it's a beautiful hike. I would, if I could do it every year, I would, to be honest. Have you, I assumed you've done it. No. We have it. What? Yeah. Really? It's pretty far from us. It's kind of embarrassing. It's like a little embarrassing to say. I'm sorry, I out of you on the podcast.

It's okay. We'll take it out. Just kidding. I'll edit this part out. Yeah. Well, we, uh, we both grew up in New England. So we both grew up in Southern New Hampshire. And currently I am in Maine and, um, Cassie's in Vermont. But it's still, it's so far out there. It's still a four hour drive plus for me. I'm in the state, you know, so. But we'll get to it eventually. Um, it feels like a must now because we're embarrassed. But it's just, I'm, I'm, that's funny so that's how you got involved with the film to begin with so you're you're now involved how what was the process like bringing such a story that's i mean this is like really ingrained in new england's fabric of being like a lot of people who were born and raised here or has

spent any sort of significant time here whether they consider themselves outdoorsy or not are familiar with Don's story. And that has a large part to do with the publicity it received at the onset when it was when it happened, but also just his legacy of continuing to speak about it. And he just spent most of his life talking about that experience. So how did you, were you a little intimidated or were you excited? Yeah, excited. I'd never heard of the story because I'm not from New England. I went to school in Boston, I guess. But I, even then I didn't, I didn't really hear of it. But, you know, I wanted the challenge of doing like a true story. I'd never done that before.

And something that I hadn't written myself, that there was a screenplay already written, and that I would come on board and interpret it. And I also felt like the movie had producers on board in Ryan Cook and Dick Boyce and Derek Desmond, who Ryan Cook and Derek Desmond knew Don personally. Don was basically their grandfather to them. And they knew him up to when he died in 2016. They were stewards of his legacy. And they were there the whole time making sure that I didn't, you know, do something insane.

Like, Don is battling a wolf with like a carved spear or something out of wood, you know, like things that just absolutely did not happen. And they were there making sure that we captured the essence of what his, of why he wrote the book, and then ultimately why he kept talking about it to kids for decades beyond that. And I think he was trying to teach people about the power, the triumph of the human spirit and how, if you have something that you can cling on to, whether that is faith or family or it could be a pumpkin pie that's been left home in the fridge, whatever it is that's going to compel you to crawl back to survival and to civilization, he just wanted to inspire people. And I think there's something very elemental about that. So for me, it was just capturing that essence in the movie. And I saw an opportunity when I read it to make a movie that we don't see that much anymore. And by that, I mean a PG-rated live action. movie for families. They just don't, those don't happen.

We get animated films all the time, but we don't get that. That's why I'm excited about Wicked, because Wicked's kind of a movie for everybody. It's PG, and you can go and enjoy it with everybody. But this was an opportunity to do something like the Black Stallion or White Fang, these kind of outdoorsy movies that I loved as a kid, which, or Alaska.

I don't know if you ever remember Alaska. Have you seen Alaska with Thora Birch? No, I don't think so. Great, great, great. We should check it out. It came in that white, you know, the white VHS. tapes that Oh yeah.

Yes, I do remember those. Alaska was one of those movies. And I remember having it as a kid and, you know. So I wanted to make something like that and I saw an opportunity to make just something for everybody and Don's story. And I know, you know, it's funny. I didn't really feel

pressure to get it right until after we made it and we showed it in Maine. And when we premiered the movie in Maine in July, that was like a you know, like what's going to happen here. But But in the end, people liked it. In fact, some people loved it.

It's like one of the highest grossing movies of all time in Maine now. Wow. Yeah, which is pretty amazing because I think we captured his essence. Maybe not every detail is the same. Maybe it's not, you know, some people see it's not exactly the book, you know, or we've took and taken some liberties here and there. Though I'd say it's about 90% accurate. But it captures what he tried to say to the world.

And that, to me, was the most important thing. Well, I think the fact that you went out into the mountain yourself, too, it makes a huge difference. You were in the locations where he was when all of this happened. And I have to ask, when you were out there and you did the hiking and you were in these locations that he was in, how did that affect the way that you chose to do the movie? Did you feel like you were connecting to Don's story while you were out there? Absolutely. Initially, I wanted to shoot the entire thing in Maine. That was my goal because I wanted to shoot the entire thing in Maine.

That was my goal because I wanted to, let's shoot in the real locations. You know, I grew up in South Dakota as well, so I know what it's like to shoot in a state where, like, movies aren't made it up that much. People sort of open up their doors to you. It can be very, like, if we wanted, you know, we weren't ever going to shoot on Katadn, though I tried. But, you know, they weren't going to let me take 12-year-olds up to Katadn and shoot up there. But it did help. It did help when we went to upstate New York and shot a hard. a large portion of the movie and the cat skills, to have Baxter State Park and Katadn in my head

and have the actual silver maple flood flames, to have all these places kind of in my soul so that when we were a location scouting to find approximate places, that this doesn't feel like it. We can't do it here, but this does. And then eventually we did, you know, we also, we can talk, we built to the mountain on a soundstage. Like, that was one way we achieved a lot of the mountain, like storm scenes in the movie. We built an 80-foot-by-80-foot replica of the peak of Kataden and whatnot. But eventually we did go back up to Maine for five days, and we did aerials out of a helicopter, and then a crew and I climbed to the mountain with like 60 pounds of gear, which is –

and we was like an 18-hour hike round trip where we chose the worst weather day possible because we wanted bad weather on purpose, and we hiked it. and it was the hardest physical thing I've ever done in my life because on the way down, we had filmed at the peak and everything, and then it started to rain hard, and then night came because I wanted sunset shots and stuff. And then eventually we were hiking down about seven hours in pitch black with just headlamps and pouring rain,

and the trail became like a river, and you didn't know where you were going. So you just had to kind of like Don himself, you had to use the white markings on the trees to find, your way down. So I wanted that experience. Like, we could easily gone and shot this wherever, you know, but I wanted to make sure that the movie felt like it was part of Maine and that we had and that the audience felt like they were part of that experience when they watched the film. It came out of it and it felt like, oh, I'd just been through a hike myself. Yeah. It certainly conveys that way. I remember when I watched the movie and I think it's

the opening scene where there's aerial footage of Katadin and I'm like, oh my God, there it is. And of course, like, I haven't been up there, but just being from New England, I've seen so many pictures and videos. And I know I have friends who have hiked the AT and they've, and so I've definitely seen stuff so immediately. I was like, wow, it's really here. It's in Maine. Because recently there was a movie that was put out that was in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I know what you're going to say. Oh, my God. And from New Hampshire. Did we see it together or did we just talk about it? We did it. We're like, wait a second. We don't want to say it like. We don't want to shame anything.

Is it the Naomi Watts movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's video footage and I think they, I forget exactly where they filmed it. It was in Switzerland. It was in Switzerland.

I was going to say Sweden or Switzerland or somewhere or something. I think it might have been Croatia. Oh, really? Well, there's. Yeah. These mountains that have no resemblance to Mount Washington. It was like, oh, like to the person who is never. been to New Hampshire or the New England area, like, they could be like, oh, wow, like,

New Hampshire is really packing. You know, like, whoa. Yeah, we're like, we are like, hold on a minute. So we looked up the filming locations because it was just, I mean, for everyone who is not familiar with the area, like it still fit. It wasn't like it was these lush tropical mountains in New England or anything, but to people who are from here. it just kind of made you feel a little disconnected and disjointed from the storyline.

So here with you and this film, it's nice to be like, even though there are some locations that are not in Maine, you still took the time and diligence to be like, this really aligns and this feels. They think authenticity is, Don was such an authentic person that if the movie wasn't authentic, would be doing him a disservice and be doing the state of Maine a disservice. So that was like very, sounds like a talking point, but it's not. It is just sort of what I really did believe that going into it. And, you know, like South Dakota, the Revenant is a South Dakota story. But there are no mountains that look like the Revenant because they shot it in Argentina

and in British Columbia. We don't have mountains that big. But they came here and decided it was too boring. Like rolling prairies are not as interesting. the giant peaks, you know. Yeah. But sometimes, you know, filmmakers take license. But for me, it was really important that the people of Maine embrace this movie,

which they have. So we must have done something, right? Yeah, I think as New Englanders and people in Maine, when you see a spot that is based on your location, it's exciting. And then, like I said, the opening film seeing Katadin right there immediately. I was like, okay, we're in it. Like, we're here. And I felt connected to it when I watched it.

It was my first, actually my first thought watching it was like, wow, it's really here. I'm really excited to watch this movie. And following the movie, it was, I thought that you guys did a really great job of really portraying that Dawn was a child's because as I'm watching this and I'm watching the actor going through the mountains and walking, like walking these, this really difficult terrain, Even though I knew the ending of what happened from the book and everything, watching it, I was just like, oh, my God, this is a child. And it really reiterated how serious of a story that this was. And I think that that was something that you guys did really well because that was so important for Don's story is that he survived as a child through all of this. In directing that, was it hard to get those scenes to be able to be in this rough terrain and portray like the feelings that was happening? I guess the answer to that would be no because we cast the right actor for the role.

So we auditioned about 150 boys to play that, to play Don. Oh, wow. And narrowed in on Luke Bloom. And obviously, he's very like all-American looking, you know. But that's, you know, that's kind of what the movie's sort of harketing back to nostalgically. And he was more than, I wanted to find a kid who loved to hike and who was more than down to just roll in the mud like a pig, you know, like that.

Because that's me, right? Like running through the rainforest, people shooting worms. Like that's without to me, it's like, okay, great. So I wanted, on day one, we were shooting this shot in a marsh in New England, which we knew. We knew what we were going to do is eventually, it was just a marsh with sky in the background. And we knew eventually what we were going to do is use visual effects. We were going to film Katadn and then put Katadn in the deep background. So this is kind of one of the kind of iconic stilts from the movie is Dawn walking through

this body of water and there's a mountain in the background. And that's actually a composite of two different locations geographically. And so I said, I want you to be out in the water, but I didn't just tell him to go. I went out into the water up to my chest and said, come out here. And so he was more than willing to do that. So I think that got us in tune right away that we're going to roll around in the mud together. And one of the other things that I think brought out that childlikeness in it is that there was an earlier draft of this movie that was more like The Revenant in the sense that the kid was getting swept up by rapids and falling down ravines and having to climb out and do this sort of this kind of action hero stuff. But eventually, because you're making a movie

and budgets dictate certain things, we decided, well, let's just focus more on the human elements of this movie and not have all this fake spectacle. The movie will be more, like, how it was in real life, which is a kid just walking through the woods. And what that allowed us to do is to have that sequence in the film where he's just having fun, you know, having a good time in the water. That was my favorite day of shooting because it was just me and the kid and the crew and the sound guy and the camera and we're just, we're going in the water and okay, and I'm like, go under this, this like waterfall and just, you know, and gargle the water. And so I'd do it and he'd do the same thing, you know. And so we just had like, I was able to be

a kid as well, because I am one, you know, at heart. And that allowed him to be more childlike. But then as the movie progresses, he does grow up. It is a coming of age movie. And so, he was, you could see as we were filming the movie, he took the more metaphysical stuff towards the end more seriously. And then at the end, it does feel to me as a draw, not just because I made it, I think the kid's performance is sublime. And it's because it feels like he's grown up and learned something by the end of it. Yeah. And I love that you've mentioned the part where he's playing, because to me, that was the part where I really was like, oh, my God, he's a child. Like, he is a child lost in the woods. And when he's out there just playing and having a nice

time as an adult, I don't think that that would happen if I, like, if I was lost in the woods, I wouldn't, I don't know if I would find this time to like splash around in the water and have a nice time. I'd be like, oh my God, I'm going to die out here. And but for that moment, I was like, he's a child. He's out here. And it just kind of added this amazement of how he survived for so long to it. And I agree with you by the end where he is found. It's, he's changed for. from where he was at the beginning of the movie when they started the hike to at the end. And I just thought that that was really, really well done in that of just creating the child's atmosphere with it.

And I was one of the things that we noticed in the movie is that with the way that it was done, there was a lot focused on his relationship with his father, which wasn't as much of a focus in the book. and we were curious of why you decided to highlight that dynamic. Great question. I mean, you know, there is a version of this film that is just his POV or in the force within the entire time. I mean, that movie's been made before.

So I think what we saw was an opportunity to kind of broaden things and broaden the viewing experience. And we also happen to have, because our producer of New Dawn and New Dawn's family, we had this back door to other stories and, like, the other. side of the equation, which was the parents, you know, in this feverish, you know, in this feverish attempt to find him and to mount up this, this amazing search effort, which I think to this day remains the biggest in the history of Maine, if not one of the biggest in the country, too. And so we had all this stuff. We also had all that documentary footage was made into the film.

We had all that stuff, which was shot in the 80s. And we just, we just saw this other side of the story. And I think for me, as a filmmaker, like, survival movies are a dime a dozen to some degree. You mentioned the Naomi Watts film, which is a movie that I, you know, as a non-New Hampshire resident, I enjoyed as a survival film, but I feel like we keep seeing those types of movies. This one is more about, you know, the psychological trauma that is inflicted by all the people around the kid as well. And these two parents that have to reckon with, oh, we might lose him. And specifically with the father, I just thought there was an interesting interesting way to explore just the dynamic between parent and child, which I think anybody,

are you, any of these of you parents? I never want to assume that, but no. No, no, no, me neither, no. But, you know, I know I have enough friends at this point in my life that are having kids and they're always, you know, meeting about, oh, they're going to screw up their children. How do I not screw up my child? But what would happen? And so I thought that that was just an interesting thing to explore, because no matter what,

if you lose them, you're clinging to it. So I feel like I'm getting off the trail here, so to speak, with what you were asking. But the goal was to just give this movie more of a dimension so that I think it could reach a wider swath of audiences. And also that you'll learn, I think it's actually a fuller experience. Because not only is the kids surviving and, yay, trying for the human spirit, but there's a father who has this very specific view of what it means to be masculine. and it's actually the wrong view. And he learns through the film, oh, vulnerability is important. And I reminded the crew every day on set before we'd even film a single frame.

I'd say, this is a movie about a father and a son who just want to hug each other. And that sort of gave people, oh, okay, that's why we're making this. And I think that's when people, they see it, they come out and they think, oh, okay, I better call my sister, who I haven't talked to in three years, because I, I, I, probably should. Well, let me call my father I haven't talked to in a month. That was always my goal is to bring people together. And that father's son dynamic is that image. Yeah, well, you, earlier in our conversation, you mentioned just in passing, like, you want people to leave with a feeling or like that you have reflected back on the times that you've seen certain films that

left you feeling a certain way or left you with something after you left the theater or, you know, the tape ran out. So is that kind of what your ultimate goal was with thinking of what do I want people to feel once they see Lost on a Mountain in Maine? Is that like just kind of being together and kind of this connection with their loved ones type of feeling? Yeah, I think when all, when all is said and done, and you know, everybody has different relationships with their family. And when all is said and done, when we're stripped of everything and in the wilderness literally, even if you're just on a hike by yourself and you know you're going to be okay, it becomes a very kind of, you know, quote unquote, spiritual experience.

And you start to think about all these things, you know. And I think my goal was to remind people that when all said and done, you know, we should always be able to go back to the source and the source is family. And that's where you're going to find your, grounding. That's beyond the earth itself. That's where we're most grounded. And so my, again, my goal is, it's happened a couple times where people will say, oh, I saw your film, and I immediately had to call my child afterwards once the credits started rolling to tell them that I love them. That to me, like, I've done my job. That's the goal. And I also want to inspire people to go

to national parks. I want kids to see it like, oh, I love the outdoors. You know, I don't want to get lost in it, but the outdoors seem fun and wondrous. And, you know, and maybe there's a bird god hidden in the forest that I can talk to you, I think like that, but I'm hoping that that sort of inspires kids to take the outdoors seriously, but also to be in wonder of it and tell their parents, I want to go to Glacier, I want to go to the Badlands or Zion or, you know, or Baxter State Park. I mean, that resonates with us very much because that's the whole point of why we created this podcast was we might be telling dark stories and things that have gone wrong in the outdoors, but the underlying reason behind it is we want to help inspire people to enjoy them,

but enjoy them in appropriate ways and to be safe and to learn from other people's mishaps that have happened in the outdoors. So we can definitely resonate with that. Have you ever been, I'm asking you questions here, but have you ever been lost in the wilderness? Yeah, together. Yeah. I wasn't like, we weren't fearing for our lives or anything.

But we were hiking up in the White Mountains and we were doing a six mile, I think it was six or eight mile trail that ended up being 16 miles because we got there were the trails that we were on. There were intersecting trails that led to other mountains and stuff. And we don't know like where we stepped off where we went. We were always on a trail, but there did reach a point where we were like, what trail are we on? and why was this a six-mile trail? And we're looking at our phones and we're clocked at 12 miles already. And we're like, uh, something has gone wrong here. And eventually we did find our way out.

But Danielle has a really funny video of when we finally got to the bottom to the parking lot where I'm just like laying on the ground. Like call the police. Like, call the paramedics. I made it. I remember we went out. to eat after that and it was like the best meal I've ever had. You know, I'm like, oh, my God. And it wasn't even that deep.

It wasn't that serious. But yeah, you really appreciate it. There's something about like a hard hike and then the meal you have afterwards is always, I remember every meal I've ever had after a hard hike. I just always. It's different. It really does. I equate it to the feeling of so different, but it's like a similar, in the similar vein of

feeling when you have like a really. nice day out in the sun, like at the beach or like doing something with, I don't know, like if you're on vacation or whatever, you're out in the sun. And then you go and you take a nap and then you wake up for like dinner or to finish your night. Like that nap feels so good because you're tired from being in the sun and doing physical stuff. And then you just like get reborn after that shower and nap is like, it's definitely that feeling for me. Have you ever been lost on any of your adventures. I guess the most, yes. I would say the most recent one, well, really fun one, but that I won't tell that story. It was in Madagascar recently. I went back in 2018 and

2019 to visit my father who had gone back because he joined the Peace Corps after he retired. So he was like a 65-year-old guy and he was back doing work there. So I went back and visited him and went back to the homeland, quote unquote. And I remember trekking, getting lost in the rainforest. And it was raining that day. or no, was it raining? It wasn't raining. And so the leeches were out in full force. And it was one of those things with these tiny little leeches,

they would just cling to the low grass. And as you walk through them, they would eventually just glom onto your body. And at one point, I had 100 leashes just hanging out on my leg. It was disgusting. But that's not the story I was going to tell. I would take a little match and try to burn them. And leeches are gross because they were probably one of the first things to ever survive on Earth. and that just like creeps me out.

They'll still be here long gone. Primordial. Yeah, primordial, yeah. But they're amazing too. But no, we actually on that hike to Katadn where we did the, where we filmed, when we were at one point, there was me and this other guy, we kind of split up and not too much from, there was about five of us, and we just kind of had our own little pockets going because we had different speeds.

Like one guy had done the AT like twice and he was, had his pole and he was trekking down. But it was dark and it was raining. And all we had were the headlamps and you couldn't see anything. And there was a point. And the trail at this point was just a washout. And there was water running down the mountain. And at one point we stopped and we couldn't see the trail anymore. And we couldn't see white markings in the trees.

And I said, is this the trail? Or did we just start following a stream? Like a new stream that was birthed from the rain. And there was a moment of like, there was panic for like a second. like, okay, I've just become the movie I just directed. I'm an idiot. But then the next thing, like you said, like, what do we do as adults in a situation like that? Or like, well, hold on.

What do we do? Let's stand here and wait. Let's not keep moving. Let's wait. Let's see if anybody else comes. And if we have to spend the night here, I'd rather we stay here. Don't move. Spend the night wait for, you know, the sun to rise will be cold, but we'll survive.

and then we'll find our way down. We'll figure out, we'll figure something out. Because you hear about how people will keep going, and then they find their bodies later, and the body was only like 15 feet off the trail or something the whole time, you know? So I tried to listen to those instincts. Luckily, we stood there for like five minutes,

and then we saw this a headlamp searching in the dark, and it was one of our other people right behind us, but that was one moment where I felt like, I was dumb, like we should have been more careful. But, you know, stuff like that happened. So that was probably the one time I got like, truly lost, like, oh, God, you know, art imitating life. Well, now you have an experience.

Yeah. Well, now you have an experience of, you know, how you'll react in a emergency situation like that. Who knows? I mean, if there was a bear involved, how we just start running? I don't know. Well, let me not do that. Let's not do that. But you're right.

With a bear, you're just supposed to essentially, like. Depends. Depends. Depends on the bears. I see this. The factors, the bear species, what's going on? Okay. See, at that point, it was like, take me.

Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you. That's a lot of thinking. Yeah, it's like, it just take me. If this is meant to be, it was meant to be. What a way to go, to be honest? I mean, it's a cool story, I guess, at the end of the day. I don't know. There's a lot of, like, if, yeah, like, is it just like a, you get an artery severed

and it's pretty, like, quick bleed out? Or are you getting eaten? alive or like what's the contest here i just wouldn't want to go by a black bear i'd face it on you and eat you yeah well black bears they'll also like grizzlies they like attack to kill black bears will just sit on you and like rip you limb from limb and like eat you eat you yeah yeah the more you know do you want to the more you know this you can tell you so much i'd rather get taken down by a grizzly i'd rather be taken down by a cat a feline a cougar literally snap your neck and let's get it Call it a night. Let's get it moving.

It's so funny because we wanted a bear in this movie because there's a bear in the book. You know, it's not attacked by it. He just sees it. And he's like, you know, but I wanted it. And we ended up not getting it because a trained bear, they're only like three trained bears. And they're all on the West Coast. And they all cost about 50 grand a day to rent. So we just couldn't ultimately afford that bear. And they were also all like grizzly, brown bear grizzly type.

So they didn't actually fit the milieu either. Yeah. Yeah. But I was disappointed because I just wanted to hug him. You know, he's a trained bear so he can give him a hug. Can you? I would have tried. Is that allowed?

I would have asked and if they would have said yes, I would have just a good little bear hug. I know. It's like you're not supposed to say it, but like I would really like to do that too. Bears are cute. They're cute. They are really are. There's a reason they're teddy cuddly bears that people get for, yeah, little stuff animals. Anyway, we're getting off track. I don't even know what else to ask you.

Well, you did mention that you are outdoorsy yourself, even though you're not like have goals to do the AT or anything. But Cassie and I have talked quite often, actually, about the Badlands area because we went there once together on a trip just for pleasure. And it was so, we were so taken aback by how amazing it is there. And, It's just super underrated, I think, especially in the realm of, I don't know, the National Park world of, you know, the big bucket list places. You know, a lot of people don't really put the bad lands up high. And I think that's, we found that that's kind of a mistake because they're so amazing. So is that somewhere you go often to or you have your sight set on anywhere else?

No, anytime that I'm back home in South Dakota, because my dad still lives here, we will do a trip to the Badlands. We're about a two and a half hour drive from it, and we will do a hike. I will sometimes take my camera out there and camp or take a motel, but sometimes I've set up a tent and, you know, take a couple of cans of sardines and water and, you know, wake up for the sunrise somewhere. But it was really interesting. It's just like it feels like you're on a different planet, you know. It's kind of like when you're at Zion, I just did the Narrows last year in Zion. And I feel like that's one of those places where every corner you expect to see like a bronosaurus drinking water because it feels like you've gone back in time. And that's the Pacific place in the badlands that's part of the national park, but it's close to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

And it's called Sheep Table Mountain. Now I'm giving away trade secrets South Dakota. I'm taking notes. I know, write it down. Sheep Trade Mountain. Sheep, sheep table, mountain. And it's just this beautiful, primordial, was the third time we've used the word on the recording today. Primordial space that looks like you've landed on Mars or something.

And it's a really great place to just pitch a tent and just, you want to see the Milky Way and almost touch it. That's where you go. And you can hike anywhere. What's nice about the badlands too is generally they're pretty loose about where you're hike, you know, and don't be an idiot and fall down a ravine, but they're pretty loose about it. So you can kind of explore and look at all these little nuggets of places. Those rules might have changed, but that's kind of how we've always known it out here. Yeah, and it's kind of like a best kept secret national park in a way.

But people are, people should not bypass it because there's something about it that's very poetic and kind of fulfilling. Yeah. Well, we always ask people, like, what's on your list? Like, what is the next place that you haven't been to, but you're really anxious to see. I live in Los Angeles now and I have to go to, I've never been to Yosemite. So Yosemite is Yosemite. I need to do all the hikes there. Like that is the next thing on the list. Yes. Yosemite is really magical. You got to get out there. Okay. Great. Yeah. It is a thousand percent

worth the hype. Like I get why so many people flock there because there's something that's truly very, very magical about Yosemite. Now I had. I can't wait. Now I have. I have. to go. You have to. You're so close. You just drive right over there. I know. I just got to do that. Yeah, it's like a six hour drive, but you can do it. What about the two of you? Is there a place you haven't been yet? I know Cassie's answer. What's my answer? Glacier. Oh, my God, yes. You're right. Yeah. I have not been to Glacier National Park yet. And I just know it's going to be my favorite park once I go there, but I just have to actually get out there. And I, I guess I have very high expectations for it, but I think that they will be far surpassed. It'll surpass them. Yeah. Montana is

you know, it's amazing. Amazing girl. Yeah. Yeah. Mine's on a park that I'm like really, really anxious to go to, but I am really hoping to do a long trip to Vancouver Island. I lived in Washington State for several years and could, you know, pretty much touch Vancouver Island, but never went, as is the case when you're somewhere, you kind of just always want to be elsewhere. But I love just the vibe of the Pacific Northwest area. And Vancouver Island has wolves that have specifically adapted to live in the intertidal zones. And they're called sea wolves. And I would absolutely love to be able to spend time there and hopefully photograph and see some of them in the wild. That would be amazing. I just read about to see wolves the other day. I want to hug them to give them a little

hug. Yeah. Well, I've actually hugged wolves. I've worked with wolves. So I'm jealous. I would love my dream would be to do a white, a white fang remake. Like if somebody came to me and said, hey, we're going to do an update of white fang. I'm in just to work with wolves. Yeah. They're Yeah. Cool. Well, bringing back to movies. That's good thing. Where can people see Lost on a Mountain in Maine? Tell us. Tell everyone. It just, it's still playing in theaters in Maine, though it's not anywhere else in the country. But in Maine, it's, we've just surpassed Pirates of the Caribbean, the Curse of the Black Pearl box office wines. Yeah, yeah. We're doing really well in Maine. Maine has really come for it. But no, it's going to be on streaming in early January. And you can actually, yeah, so it's going to be on streaming early January on all platforms. You can go and watch the movie in your home and rent it on Amazon and wherever. And then I think it hopefully eventually Netflix in the future. But if you're in Maine, you can still see it.

And also, people can also, you know, contact the distributor or find me on Instagram at Andrew.VHS. And, you know, we're happy to do like special screenings and things and host. Because the movie's meant to be seen in a movie theater in the end. You know, it's a wilderness movie. And that's the way to see it. So we're more than happy to do screenings at colleges or for schools and whatnot. We want to keep pushing forward Don Fendler's whole ethos, which is to inspire people to do great things in life and to persevere and to enjoy their outdoors and respect it.

Great. Well, thank you so much for sharing and for having the conversation and sharing a bit about yourself and the project. and this is a story, we said it a million times, but New England in particular knows it well and clearly have really responded well. I mean, that's a huge mark to pass the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. So congrats on that. That's great. That's always my dream in life. It's like I just got to get passed. Yeah. In Maine specifically. Yeah, no. Well, thanks for having me on. You two seem really fun. So, I'm going to keep, I'm going to tell everybody to listen to the spot. Thank you. And tell your cousin that we say hi.

Yeah. I will. Hey, Naomi. Hi, Naomi. Cool. Thank you, Andrew. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us again this week.

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