Filmmaker Michael Dillon was seven and living in Sydney when Everest was first climbed.
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It was May 29, 1953, and New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest and Hillary became etched in Michael's mind.
"Seven's a ripe age for hero gathering, and Edmund Hillary became mine," he said.
Little did he realise he would one day become Hillary's filmmaker for 25 years.
"With ever increasing eagerness, I followed his journey from Everest to his even more satisfying work with the people of Everest, building bridges, schools and hospitals," he said.
"I devoured Louise Hillary's books of their family trips to the Everest region, and daydreamed of being there with them, their imaginary extra son, Michael Hillary."
In 1969, Michael did the next best thing and joined an early commercial trek to the Everest region.
"I became one of the first Australians to visit the Sherpa heartland, only to find that Australia was unknown to them," he said.
"The Sherpas knew all about New Zealand of course, for there in their valley was a shiny new school and a shiny new hospital built by Hillary, so in Sherpa's eyes New Zealand took up three quarters of the world map. So I had to be polite and say that Australia was just a small island next to New Zealand.
"The leader of my expedition, Warwick Deacock, had been loaned a camera by ABC-TV to take some movie of this exciting new region, But altitude sickness struck. He was stretchered down, and Monty Python-like, continued to film from his stretcher. The Sherpas dropped his stretcher, and said they were happy to carry him, but not him and his camera. So his camera was handed to me."
It was the first time Michael had used a camera, but not his first taste of movie making.
"Aged 10 I'd made a film called A History of the Earth. Handicapped by not actually owning a camera I'd made the film on a very long strip of paper I'd subdivided into frames. I illustrated each frame with my Derwent pencils, and handwound the film frame by frame through a little cinema I'd built with my Meccano set. My sister read out the script I'd written, while my dog and my parents, who'd each paid a penny, watched.
"With no Academy Award forthcoming, my passion lay dormant until by chance, while at university, I got a part time job with a documentary film company, writing scripts, and doing everything apart from actually handling a camera.
"But that accidental chance to film in the Everest region really got me going. I purchased my own camera and shot a film of my own in another part of the Himalayas, finished it off in England and took it along in its bright blue plastic can by bicycle to the BBC.
"They bought it. I went back to Nepal to do another film, and kept my dream alive that one day, with my new found skill, I yet might get to work and walk with the Hillary family."
His story reads just like a boy's own adventure.
"It has been this boy's own adventure," he said. "And I was along filming other boy's own adventures."
In 1975, soon after Michael's father had died, the Hillary family's own dreams were shattered. An air crash, due to pilot error, killed Hillary's wife Louise and his youngest daughter, Belinda.
Hillary's despair almost killed him. But one way out for him was to start planning a trip that he and Louise had talked about doing together - a jetboat journey up the entire length of the Ganges. No prizes for guessing who filmed Sir Ed's near fatal Ganges expedition.
He filmed parts of Tim Cope's journey across Mongolia; he accompanied Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer on their successful first Australian Mt Everest summit and he was on the mountain filming when Lincoln Hall spent the night in the death zone.
He has climbed four of the Seven Summits, walked across deserts and tracked gorillas in the war-torn jungles. His camera has taken him from the Himalayas to the Andes, Antarctica, the Arctic, the Pacific and Africa.
His wildlife filming credits include State of the Planet with Sir David Attenborough, and Walking with the Great Apes.
Michael is an Emmy Award nominee, multi-award-winning director and cinematographer, having produced films for all the major networks - including National Geographic Television, the BBC and Animal Planet.
Most recently, the Victorian become the first person in the Southern Hemisphere to win the Grand Prize of the International Alliance for Mountain Film (IAMF), in recognition of his lifetime contribution to adventure filmmaking.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Now you can go behind the scenes on some of the world's greatest adventures with the filmmaker as adventure travel specialist World Expeditions brings the pioneer of adventure cinematography to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
Michael has witnessed some of the world's most historic and wildest adventures and this is your chance to hear his stories about people following their dreams, chasing records and world-first achievements.
Book online now for the events which will be held in Sydney on July 27; in Brisbane on August 4 and in Melbourne on August 11. Tickets are $25 per person, with part of the ticket revenue being donated to the Australian Himalayan Foundation.
He is representative of a long and distinguished line of Australian accomplishments in the field of outdoor and expedition filming, dating back notably to Frank Hurley who filmed with Douglas Mawson and Ernest Shackleton.
Michael is currently working on a new documentary about a team who sailed in 1965 from Sydney to Heard Island, and made the first ascent of Australia's highest peak, Big Ben.
"I'm 78 now but I haven't given up on Everest," he said.
Click here or or call 1300 720 000 for more information.
