bridge city media

For the past 50 years, Friends of Timberline has carried the responsibility of Lodge stewardship across all their programs and initiatives, thinking deeply about the intentions of the original artists, architects, and workers to honor the past as they pave the way towards the future. This is why many members see themselves as stewards and refer to the Lodge as a “living museum.”

Taking this concept to heart, the living museum served as the thematic driving force of the film, with the larger narrative and structure mirroring the complex web of relationships, projects, and visitors that together make Friends of Timberline what it is. As such, we wanted the central stories of the film to weave together in nonlinear ways, moving between group members and projects to offer a variety of perspectives that together paint a picture of the rich and complex people and histories behind Friends of Timberline and the Lodge as a whole. 

Making the documentary was a long-term project that we split into two phases: initial interviews and research, and production. We began the project by doing extensive reasearch on the organization and the lodge, reading articles, sifting through hours of archive content and speaking with members. We then filmed a series of interviews with various board members and colleagues of the organization to discover what would be a best narrative to piece together to tell a cohesive but concise story. We made transcripts of the interviews and proposed a series of filming days and additional interviews we would like to capture to produce the story. We gathered and confirmed appropriate use of archive video/ photo content and made a couple of trips up to the lodge to film new content. After 8 total filming days we organized and cut down hours of footage to bring the story to life. We additionally incorporated original animated sequences and added a creative blend of archive footage with the same framing of new clips to illustrate how the lodge has been so accurately preserved over many decades.

Our final deliverables saw us produce an hour long video, a shorter cut down to be shared with education institutions, and shorter cut downs for Youtube, web, and social platforms. The full length film will be published and broadcasted in 2025.