HIGH
TISHA ROBINSON-DALY & JONATHAN MASON
Please consider supporting this artist and their work.
The HIGH Team is proud to begin fundraising for HIGH’s proof of concept short film. You can read more about the short followed by details about the feature below.
ABOUT THE SHORT
Nine-year-old Olive misses her father, a telecom tower climber, so she sneaks onto the roof to call him. Mom, deathly afraid of heights, climbs up to save her. Stuck between two parents who’ve stopped hearing each other, Olive’s not coming down until somebody listens.
BACKGROUND
HIGH began as a feature screenplay exploring the lives of telecommunications tower climbers and the families who wait for them back home. The project was developed with the support of the Sundance Institute, Tribeca, Epic Games, and Stowe Story Labs, becoming the foundation for years of creative and technical exploration as well as a deeper connection to the telecom climbing community at the heart of the story.
VIRTUAL PRODUCTION
As part of the feature’s development, we produced a virtual production camera test to answer a specific question: Could virtual production allow independent filmmakers to safely and convincingly recreate the experience of working hundreds of feet above the ground?
The test proved that the workflow was possible. The project and our process were subsequently featured by Filmmaker Magazine, the Cannes Film Festival NEXT Global Summit on Virtual Production, American Cinematographer contributor Noah Kadner, and VP Land.
A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTORS
Making an independent feature drama is a long game, and we’ve been fortunate to keep building real momentum along the way. A growing community of climbers, advocates and film professionals believes in this story, alongside the organizations and partners who have supported HIGH throughout its development.
We’re not walking away from the feature. If anything, this short is in service of it.
Financing an independent drama at this scale is genuinely difficult, and the path from screenplay to greenlight is rarely a straight one. Proof-of-concept shorts have long given filmmakers a way to bridge that gap by showing investors, partners and audiences what a finished feature can look and feel like before the full financing is in place.
That’s what this short is for us.
It isn’t a detour from HIGH. It is the first tangible chapter of it, made now, on our own terms, because we don’t want to wait to begin telling this story.
We’ve spent years inside the telecom climbing community through HIGH the Movement and HighClimberStories, listening to the real fathers, mothers, partners and children whose lives inspired this work. If there’s one thing that the community has taught us, it’s the same thing Olive is fighting for on that roof: some things can’t wait for someone else to finally listen.
To our friends, families, supporters and allies, we hope this short becomes living proof of what HIGH the feature can be, and an open invitation to the partners and collaborators who want to help us finish the climb.
You can learn more about the short film on High’s website here.
HIGH FEATURE FILM DETAILS
HIGH FEATURE LOGLINE
In the wake of a freak accident, a nomadic telcom tower climber is forced to repair the connections he needs most--with his family.
HIGH FEATURE SYNOPSIS
HIGH is a kinetic and visual drama, set in the rarely seen world of telecom tower climbers.
It’s a ROAD MOVIE-- Sometimes hanging five hundred feet in the air -- filled with equal parts dizzying acrobatics, down-to-earth humor, and relentless determination. HIGH is a rare look at the dangerous and complex work of these twenty first-century nomads with their one foot planted in the industrial age, and the other at the forefront of the digital revolution.
It’s a story about our OBSESSIONwith faster, cheaper, and more advanced technology, and the very real people we are sacrificing to obtain it. It’s also a story about FAMILYin America today.
BUTCH ROBBINS (40), a twenty-year tower veteran who devotes so much time to providing, that he’s become mostly absent. MAYA ROBBINS (40) an artist recovering from a debilitating battle with lupus, determined to preserve her eroding sense of identity beyond illness, and the already loaded titles of Mother and Wife. OLIVE (9), their potty-mouthed firecracker daughter, wise beyond her years and asked to grow up much too soon.
It's the story of beloved brother and uncle JAKE METZGER, who in a split second mistake, is killed when the line snaps and an 1,800 lb antenna plunges fast, yanking Jake down the tower and back up fifty feet like a carnival game.
HIGH is the story of the aftermath of this tragic accident, and the difficult road Butch, his family, and his crew endure to finish the job on deadline, to save the company, and to preserve the family unit.
LOOKBOOK
Tisha Robinson-Daly . Co-Writer & Co-Director
Tisha Robinson-Daly is based in Philadelphia. She has written, directed and produced several short films and is a SAGindie honoree, a Sundance Institute and Knight Foundation Fellow, a recipient of two Sundance/Knight Production and Development grants, the recipient of a Stowe Story Labs scholarship, and fellow of the inaugural Stowe Launch Advanced Development Program (Stowe is supported in part through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts). A telecom worker herself, Tisha is also the writer, director, and producer of the episodic series HIGH Climber Stories, a twelve-episode series that advocates for, and chronicles the lives of tower climbers. In 2020, The Hubble Foundation collaborated with Tisha to create the six-episode series, “In Their Own Words,” which allows those who have been directly affected by the dangers within the climbing community to tell their stories. Both shows air monthly on Phillycam, a Philadelphia public access station, along with Vimeo, Facebook, IGTV and streams on the Higher Than 7 network.
Jonathan Mason . Co-Writer & Co-Director
Jonathan Mason is a French/American filmmaker based in Philadelphia. After earning his M.F.A. in film from Columbia University, he served as Creative Director for Belladonna Productions (Jim Mickle’s Cold in July) and co-founded New York-based production service company Bullet Pictures (Abel Ferrara’s 4:44). His personal work typically explores themes of fractured cultural identity, and projects have been supported by Stowe Story Labs, Sundance Institute, Tribeca, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, and IFP/Gotham programs. His Algerian/French short L’échappée, co-directed with Hamid Saïdji, played at over 40 festivals including Clermont Ferrand and Berlin Interfilm, and was the recipient of the Canal+ Prize. Jonathan is currently co-writing a project with Oscar-nominated writer/producer Bráulio Mantovani (City of God) and a TV project with Jim Mickle (Sweet Tooth). Jonathan teaches screenwriting/film production at Rowan University.
Stowe Story Labs alumni can initiate an application for fiscal agency here.
