Lifelines

Made in partnership with EENA & Google

A short doc that helped advocate for life saving technology transforming one of the world’s toughest jobs.

AT-A-GLANCE

WHAT WE DID

Story Hunting
Creative Development
Production
Direction
Post Production

Schneeburg, Austria
Documentary Recreation

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Since the dawn of cell phones, first responders have struggled to locate emergency callers unable to describe their locations. Google partnered with the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) to see how smartphone location technology might be able to help.

To help Google advocate for the global scaling of this technology, we highlighted the story of Andi Gremmel, a paraglider in the Austrian Alps whose routine flight took a harrowing turn–but who was saved thanks to this new technology.

Improved location accuracy that reduces response time by one minute can save over 10,000 lives annually.

UNITED STATES FCC

THE PRODUCTION

Since the events of had long passed by the time we were brought in to tell this story, we decided to recreate the accident and rescue on location in the Austrian alps featuring the real helicopter pilot, emergency services operator, and paraglider.

The production included two helicopters, a few drones, and more than a dozen paraglider flights where our camera operator was strapped in to recreate the 4Gs pulled during an uncontrolled free-fall.

Impact

The film was shown at public health and safety conferences and conventions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and was instrumental in proving the real world human impact of this lifesaving new emergency location technology.

As a result, today over 1 billion smartphones worldwide are ELS enabled–helping first responders locate over 2M calls a day.

CREDITS

Creative Director

Kate Baker

Director

Nico Carbonaro

Executive Producer

Patrick Marzullo, Patrick Degan, Michael Tabtabai

Producer

Deborah Marlow

Director of Photography

Karl Erik Brøndbo

2nd Unit Director & DP

Doug Emmett

Editor

Kyle Valenta

Music

JR Narrows, Spacelute

Sound

Bod Edwards, Skywalker Sound