Matt Dickinson is a

film-maker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screenwritin ...

and writer who is best known for his award-winning novels and his documentary work for

National Geographic Television National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney Entertai ...

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

and the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

. Dickinson was one of the climbers caught in the

1996 Mount Everest disaster The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996 when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making i ...

. In 2003 he was the co-writer and director of Cloud Cuckoo Land—an independent British movie.

Biography

He was a student at

The Hemel Hempstead School The Hemel Hempstead School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located in the town of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. History Grammar school The school was officially opened on 14 October 1931 as Hemel Hempstead Grammar ...

up to the age of 16 and

Gresham's School Gresham's School is a private school (English fee-charging boarding and day school) in Holt, Norfolk, England, one of the top thirty International Baccalaureate schools in England. The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a f ...

in Norfolk where he did his A levels. He joined the BBC in 1984, training as a researcher and production manager and working on programmes such as ''

Wogan ''Wogan'' is a British television talk show which was broadcast on BBC1 from 1982 to 1992 and presented by Terry Wogan. It was usually broadcast live from the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherd's Bush, London, until 1991. It was then broadcast ...

'' and ''

Ever Decreasing Circles ''Ever Decreasing Circles'' is a British sitcom which ran on BBC1 between 1984 and 1989, consisting of four series and one feature-length special. It was written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, and it reunited them with Richard Briers, who ha ...

''. Dickinson left in 1988 to pursue a freelance career as a production-director. In November 2015 Matt Dickinson visited schools across the UK to show students his achievements in his life, including to be part of the first camera crew to summit

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

. Specialising in adventure documentaries, Matt Dickinson's credits include

BBC 1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

's '' Classic Adventure'' and several hour-long films such as

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

's '' Encounters'', ''

Equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun appears directly above the equator, rather than to its north or south. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise directly east and set directly west. This occurs twice each year, arou ...

'' and ITV's ''

Network First ''Network First'' is a wide-ranging documentary strand broadcast on ITV in the U.K. from 4 January 1994 to 20 November 1997, and was a part replacement for '' First Tuesday''. Unlike other documentary series on ITV such as ''World in Action ...

''. His programmes have been broadcast in more than thirty-five countries and have won awards at film festivals such as the Graz Mountain Film Festival, The Trento Mountain Film Festival and the Napa/Sonoma Film Festival. In the pre-monsoon Everest season of 1996, amid the worst weather conditions on record, with

Alan Hinkes Alan Hinkes OBE (born 26 April 1954) is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders (mountains above in height), a fe ...

, Britain's foremost high-altitude climber, Dickinson made a successful ascent of

's notorious

North Face North face or Northface or The North Face may refer to: * North face (Eiger), in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland * North Face (Everest), in Himalaya, usually traversed ascending Everest from the north * North face (Fairview Dome), a climbing route i ...

, one of the most technically demanding climbs on the world's highest peak, beating hurricane-force winds and temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius. Three of the eight deaths on Everest that day were on the North Face. He was climbing further up Everest when he came across the famous 'Green Boots' he was confused why someone would have fallen asleep on the north face of Everest but it was soon to occur to him that this body was no longer alive. It was an Indian climber that was separated from the rest of his team in 1996 and was found for the first time. He became one of the first British film-makers to film on the summit and return alive, and his film called ''Summit Fever'' has now been seen by more than twenty million people worldwide. His written account of the same expedition, ''The Death Zone'' (Random House) has been published to critical acclaim in more than fifteen countries. Matt Dickinson's new series ''

Mortal Chaos Matt Dickinson is a film-maker and writer who is best known for his award-winning novels and his documentary work for National Geographic Television, Discovery Channel and the BBC. Dickinson was one of the climbers caught in the 1996 Mount Evere ...

'' was commissioned by Oxford University Press in November 2010 and the first book in the series was published in January 2012.

Publications by Matt Dickinson

Dickinson's books include: *''Long Distance Walks in North Africa'' (1992) *''The Death Zone : Climbing Everest through the Killer Storm'' (1997) *''The Other Side of Everest : Climbing the North Face Through the Killer Storm'' (2000) *''Everest : Triumph and Tragedy on the World's Highest Peak'' (2002) *''Black Ice'' (2003) *''The Adrenaline Series: High, Epic, and Rough Water'' (2007) *''High Risk'' (2009) *''Mortal Chaos'' (2004) *''Randomer'' (2013) *''Matt Dickinson Rules!'' (2014) *''The Everest Files,'' (2015) By Vertebrate Publishing: * "Lie Kill Walk Away (2016) * "The Everest Files" (2014) * "The North Face" (2016) * "The Killer Storm" (2017) * "Popcorn-Eating Squirrels of the World Unite!: Four go nuts for popcorn" (2018) * "Popcorn-Eating Squirrels Go Nuts on Everest" (2019) * "Popcorn-Eating Squirrels Go Nuts with the Dinosaurs: 3" (2020)

References

External links

Mount Everest Matt Dickinson Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickinson, Matt British television directors British documentary film directors English film directors People educated at Gresham's School English mountain climbers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British summiters of Mount Everest People from Harpenden