YouTube’s biggest adventure creator debuts documentary at TIFF

One of YouTube’s biggest stars was at TIFF debuting their first-ever feature-length film.

Mark Vins, creator, curator and star of Brave Wilderness, a YouTube channel with over 20 million followers and a view count in the billions, recently debuted his first film, Reef to Ridge, at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Vins, whose YouTube channel started 10 years ago, has focused the bulk of his programming on exploration of the natural world, its species, and conservation efforts.

As one of this generation’s key voices for the natural world in the digital age, Vins recently took the plunge into the documentary format with Reef to Ridge, breaking the traditional restrictions of the internet medium while — at the same time —  implementing techniques he learned as a self-produced content creator.

“You know, when it all started, we were in the business of churning out 12 to 15-minute-long adventure videos on YouTube. Now, in the last decade, we have built up this fantastic production unit, which naturally scaled up its ambitions to a feature-length project,” Vins told yourcitywithIN.

The film itself follows Vins and his team in the aftermath of the Wolf Volcano eruption on Isabela Island (the tallest peak in the Galápagos Islands), where, during its initial activity, lava cascaded across the entire island, and an ash cloud surged 12,500 feet into the sky.

An event that severely impacted native species on land, sea, and air.

Armed only with scuba gear, hiking supplies, and a couple of buddies, Vins takes viewers through his mission to document rare species native to the island, all while investigating to see if the eruption threw the island’s biome out of balance, or worse, rendered anyone extinct.

“We’re trying to inspire our audience to care about the environment and care about the animals that we put in the spotlight, but at the same time, inspire them by showing them how normal we are, and that anyone can do this,” says Vins.

In the film, Vins talks about the genesis of his love for the natural world and how, only with a camcorder a decade ago, he started Brave Wilderness in his backyard in Columbus, Ohio, jumping into ponds and getting footage of snapping turtles.

Now, 10 years later, Reef to Ridge opens with Vins scuba diving to the bottom of the ocean floor of the Galápagos to ensure that key aquatic species remain undisturbed by the Wolf Volcano eruption.

Then, immediately after, he hikes to the top of the ridge of the volcanic island to make sure that its land-based fauna did not suffer as well.

As for leaping into film, Vins was optimistic about the cross-pollination between digital creators and feature filmmaking, citing that both have their strengths and that if you are passionate about one, there is no excuse that you can’t do the other.

“I’ve had about as humble a beginning as anyone can have; every single project, no matter what you do, is just one building block to something bigger — it is all a grand web of opportunity,” says Vins.

Throughout the film, Vins often references his YouTube career and how it laid the foundation for him to take on such a globe-trotting endeavour.

One that not only puts the audience in Vins’s shoes, as the story is frequently told from his POV, but also frames it around a ticking clock, as Vins and his team have 10 days to go from the titular ‘reef and ridge’ and document the species they hope remain intact.

While we won’t get into spoilers, as the film is set to debut next year, the human drama that ensues is one of hope, hydration and a lot of hiking.

As for any advice for young creatives working on digital platforms, Vins, now contending with his own creative evolution, simply had this to say: “Follow every opportunity, but only the ones that make sense to you, and no one else.”