At 4:20 in the morning, 11 July 2013, six women began a 15-hour unofficial climb of Europe’s tallest building, the Shard, as a protest against Arctic oil drilling by Shell, whose global headquarters lies in the shadow of the Shard. Indy8 made the film to help support the cause.

This behind-the-scenes film captures the months-long build-up to the climb and the first hair-raising moments when things didn’t go to plan. The climb was live-streamed from the activists’ helmet cameras in a digital campaign with a live audio commentary on the day.

“We had 1.5 terrabytes of footage to put together in a week so it was a pretty sleepless time,” said Indy8 producer Rupert Reynolds-Maclean. “We couldn’t start any earlier as the security around the footage was so top secret that even all communication was kept to meetings in person.”

Alt-J, supporters of the movement to save the Arctic, supplied their track Dissolve Me.

According to Greenpeace, in the last 30 years we’ve lost 75 percent of the Arctic sea ice volume. And as the ice melts, Shell and other oil companies want to drill there for more oil. Burning that oil only accelerates the melt.