Brian Kelley ’10 turned backcountry adventures and classroom curiosity into a career telling powerful environmental stories. With roots in Gettysburg’s Outdoor Leadership Program (OLP) and liberal arts mentorship, he now creates films that inspire audiences to step outside and see the world differently.
Long before collaborating with legendary climber Alex Honnold or producing films for Outside TV and Travel Nevada, Brian Kelley ’10 was carrying a camera into the backcountry with Gettysburg College’s Outdoor Leadership Program (OLP), capturing the raw, unscripted moments of student expeditions. Those early projects sparked a passion that would grow into a career blending adventure, environmental storytelling, and purpose.
“Gettysburg was pretty foundational in my path toward filmmaking,” Kelley said. “It’s where I first seriously started considering it as a career path. I often think of undergrad as the time when I was discovering for myself that visual storytelling was my passion. What I found at Gettysburg was an extremely supportive environment for pursuing that path.”
Today, Kelley has built a career at the intersection of storytelling and the outdoors. Through his work at Outside Inc., he recently teamed up with Honnold, who scaled a skyscraper in Taiwan live on Netflix this past January, on “Get a Little Out There with Alex Honnold.” The series for Outside TV is a partnership with Travel Nevada that encourages people to step beyond their comfort zones and reconnect with the natural world. It’s a project that blends adventure, authenticity, and purpose—values that first took shape during his college years.
At Gettysburg, Kelley immersed himself in the College’s OLP, then known as the Gettysburg Recreational Adventure Board (GRAB). He began bringing cameras along on trips and creating expedition-style films that documented the experience. Former GRAB director John Regentin P’26 remembers Kelley as both persistent and visionary.
“There was always this creative edge with Brian,” Regentin said. “He’d show up with this idea and all this equipment and say, ‘We can make this work.’ Even when the rest of us couldn’t quite see it yet, he could. He was unrelenting in the best way—always pushing what was possible.”
Those trips became an unexpected training ground. Hauling gear into remote places required problem-solving, adaptability, and trust—skills that now serve Kelley on professional shoots around the world. Regentin also saw something deeper in Kelley’s approach.
“He could really draw out the essence of people,” Regentin added. “That ability to connect—to help someone feel comfortable and tell their story—made him such a natural filmmaker.”
In the classroom, Kelley paired those hands-on experiences with an environmental studies major that sharpened his critical thinking. Under the mentorship of Environmental Studies Prof. Salma Monani, he began interrogating not only how stories are told, but also why.
“BK embraced his liberal arts education as an opportunity to be curious and to challenge his comfort zones,” Monani said. “He knew he loved filmmaking, and he was good at it, but what I found so wonderful about working with him was how important it was to him to think more deeply and critically about the ethics of what he was doing and who he was making films for. His work had, and continues to have, a larger purpose—to share a respect and love for the natural world and environmental justice.”
That purpose guided some of his earliest creative risks. While studying abroad in Botswana, Kelley produced a feature-length environmental documentary that later screened at the Majestic Theater. Back on campus, he experimented with everything from GRAB expedition films to a short “mockumentary” inspired by the adventure documentary “Touching the Void.” Each project helped clarify his voice as a storyteller in environmental and adventure spaces.
After graduation, that foundation evolved into professional work, including “Park Sessions,” a series featuring musicians such as Mike Posner and Scout LaRue Willis performing iconic songs in striking outdoor landscapes. Now, through his collaboration with Honnold, Kelley continues crafting stories that invite audiences outside—both physically and mentally.
Looking back, Kelley credits Gettysburg’s interdisciplinary culture for giving him the opportunity and guidance to chart an unconventional path.
“Professors like Salma Monani and [Interdisciplinary Studies Prof.] Jim Udden, and staff like John Regentin and Kris Nessler ’01, always supported my film pursuits, and that allowed me to see it as a true career path,” Kelley said. “I didn’t feel boxed in. I felt encouraged to experiment.”
He sees the College’s new communication studies major as an extension of that same philosophy—an academic home for students eager to blend storytelling, analysis, and real-world production.
“It’s exciting because students can start building their own professional journey right away,” Kelley said. “Gettysburg teaches you how to think critically and connect different passions. That’s exactly what you need to create meaningful work in all types of fields.”
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By Corey Jewart
Photos provided by Brian Kelley ’10
Posted: 03/04/26