Blog Post

Just Do It

October 12th, 2010 in Blog by adminView Comments

Just Do It – a feature-length documentary film that provides a unique insight into the subversive and risky world of UK climate activists.

In early 2009, filmmaker Emily James began filming the clandestine activities of several groups of environmental activists in the UK as they willfully engaged in acts of civil disobedience. Allowed unprecedented access, her footage shows us the people behind the politics, providing the often overlooked human element to their story as they take on the combined forces of global capitalism, run-away climate change and the metropolitan police. Ultimately, however, it is a film about power relations. The point being to demonstrate that you, as a citizen, have a huge amount of power – and that all you need to do is stand up and take it.

Currently in post-production Just Do It is a film that pushes a number of boundaries, not only because the subject matter is so controversial but because it is an experiment in crowd funding, group production and community-engaged documentary filmmaking.

So how exactly do you go about making a film about the direct action subculture when the activities being documented are borderline legal and the subject matter so sensitive? When, as Emily James, Just Do It Director acknowledges, “Traditional film companies simply will not touch this kind of footage with a barge pole due to all of the legal implications surrounding it!”

The approach that Just Do It have taken is to self publish. However, in doing so, they take on a substantial amount of risk. In the UK, the film producers take liability for content and must ensure that any views expressed can be shown to be factually correct. Issues surrounding climate change are notoriously difficult to prove, and, should a case ever get to court the odds are likely to be weighted heavily in favour of big business (due to the relative sizes of any potential legal teams).

The point here is not that the team are looking for sympathy. Rather they point out that in today’s world if your film doesn’t fit into a commercial box then you may as well forget about obtaining the funding for it!

So how have they managed to find funding?

The task was made harder because in considering this problem, the team approached the problem from a particular ethical standing.

First off, the primary aim was to educate, communicate and inspire helping to shift public opinion and change people’s minds on direct action. The project was never designed to make huge amounts of money meaning that there was little interest from (and, more importantly, no pressure to satisfy) any prospective investors.

Second, in keeping with many of the themes documented in the film they are clear in that they don’t want to be associated with any advertising, did not want to be part of any commercially driven programmes and did not want to be responsible for encouraging mass consumerism. Rather the team are keen to make the film available to all, free of charge so that everyone is able to watch in an unrestricted manner. The film will be released under a creative commons licence meaning it will be just that – available to all for free.

Third, they wanted to work completely free from external interference, be it editorial or stylistic. This means that they can focus entirely on making a film that does justice to the exciting footage they captured.

Now. Having said all of this, as an independent film company that does not have any financial backing, they have still had to find a way to cover costs as they are going along. They have needed to find a way to fund the film that allows them to deal with the outlay they have today rather than waiting to receive a small percentage of future earnings tomorrow.

Their answer? Once again, they have put their faith in a community based solution. Their aim is to ask lots of people to donate a little amount – today. They call it crowd funding. And it seems to be creating a real buzz. Lush Cosmetics have, for example, have promised to match funding (pound for pound) on every donation from 12th October for 20 days.

By applying community-led alternatives, supported by innovative (and appropriate) funding models, Just Do It Films may have just found a way to make a film that isn’t commercial and that probably wouldn’t be profitable – but nonetheless needs to be made.

Certainly the normal measures of a film’s success (such as box office takings) will no longer apply. Rather, success will be determined by factors such as the degree to which it contributes to a genuine cultural shift.

Perhaps most importantly, however, there really is more at stake here than 90 minutes of activist footage, no matter how interesting or inspiring that footage really is. No, this is all about being able to live in a world that encourages critical culture rather than stifling it. It is about the degree to which the media we are currently exposed to is restricted and censored before it even reaches formal evaluation. It is about providing access to people who wouldn’t normally have access. And it is about creating diversity and breaking down the monopoly hold and control that profit driven films have within the industry.

In so many more ways than one, this is about nothing less than free speech.

With a bit of luck the film should be released in early 2011. For more information check out www.just-do-it.org.uk