Just Do It: Get Off Your Arse and Change the World

Doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing the for­tunes of envi­ron­men­tal activists in 2009 launch­es inno­v­a­tive crowd-fund­ing appeal

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In ear­ly 2009, Emi­ly James began film­ing the clan­des­tine activ­i­ties of sev­er­al envi­ron­men­tal direct action groups across the UK. Allowed unprece­dent­ed access, Emi­ly doc­u­ment­ed a year of esca­lat­ing action that began in spring with the now infa­mous G20 demon­stra­tions in Lon­don. Always in the thick of it and with ever her trusty cam­era to hand she sad­dled up with The Cli­mate Rush “Bike Rush” as they brought West­min­ster to a stand­still, pitched up with The Cli­mate Camp as they occu­pied Black­heath, masked up with The Great Cli­mate Swoop as they stormed the fences at Rat­cliffe-on-Soar coal pow­er sta­tion, and then accom­pa­nied them all to win­try Copen­hagen as they took their protest to the streets out­side the UN COP 15 cli­mate talks. And those are just the head­lines!

‘Just Do It’ fol­lows the tri­umphs, trau­mas and clan­des­tine activ­i­ties of civ­il dis­obe­di­ent envi­ron­ment activists as they take on the com­bined forces of glob­al cap­i­tal­ism, run away cli­mate change and the pesky Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police. Hav­ing gath­ered over 250 hours of mate­r­i­al, she and her team are now embark­ing on the chal­leng­ing task of turn­ing this footage into a fea­ture length film, which will inspire peo­ple to take action on cli­mate change. Check out the trail­er here: http://just-do-it.org.uk/.

Set for release in 2011, the Just Do it mod­el can be thought of as the ulti­mate in inde­pen­dent film pro­duc­tion. Unlike a TV fund­ed doc­u­men­tary, our inno­v­a­tive crowd-fund­ing mod­el allows us to work com­plete­ly free from exter­nal inter­fer­ence, be it edi­to­r­i­al or styl­is­tic. This means that we can focus entire­ly on mak­ing a film that does jus­tice to the excit­ing footage we have cap­tured. Our pro­duc­tion mod­el gives us com­plete con­trol. This is bot­tom up film­mak­ing, not the usu­al top-down, and it is dri­ven by pas­sion and cre­ative vision, rather than by desire for rat­ings or com­mer­cial imper­a­tive.

“It’s pre­cise­ly the kind of film that wouldn’t get made with­in the exist­ing prof­it and rat­ings-dri­ven fund­ing struc­tures,” explains Just Do It direc­tor, Emi­ly James, “Crowd-fund­ing through dona­tion enables us, as cre­ative artists, to be sup­port­ed by our audi­ence in a more direct way, with­out the involve­ment of cul­tur­al gate­keep­ers. This is anoth­er nail in the cof­fin for tra­di­tion­al media.“

‘Just Do It’ aims to tell an impor­tant sto­ry fre­quent­ly obscured by the agen­da of the cor­po­rate media. If you too think this is a sto­ry which should be told, then please donate here: http://just-do-it.org.uk/fund-this-film — whether it’s a ten­ner or a grand, it will be grate­ful­ly received.