The Just Do It team plan to release the film under a Creative Commons license – a radical departure making it free to watch, free to share. Rather than charging people to watch their film when it’s finished, they are asking people to donate a tiny contribution now, with the funds going directly to production costs. The idea is to gather a small crowd of supporters who donate and enable the film to be seen by millions of others.
As James says, “we want to focus on creating culture-shift with the film, on changing attitudes, rather than on counting box office receipts.”
With broadcasters obsessed with formats and celebrities, and arts funding being slashed, socially important independent films such as this are finding it increasingly tougher to raise finance. Says the director, “this film may not be ‘commercially viable’, but it’s a film that simply needs to be made”. And others seem to agree. Already, a small crowd of over 100 people have contributed their time to the project, and many more have donated to the production budget.
However, to finish the film, they need to raise some more money, so they are inviting people to join their crowd.
The Challenge - £20K in 20 days: To encourage participation, for 20 days from 12th October Lush, the soap company people, who have been great supporters of the climate movement (including bailing many of them out) will be matching donations to the film online at www.just-do-it.org.uk pound for pound, up to £10,000. You donate half, they donate half.
Check out the trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM8iAK58-G4
And if you want to help get this to people's screens around the whole of the world, hit up http://just-do-it.org.uk/donate/make-a-donation