Documentary filmmaker Emily James (pictured) made programmes for major broadcasters before striking out on her own with Just Do It, a film about direct action activists that employs an appropriately revolutionary funding and distribution model...
I studied documentary directing at the National Film and Television School, graduating in 2000. I made broadcast films (mostly for Channel 4) for nearly 10 years before starting work on Just Do It, which follows a community of direct action activists from Climate Camp, Plane Stupid and Climate Rush. Previously, I was involved with the film The Age of Stupid, which was an early adopter of crowdfunding – a method of fundraising that involves lots of people put in relatively small investments.
I started filming in 2009, following big actions like Climate Camp at Blackheath and an attempt to shut down Nottingham’s Ratcliffe Power Station – and small, surprise actions like blockading the entrance to RBS or activists locking themselves onto a private jet at City Airport. We also travelled to Copenhagen with a group of 30, many of who had appeared in various actions I’d filmed earlier in the year. It’s an insider portrait of the life of a direct action activist. Largely by necessity, it’s a very secretive world, so people were very hesitant about being filmed.
I quickly realised the compromises I’d need to make to get a TV commission weren’t ones I was prepared to make on this film. Broadly speaking, I believed the activists were doing the right thing, and there was quite a lot of antagonism towards them in the broadcast system. If I’d made the film for TV, I would have had to assume a position of critique, but I wanted to make a great film that didn’t sell them out. Legal concerns also affected the process – I specifically designed a situation where they didn’t sign a release form. Instead, I promised people they could see a rough cut of the film – something that broadcasters and production companies aren’t interested in, because it’s too risky for them.
The film is about the power of crowds and working together in groups to achieve a bigger goal, so a crowdfunding model seemed applicable. It was really important to us to have a democratic element to the funding. I think our crowdfunding total to date is around £13-14,000.
We also had a couple of invaluable private donations – grants from foundations such as Lush. They suggested we structure their money as a match fund – which worked, because we wanted lots of small donations. We’ve also had some money from Artist Project Earth, a group of musicians that funds radical green initiatives.
We’re going to release the film under a Creative Commons licence. We’ll have a commercial rate for broadcasters, but we will allow individuals to watch the film for free and share it with anybody they like. We’ll also have a theatrical release and hope to work with cinemas so that people who have donated can watch it for free.
There are real, fixed costs for these things, but we hope to honour the spirit of the Creative Commons release by offering free tickets, while the DVDs are non-profit. The whole thing relies on donations – films are quite expensive and by the time we finish this we’ll have been working on it for a couple of years. We’ve got to put food on the table and pay our rent!
Emily James was talking to Miriam Zendle.
Just Do It will be released next year. Images courtesy of Amelia Gregory, Kristian Buus and mini mouse.
Interested in filmmaking? Check out our article about film funding and an interview with filmmaker Cary Fukunaga.