EVERYONE’S IN CHARGE: an interview with award-winning filmmaker Emily James

Posted by Laura Shacham on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 8:25 am.

In 2009 acclaimed filmmaker Emily James began documenting the covert movements of several groups of UK Climate Change activists. Trusty camera in hand, she embarked on a journey which would take her over fence and undercover. With her exciting new feature – Just Do It: Get off your arse and change the world – coming together nicely in the edit, Emily put down her egg and marmite sandwich to tell Kino London about crowd-funding, Creative Commons distribution and why she believes everyone’s in charge.

Just Do It follows a number of individuals as they stand up and fight against climate injustice. “This film is the most ethnographic film I’ve made so far”, says Emily. “The ideas and the movement, all those networks of people pushing in the same direction – trying to find a way to capture that has been challenging.”

“I come from broadcast TV and most of the films I’ve made have been for Channel 4 but the film and TV industries have become dominated by commercial formats.” And it’s these rules and regulations which encouraged her to make a film that belies modern media obsession with the commercial and stays true to the ethics of the individuals it portrays.

And so the challenge is funding. Enter: the crowd-funding appeal. The Just Do It team has devised a unique production model: individual donations now mean the film will get made and be available for free when it’s released early next year. No creative constraints, no financial pressures from investors, no compromise.

What problems has the lack of funds during production thrown up?

“On a practical level, the lack of funding meant it was a ‘catch as catch can’ situation.” (And can caught 250 hours of footage!) “But because I wasn’t filming for broadcasters, the activists opened up and respected me. They saw that I was there for the same reasons as they were there. They didn’t treat me as an outsider they treated me as an insider. It became evident to them that it was something I was doing out of passion.”

And passion won out as Emily finally gathered her footage together and thought, now what? Instead of selling the material to one of the major broadcasters, Emily and the Just Do It team have decided to release the film under a Creative Commons license. Rather than seeking to capitalise on the film, it will be given away for free.

“Aside from not having funding, trying to make a film about people who according to the law are criminals means that they of course have concerns that must be respected. In a normal documentary, the contributors sign consent forms which mean they effectively sign away their rights. We didn’t ask people to sign forms.”

This is a crucial plank of the project. “This film cuts across the documentary and reality TV industries and the way they deal with people. The people we filmed with have become involved with the project. I’m determined to make a film which doesn’t take its subject for granted.”

What does she hope to achieve with the film?

“I don’t think this is a film that is going to win over Sun readers. Its target audience are those people who know that it’s a problem but aren’t taking any action in their own lives. The film is imbued with a strong sense of community, a sense that action is an empowering experience, that there are things they can do. What I hope is that people will come to the film and feel inspired to take action of their own. My main message? Everybody’s in charge. We’re all culpable, we’re all guilty but we can all do something about it.”