Chasing Coral: launching a movie and a movement
“One of the big challenges with the work we’ve been doing is; how do you get people to experience what it feels like to be out in the field, going to these rare and special places that very few people get to go to.” Jeff Orlowski, Director, Chasing Coral
This year, the Sundance Award Winning Chasing Coral was released globally; a film designed to challenge and reshape our understanding of the impact we are having on the planet.
Directed by Jeff Orlowski, the filmmaker behind 2012’s Chasing Ice, which documented how quickly the world’s glaciers are melting, Chasing Coral follows a team of divers as they set up underwater cameras to capture the bleaching of coral reefs in real time.
Filming across various continents and time zones, it took three years to create, and was launched in 26 different languages worldwide.
We were lucky enough to chat to Jeff at Sundance London last month, and felt privileged to discover the role Dropbox played in bringing the production together. Jeff recently told us: “We have had hundreds of people working on Chasing Coral – it really was a collaboration unlike anything I would have anticipated when we started the project.”
But what is collaboration in the context of filmmaking? Jeff explains: “So much of it is about communication, it’s about knowing your team, it’s about knowing how people like to communicate, what works for people and what doesn’t. I love our team, we’ve been working together, in some cases, for many years, and we operate as this family that is working on projects together, wanting to make a difference, wanting to get the story out there.”
With Dropbox, Jeff told us the Chasing Coral team have been able to “streamline communications” and share their ideas across multiple platforms: “We’ve used Dropbox from everything to organising terabytes of film footage with filmmakers across the globe, to file creation and sharing impact documents like our Screening Guides and Social Media Toolkit to our partners, screening organisers, and educators located worldwide.”
But the collaboration doesn’t stop just because the cameras have been packed away, in fact, it’s only just begun as Jeff invites the world to come together to become part of the launch. “Our mission is to use the film to build political will for climate action by igniting the next wave of advocates in the most unexpected places. We hope individuals and organisations use the film to drive conversation and take meaningful action in their community too.”
You can hear more from Jeff, and about where his inspiration comes from, in our video above. And if you’re keen to be part of the movement, then watch the film, share the trailer, organise a Netflix viewing party or sign up to host a free community screening at http://www.chasingcoral.com/learn-more/. Go to chasingcoral.com for more information.
Image by The Ocean Agency, XL Catlin Seaview Survey, Richard Vevers
