Earlier this week I met again with filmmaker Bill Chayes of Chayes Productions. We have agreed to form a partnership to produce a series of three documentary films about my adventures. Each program will document one of the legs of my trip; California to Hawaii, Hawaii to Tuvalu, Tuvalu to Australia. It will be a non-profit project with these objectives:
- To inspire others to take that leap of faith to set their own goals to reflect their own personality and to begin to take steps to achieve those goals. We will tie my story to those of three “parallel lives” – three people on dry land who are facing their own personal challenges, such as coming to terms with illness or disability, or launching a business, or becoming a parent. I will be in contact with them from the ocean, and will get inspiration from their lives, as hopefully they might get inspiration from mine. We hope to show how we all look for role models to help us overcome obstacles and rise to higher levels of achievement.
-To present the message that the future of the oceans will have a huge impact on the future of humanity. As oceans rise, or lose their capacity to absorb CO2, our cities, health and wellbeing will be affected in ways we can only begin to imagine. Through sending back eyewitness reports as I row across the world’s oceans, and taking part in beach clean-ups in each of the staging posts along my route, I hope to create a ‘ripple effect’ of general awareness leading to responsible ocean stewardship, showing what people can do to help preserve this wild, wondrous, and vitally important environment.
The documentary will be targeted at the educational market, using the connections I have already established with schools that use my ocean adventures to illustrate lessons in geography, science and exercise. Teachers also (scarily!) like to use me as a role model, particularly for the female students.
As well as the education market, we intend that the film will also be screened at film festivals worldwide, and that ultimately there should be a theatre release, capitalizing on the current popularity of adventure films (Into The Wild, Touching The Void etc) and environmental themes (An Inconvenient Truth, The Future of Food, Sharkwater, etc).
Look to this website and blog in the near future for updates about the film project, including fundraising events – featuring me and my boat.
In the meantime, if you want more information and/or want to help us out with a donation specifically for these films – or if you know somebody else who may be keen to participate in this exciting project – please contact Bill Chayes at [email protected]
[photo: on camera last year, during the Pacific preparations. The camerawoman here is Bebe Flynn.]
