If we rewind to before the Delta variant wreaked havoc on our humble team of 5 million, something pretty special took place – that being the film premiere of ‘For the Blue’. On Friday August 6th myself and the rest of the Project Blue crew were privileged enough to debut our 75-minute documentary with the 600 attendees who filled the Diocesan School for Girls auditorium. The film itself is a product of over three years unshakeable dedication, which details and tackles the issue of plastic pollution and seeks to inspire hope for future generations.
Project Blue is made up of 25 passionate young ocean-aficionados ranging from surfers to divers, marine biologists to environmental scientists, videographers to photographers, along with fashion designers, illustrators and graphic designers – you name it! The ambitious Savannah Walker founded Project Blue in mid-2018, putting the call out to anyone willing to volunteer their time towards researching, converting, and capturing the way New Zealanders use and dispose of plastic waste. The whanau soon grew to 25 young kiwi change-makers and by late 2018 I jumped aboard, becoming a member of both the research and design teams.
Over the following three years we contacted various companies, including the likes of leading surf brand Rip Curl, in an aim to encourage them to minimise and seek alternatives to single-use plastics in their supply chains. The team also undertook interviews with sustainably focused businesses including Ice Breaker, Ethique and Reusabowl to share the planet-positive impact these organisations are actively making. To further illustrate the unbelievable severity of the issue, small groups within the Project Blue family ventured to remote corners of New Zealand, Hawaii and Malaysia. They captured the heartbreaking destruction caused by plastic waste on our oceans, our environment, and on those living amongst this chronic deluge of toxins.
With Project Blue members residing in various outreaching areas of the North Island, Pauanui on the Coromandel Peninsula, became the crew’s home base. Together we spent several weekends immersing ourselves in mother nature’s moana and exploring our wider environment – continuously reinforcing the desire to protect our oceanic second home at all costs! Pauanui beach became our ‘big-blue board room’ (pun intended), where all project brainstorming, future-oriented ideation and team bonding took place – how fitting!
Being a part of the research team, alongside five other inspiring humans, meant that our contribution towards the making of ‘For the Blue’ was carried out behind-the-scenes. We were responsible for researching into various businesses and ocean-conservation organisations, local and offshore landfills or filming locations, plastic alternatives, recycling and composting processes, overseas low-value plastic markets – and so on. I was also involved in producing graphic design output alongside three other talented creatives’, designing our Project Blue partnership proposal documents, the odd fundraising promotional poster and some social media collateral. The content team were the masters behind filming, crafting and producing the documentary itself, and without them the magic that is ‘For the Blue’ wouldn’t have been possible. So, after three years of hard mahi, countless fundraising efforts, some financial contributions of caring kiwi companies, and the strong leading hand of Savannah Walker – the film finally made it over the finish line.
‘For the Blue’ was fuelled by huge hearts, endless passion, and a collective desire to act, encouraging positive change. Television New Zealand’s Seven Sharp news team interviewed Savannah prior to the debut, acknowledging the drive and determination of our small team in tackling such an ambitious challenge head-on. The premiere marked the first time that most of the Project Blue team had seen the entire documentary from start to finish, and as the film drew to a close, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. There are tentative plans for a countrywide tour of ‘For the Blue’ in the near future, dependent on the restrictions imposed by Covid-19 lockdown. We’re all so overwhelmingly proud and grateful to have been a part of the Project Blue journey thus far. This is only the first step of many for our little whanau of change-makers - watch this space, who knows what might come out of the blue next!