Infield Fly Productions joins an impressive group of nominees for this year’s Most Innovative Factual Program/Project of the Year award at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers. Their climate change documentary, Curb Your Carbon, is up against the BBC’s The Green Planet and Nat Geo’s WWII Secrets From Above.
“We’re honoured to be included in this category with such great company,” says producer Dugald Maudsley. “We worked closely with Sue Dando at CBC’s The Nature of Things to develop a very unusual approach to climate change and it’s super exciting to see it recognized by such an impressive group of filmmakers and broadcasters.”
In what may be a first, Curb Your Carbon used humour to tackle climate change. The doc throws stunts, extraordinary animations and a very cheeky script at viewers to inspire them to act.
A Canadian family dress up as Ninjas and steal their neighbours’ garbage to reveal how much food the average household wastes. A New Zealand rugby team take on a culinary double dare to illustrate how meat creates 7 billion tonnes of C02 a year. And a bug exterminator eats grasshoppers and scorpions to show how insects could replace meat as a viable and climate-friendly source of protein.
Curb Your Carbon also employs wonderful animations created by Mark Alberts of Electric Square. Alberts transforms climate change stats into numbers that make sense. He stretches a clothesline from earth to the moon and back 93 times to reveal how many garments we produce every year (150 billion). And rather than talk about “a tonne of CO2” he turns it into a weight and drops it on a car.
“Climate change is such a depressing subject,” says Maudsley. “Despite its absolute importance it turns people off. Our goal was to make our audience laugh and at the same time make them realize that when one small action is multiplied millions of times it makes a massive difference.”
“Our goal was to be innovative,” says Maudsley’s co-producer Gillian Main. “We also wanted to surprise viewers, catch their attention and give them a compelling reason to change their behaviour.”