The Job

James Levelle is an award-winning filmmaker, adventurer and presenter. He has filmed and led teams in some of the worlds most challenging and harsh environments. You may’ve seen his Discovery Channel series ‘Free Ride’ in which he and Rob Greenfield travel 10,000 miles across South America without any money.

Race for future is James’s latest project and adventure which sees him attempt to travel from the south coast of England to Chile fossil fuel free… The purpose of the mission is to raise awareness about the perils and realities of climate change that face us all.

WHY?

The purpose of James’s journey is to deliver a message from children from all over the planet hammering home their concerns, dreams and demands for ‘their future’ to the politicians and the world at the UN climate conference. The message is in the form of a hard-hitting, beautiful and emotive short film that each child contributes to as James meets them along the way. Children all over the world can also contribute their messages through the ‘Race For Future’ website

The Challenge

We teamed up with James to help provide storytelling support in the form of filming and photography and we were with him every step of the way. The challenge required an agile filmic approach able to adapt to many different situations. We had to capture the ‘actuality’ of it all, from unscripted meetings with young people in every city along the way to spending 55 days crossing the Atlantic and the equator. Our job was to be there and not miss a moment.

Approach

In order to capture this wild and wonderful journey we took with us a lightweight main camera for film and photography (A7Siii), a drone (Mavic Air), two gimballed small cameras (Pocket Osmo), and two GoPro’s as well as Sennheiser audio equipment. The blend of different cameras allowed us to capture multiple angles as well as adapt quickly to changing situations along the way. The team was streamlined down to one cameraman (Eoghan McDonaugh), Producer (Emily Ackner) and James.

The Result

The question is… Did we make it to Chile? Did James manage to deliver on his dream to collect the messages of the global youth and deliver them in a short film at the UN Climate Summit 2019? Did we manage to make a compelling documentary about this wonderful and inspirational and most urgent journey?

You’ll have to watch the feature length documentary which is scheduled to be released later this year! View the teaser HERE