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“The animation How to Boil a Frog is professionally made and fun – it pulls viewers in and gets them thinking about climate change through its original entertaining style.”
Trainspotting producer Andrew MacDonald
Where are you from and what do you do as a living?
I’m from Canada and I’m a writer and producer. Mostly I run TV shows for a living – at the moment I’m working on a Canadian teen drama series called The Best Years.
Have you made films before?
As well as How to Boil a Frog, I’ve made a few mini-documentaries about oil depletion. I like to approach the issue in a humorous way.
In 1992 I was working on a TV series and my boss ran in, looking nervous. He’d just heard that we had only 10 years to turn around climate change. He asked me to write an episode about it.
I went away and read a bunch of books about it. The episode I presented to him was so depressing it was dropped immediately.
Now I’ve realised that it doesn’t work to be so serious. Films about climate change need to be made lighter to engage people.
How did you make your film?
Lou the Frog is the mascot for all the films I am making about climate change and consumption. I was really keen to do some animation work with Lou, but just couldn’t afford it.
I stumbled over some friends who’ve done animation in the past – and they jumped in and offered to do the animation for free. We then worked with some other friends who put in the music and sound effects.
After working incredibly hard over long evenings and weekends, we uploaded film How to Boil a Frog to Friends of the Earth at the last minute as the competition closed.
How do you feel about having won this award?
It was great to get the email from Friends of the Earth saying we’d won - I want to get an email like that every day.
It’s really good to feel that the work you put in is actually having an impact – that you are reaching out to people.
The
team that made How to Boil a Frog
Winberry Hill was the 2008 Overall Winner
Last modified: November 2008