Life, Nature, You

WWF has been around since 1961, and it’s now the world’s largest conservation organisation, working in nearly 100 countries with over five million supporters behind it. In 2011, they marked their 50th anniversary with a series of global initiatives, including an open film competition we couldn’t resist entering.

The theme was “Life. Nature. You. Make the Connection”, filmmakers anywhere in the world were invited to submit an original short film exploring people’s personal connection to nature. Our in-house editor, Richard Butterworth, spotted the open call and decided we should give it a go, with no client brief beyond the theme itself.

We found Jed Stone, a Cornwall local who’d been surfing for over 45 years and was a passionate advocate for cleaner seas. A small crew, just Rich and Paul Hines, jumped on the overnight train to Cornwall, meeting Jed at 6am as he got ready for his early morning swim. We carried on filming in the water using a GoPro to grab some close-up surf footage, before sitting down with Jed over coffee in his camper van to hear the story of his lifelong connection to the ocean, using his experience to show the real impact of plastic waste on the seas he’d spent decades surfing.

From several hundred entries submitted from around the world, our film was named on WWF’s official shortlist of entries that scored highly with the jury panel, genuine recognition from one of the world’s best-known conservation organisations.