We know the movie will save the bear and we know it will change the world, not because the threat to the spirit bear is the most important issue facing our world today, but because it is an undeniable mechanism for hope.
Kids making a movie? Environmentalism by Economics? Hollywood giving back?
We are a world with an unquenchable thirst for ’stuff’ and the tax this has had on our planet can be seen everywhere. We all know we need to be more sustainable, but what do we give up? What if there was a way to use the products of our daily lives - cell phones, CDs, airline tickets & movies - to drive an economy that creates social change and inspires a better world? A way to awaken the majority of our world to the power they possess - literally - in the palm of their hand. Instead of changing people, we can take their ready-made products of choice and turn them into powerful vehicles for environmental, social and economic change. To show the people around the world, that through the single action of choosing a brand like Virgin, as their airline or cell phone provider, or going to see a particular movie on a Friday night - like The Spirit Bear - they are making the world a better place for all life.
For the past 10 years the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition has been amassing a global network of your average everyday young person, continually searching to find ways to engage them in an issue so few of them would have become involved in before. What has been created is the largest youth-led environmental network on the planet and it has taken a rare bear, which numbers fewer than 400, from the wilderness of public awareness to the forefront of boardrooms, cabinet meetings and the public eye, the world over.
The Next Question: How to take a high profile issue and take it to the next level - how can you further engage and expand on a network of 5 million committed young people in more than 50 countries without asking them to change their plans for Friday night?
Our Answer: A major Hollywood animation motion picture...with a twist.
Rather than have a product donate to a cause, we believe the product can itself be the engine for the cause. The Spirit Bear aims to be Hollywood’s first movie made with the specific purpose of protecting its namesake. Animated movies - in the vein of the Shrek franchise and Finding Nemo - do well. With Italia Gandolfo and Steve Sahlein, we have formed Hè ladè Productions to work in conjunction with the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, to assemble a creative team responsible for many of the animated classics of our time - Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid. And we are proud to announce that we are in production of The Spirit Bear. The formula of a creative team with a strong track record, combined with a great story equals a successful product not only in the box office but in the branding of the merchandise. We know The Spirit Bear can do that, but we also know we can bring an added competitive edge.
We know we can do better.
There is absolutely no reason why our 6 million voices cannot turn into 60 million by the movie’s premiere. Not only has no previous animated movie - from The Little Mermaid to Finding Nemo - had a pre-built, dedicated, and loyal member base numbering in the millions from day one, but they also don’t have the same ability we do, given the proper resources, to walk into every classroom, in every school, in every corner of the world with our slogan of Catch the Spirit, Save the Bear. It is a unique situation: Youth around the world have driven the campaign to save this bear, and now the movie, also driven by young people worldwide, will allow for the bear’s protection by allocating partial profits from the movie to go toward specific economic diversification projects in the land of the spirit bear. Thus, not only do we bring a readymade audience for the movie to succeed for the investor and its branding partners, but we have a worthy cause and model for youth engagement that allows us to provide a return investment to the world that money can’t buy.
Simply put: Our goal is nothing short of turning Hollywood on its head and using its powerful economic engine, not only to generate profits, but in this case to save an entire rainforest ecosystem and the rare bear that calls it home. Some would say it’s naïve idealism, we say it’s the Power of One: the ability each one of us have to affect change in our everyday life, for all life, for all time.
It’s about establishing a new paradigm in the way we react to our world and global economy - moreover, it’s an idea whose time has come.
The spirit bear, known also as the Kermode, is an endangered, white, genetically-unique subspecies of the black bear found only in the rainforest of Canada’s west coast. The First Nations people say it is a reminder of the last ice age, a gift from Raven, the creator. Indeed, within its forest green home, its ghostlike beauty is the stuff of fairytales. But its future is less than such - it is real and it is threatened. Its last chance for survival - in an area just large enough to sustain its gene pool - is also the world’s last large intact tract of temperate rainforest, home to a diverse number of strange and beautiful creatures. Bald eagles to elephant seals, grey wolves to rough-sided newts. It is the Great Bear Rainforest, and its mist-shrouded ecosystem, its diverse inhabitants, ancient rivers teaming with salmon and most especially, its most unique resident - the spirit bear - are now the inspiration for our feature length, CGI animated movie.
While the merits of protecting this global treasure are obvious to most, what is not so obvious is how rural, resource-based communities can afford to see this land-base protected and off-limits to development. Our challenge has been two-fold: Telling people that this bear exists and deserves protection; and finding the means to help these isolated communities create jobs in order to save the bear and its home. We believe no one should have the financial burden of its protection.
This is where real world economics and viable business models meet idealistic dreams and environmental hopes; where good business and critical global issues are driven together to create a new dynamic of social entrepreneurship.
Our campaign has not been about solidifying the base or preaching to the converted - but reaching the unconverted. That’s been the irresistible challenge: to show each and every person that with a simple choice, such as what movie to see on the weekend, they can create a better world. Thus to inspire a world to care about a bear and raise the money needed to help communities diversify from one-industry towns, to broad based, community driven economies without burdening the tax payer, presents one obvious opportunity - especially to an organization that is run by youth with a mandate to engage youth.
The campaign to save this bear has brought together disparate young people - from the apathetic teenager in New York City to the isolated student in rural Klemtu, British Columbia to the voiceless child in the war-torn suburbs of Baghdad, Iraq - and united them to give voice to a creature that did not have one. If together we can succeed in saving the spirit bear, we will have succeeded in something far greater, we will have been able to prove that a young person with no remarkable skills, or intellect, but simply with a passion, can take hold of a cause and unite the world.
The Spirit Bear is an opportunity to find a new way to inspire, to challenge, and to engage tomorrow’s leaders today - not only in this issue but in any issue they believe in, for there are no insignificant endeavors. Most importantly, we can do so in a way that meets the economic bottom line by blurring it with the social bottom line.
Our movie won’t preach, but, through our ability to educate, our audience will know of our underlying mission and, like a ripple effect, can spread to create the ultimate brand message.
This is the power of one: united as one voice.
It began ten years ago over hamburgers and chocolate cake - with the shared - and some would have said impossible - belief in a single but powerful idea. The journey began with a leap of faith in the belief of what we can accomplish by everyone working together - business and non-profits, young people and adults.
We know the movie will save the bear and we know it will change the world, not because the threat to the spirit bear is the most important issue facing our world today, but because it is an undeniable mechanism for hope.
There is no precedent for our current endeavor, but we hope that each of you will join us on the next step of what has thus far been a humbling and remarkable journey - into the land of the spirit bear and into the imagination of our collective dreams.
