Dangerous Lies

GREENPEACE

Campaign Films - 2021
Directed by Jorik Dozy & Sil van der Woerd

Dangerous Lies is a campaign aiming to expose 'carbon offset schemes' by big polluters. Through short live-action segments where the concept of greenwashing is depicted, and using educational animation, we lift the veil on the marketing scams these companies apply to keep polluting our planet and turning nature into a commodity.

JBS - 'Green' Meat Industry

JBS, the world's largest meat producer, has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2040. But their plan to do so, allows them to keep destroying the valuable Amazon Rainforest and does not address the fundamental source of their climate impact: methane release by cattle.

Total - 'Clean' Oil

Oil giant Total claims it can compensate for the pollution caused by its oil, by planting a 'tree farm' in the Republic of Congo. However, this farm endangers critical habitats in Congo and its trees are planned to be used for the timber industry.

The Aviation Industry - Flying Carbon Neutral

The aviation industry has you believe that it is possible to fly carbon neutral by paying a little extra on your ticket to 'offset' the carbon emitted by your flight. But these 'offset schemes' work in divisive ways, are often impossible to verify and are a distraction to the real solution.

Carbon Offsets

Carbon offsets are when a polluter that has emitted greenhouse gases exchanges or 'offsets' their pollution with a 'credit' for carbon captured by someone else. It’s an accounting trick used by companies like Shell, Total, Exxon, and others to burn oil and fossil gas in exchange for carbon credits from tree planting or conservation projects to theoretically “offset” their carbon emissions. Basically, they’re paying to keep polluting and turning nature into a commodity in the process.

Offsetting isn’t just a scam, it’s unjust. Polluters in wealthy countries can effectively keep polluting by shifting responsibility for their pollution, and adding more of a burden to already vulnerable communities suffering from the effects of climate change.

Offsetting projects often distort local economies and grab local and Indigenous Peoples’ land that they use for their livelihoods. And have led to natural ecosystems being destroyed, threatened species habitat lost, and human rights abuses.

Offsets don’t work and we’re running out of time.

Immediately stopping burning fossil fuels is the solution.

Production

Each story of the three campaign films take place a on different continent. To guarantee the authenticity of the films, we had to make sure the environments looked accurate to each of the countries while also casting great actors with the right ethnicities.

In order to reduce our travel footprint while also guaranteeing production through various COVID-19 restrictions, we opted to shoot the campaign in Singapore and scout local locations to accurately represent each of the countries. Singapore provided us with a rich palette of looks while also allowing high production quality.

The set provided Tingkat lunches, re-usable utensils and crew transportation to reduce the production's footprint while opting for digital call-sheets and scripts, and required crew to use their own reusable water bottles.

Animations

To convey the intricacy of the case studies done by Greenpeace in a manner that would educate our audience on the issues while also entertain, we used 3d animation. Creating beautiful worlds full of life and interesting visuals, we were able to dive into great detail regarding each of the cases and their complexities.

The 3d animations were carefully crafted to hit the right tone and style. After a research period defining the needs, artists at Method & Madness created concept art and extensive story boards, followed up with 3d animatics to create a clear picture of each of the films before heading into full production.