UK regional animation studio LoveLove Films has collaborated with the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) to produce an animated short film, Bottle Island, using characters from their children’s series, to promote World Environment Day on 5 June and encourage environment conservation.
Bottle Island follows a group of quirky friends as they work together to save their home, Bottle Island from the rubbish that washes up on the shore. Through their eco-adventures, the characters discover the wonders and perils of the world and Nature around them.
An award-winning animation studio, LoveLove Films have created Bottle Island based on their own experiences with litter pollution and its impact on the iconic beaches near their animation studio in Bournemouth, UK. The studio which is known for creating innovative animated content that has been shown across the BBC, Sky, Channel 4 and ITV, have made this educational animated short, highlighting the importance of combating plastic pollution for children and the ways in which they can stop this around the world using characters from the series.
The storyline of the series fits seamlessly with the call -‘Beat Plastic Pollution’, theme for World Environment Day 2018, which urges governments, communities and individuals to unite and reduce the amount of single-use plastics in our world. Plastic Pollution is one of the biggest environmental concerns facing us today, with plastic accounting for 10 per cent of all of our waste.
The studio has worked with leading environmental experts to create the series including associate professor at the National Oceanography Centre, Dr. Simon Boxall who commented, “Bottle Island is a fun way of instilling in people, from a young age, the consequences of plastic pollution. Bottle Island doesn’t lecture young people, but makes them think about a better future.”
World Environment Day is a yearly celebration of the environment which originally began back in 1972. The event is celebrated by thousands of communities worldwide with the aim of encouraging global action to protect the planet and take ownership of their environment.
Voices and music for Bottle Island are composed by Bournemouth-based musician Momo:Tempo with sound design by acclaimed sound designer Tom Angell.
The theme of World Environment Day is chosen each year by its’ host country, with this year’s host India choosing Plastic Pollution as the pressing issue to tackle. Every year, the aftermath of over 3.5 million people flocking to the beach during the summer months can be seen as the natural coastline is covered in litter, much of which consists of single-use, non-biodegradable plastics.
“It is crucial that the next generations understand the enormous responsibility and power that they have. They need to know that they can truly transform this world to make it better and that they don’t need to make our same mistakes. We can’t reach out to them with scientific reports. Bottle Island is a great way to help them understand environmental challenges, to realise that solutions are in our hands… and to have fun with a bunch of rather crazy characters on a peculiar little island,” opined UN Environment head Erik Solheim.
The film will be distributed across the United Nations and its social media to encourage global communities to partake in World Environment Day. Individuals can also share their own plastic pollution stories and ways using the hashtag #beatplasticpollution.
