Josh Fox: Fixing Fracking, Showing Up and Inspiring Change
Words by Daniel Simons.
Images courtesy of Josh Fox.
There aren’t many artists on the planet who can say – with confidence – that their work changed the world, but Josh Fox is one of those artists.
Fox is a prolific creator and relentless activist who has been sparking social change for decades. He’s arguably one of the most recognised environmentalists of recent history. In addition to being an actor, musician and visual artist, Fox is the founder of International Wow, a theatre and production company that works with actors and non-actors from diverse backgrounds to create new work that addresses global social and political issues. He’s created over 30 plays, seven feature films and a catalogue of viral environmental videos that have attracted over 65 million views. During the 2020 lockdown, he launched Staying Home with Josh Fox, a nightly interview program featuring guests from the worlds of politics, cinema and music. But what Josh Fox is probably most well known for is his 2010 feature documentary, Gasland.
Gasland terrified and outraged audiences across the globe. Its shocking images of bubbling rivers, chemically burnt animals and household tap water bursting into flames catapulted hydraulic fracking from a fringe concept into the mainstream. According to a research study from the University of Iowa, the film and its subsequent media attention were directly responsible for catalysing a global anti-fracking movement. Gasland was nominated for the 2011 Academy Award, won the Emmy for Outstanding Directing and picked up the Sundance Special Jury Prize for Documentary. It has been viewed by hundreds of millions of people. Fox’s Gasland did for fracking what Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring did for pesticides.
Fox toured extensively with the film and became a leading voice in the anti-fracking movement. He was a regular TV spokesperson and even petitioned congress with actor Mark Ruffalo. The film was screened to the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Congress and local government legislatures, and led to key political figures championing anti-fracking initiatives. The website garnered over 100,000 signatures on petitions and letters for local organisations directed at politicians across America.
As a result of the film’s penetration, Fox became the subject of smear campaigns, character assassination and even death threats. The infinitely-resourced fossil fuel industry flooded the internet with counter-information in an unscrupulous attempt to undermine the film and Fox’s credibility. Targeted PR campaigns went on for years, something which Fox explored in his later films, Gasland 2 and The Truth Has Changed.
As a result of Gasland and Gasland 2, Fox was invited to serve as a consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. The films sparked a global movement, which eventually led to fracking bans and moratoriums across the planet, including bans in New York and Pennsylvania.
Following Gasland and Gasland 2, Fox turned his focus to climate change and produced and directed How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change and The Truth Has Changed.
We caught up with Josh Fox to get his insights on how to create large-scale impact for a world that needs it.
You’ve been making impact films for over three decades now. What advice would you give to someone who wants to become a filmmaker?
I give two pieces of advice to aspiring filmmakers: number one, you're the only person that can make this movie. If you're the only person that can make this movie then you go make it. It's 100% personal to you. It's 100% your baby. It matters to you more than anything in the world.
Second, make sure that it matters to other people. If it doesn't matter to other people, you might make it, but nobody's going to watch it. You have to find the intersection point between what you really care about and what matters to other people.
Also, go ahead and make it right now. Make it right now and show it to your friends. Show it relentlessly. Show pieces, show five minutes or 20 minutes and have a discussion. Don't keep it to yourself. Make sure you watch it in the room with other people. Don't just send them a link. Watch them watch the film. Watch them breathe, watch them laugh, watch them get bored. That's how you figure out what works.
Make it right now with whatever means you've got, but understand that filmmaking is a craft and an art form just like any other. You wouldn't walk into the Boston Philharmonic on your first day of picking up a violin and think, I'm gonna play first chair violin today. So however long it takes to become first chair at Boston Philharmonic is how long it's going to take you to make good movies. I started making movies when I was six. I'm almost 50 and I still don't feel like I'm good at it. So put yourself on that timescale.
Film is an expensive artform and most filmmakers spend almost as much time raising funds as they do making their films. Does a film need to have a big budget to have a big impact?
The first Gasland shoot around the country was $2,500. I used that mostly on gas. I slept on people's couches. I slept at the side of the road. I already had a camera. I bought tapes. Matt Sanchez and I worked on it for free for a year. We ended up raising another $12,000 at a fundraiser once the movie was pretty much done to try and get a sound mix and then Sundance threw us $20,000 for post-production. But the initial budget to get into Sundance was under $5,000. So don't tell me it's not possible.
That $5,000 dollar film created a huge impact globally. Who are the most influential people that saw the film?
The organisers. I mean, my films have been seen by Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scarlett Johansson and Alec Baldwin, and they've all championed the movies, but that’s not important. What's important is the organisers at the community level who are using the films to whip their communities into shape and to fight for their own sanctity and for the preservation of their communities.
Do you have any advice for artists who want to make an impact with their work?
Don't try to speak to everybody. Speak to the people who can create power. Gasland was specifically for the people who were fighting fracking all over the world, and especially in New York and in Pennsylvania. When we tailored it specifically to people all across the United States, we were trying to help them with their movements. It drew in everybody else, but we didn't make the movie for general audiences. Power and impact are about movements. So your job, if you want to make an impact, is to give the movement a tool to use.
What about filmmakers specifically? How can they create the most impact?
Go on tour. Show up. Show up for the movement. Get to the places where you need to go. You can’t just put the movie on HBO or on TV or whatever and be like ‘okay, I'm good’. Get out there and screen with the people; work with the movements and the activists and the organisers on the ground. Gasland didn't stop fracking in upstate New York because we put the film on HBO, or because we got nominated for the Oscar, or won the Emmy. None of that mattered. What mattered is that we went from town to town, to over 500 cities all across the world, and a lot of them in New York and Pennsylvania – 100 probably in just those two states. It’s exhausting, but that’s what works.
At the end of every film screening or panel event, someone usually stands up and asks, “What’s the one thing I can do for the planet?” How do you answer that question?
There's no one thing. But the main thing is to become involved politically. This is about political change. It's not about consumer change. It's not about your habits. It's not about whether you do yoga, or are a vegan – it's about political movements. It's about protecting the ecosystems and the forests and the seas and the natural processes of the earth. To do that, you need political power. So become obsessed with political power. That's how you change the world.
How do you avoid burnout?
I don't. I burn out all the time. I take a break and then I burn out again.
What about eco-anxiety induced burnout?
Well, my film How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change is basically an essay on this. It's about going through the emotions, not blocking them out. In some ways, it's a very brutal and honest movie about climate and how we're not necessarily going to solve climate change. We might be able to stop some of the worst impacts, but we're going to be going through some shit. We're going to be navigating the most intense period of change that human beings have ever navigated in our history. There is no magic answer. That's the advice at the end of the film. The world is lost and saved every day, not all at once. So do what you can do to save the world that day.