Electric Love Fest

The fragility of our marine wildlife and the need for further awareness, vigilance and multi-level achievable calls to action to help preserve and protect. Giant Cuttlefish live for one to two years, during that short lifespan they only get one chance to mate. Once this mating season has finished and all eggs have been laid as safely hidden as possible, the Giant Cuttlefish leave the area, never to return. Trusting the stability of the ecosystem as their babies hatch months later, alone.
Man-made effects, Climate Change effects, ocean temperatures rising, mean one or two years of low reproduction could lead to rapid endangerment and possible extinction of this unique species. The immediate threat presented by the poisonous algal bloom in South Australia brings these threats into real-time sharp focus.

Entertaining, engaging and inspiring a broad global audience! Via enjoyable and easily accessible ways, the feature documentary will invite viewers to engage further with the issues, inspiring them to want to know and learn more. This will be supported by a robust multi-media, multi-platform impact campaign that will meet whatever level of increased interest, in awareness and actions, is generated. We will use our fundraising campaigns to start building our core audience as early as possible. During production phases we will utilise multiple social media platforms to further engage and grow our audience. Production content, behind the scenes, highlighting links about and to individuals, groups, organisations already working in the space of marine wildlife/ocean and waterways conservation. Beyond release/screenings of the film, we aim to continue outreach via expanded audience offerings such as school resources, podcasts, collab events. Linking people online and in real life!

Our goal is to create an engaging and informative feature documentary which serves as a gateway to a multi-faceted and multi-layered impact campaign. Working as a Trojan Horse tackling serious issues of climate change and human-driven threats to the Giant Cuttlefish and its fragile ecosystems, which in turn speaks to the bigger issues faced by all marine life. We hope to achieve: reaching and engaging a broad global audience; raise awareness of the Giant Cuttlefish and its situation; inspire audiences to want to learn more, do more for the Giant Cuttlefish, but also more broadly for marine wildlife preservation and protection; educate on the many ways human citizens can contribute to conservation and climate change mitigation in small and big ways, in their own communities and beyond; via our multi-faceted impact campaign ensure the audience engagement and calls to action continue long-term, not just during the feature documentary’s initial release and publicity.

We have self-funded the filming of this year’s Giant Cuttlefish Aggregation (May to August, plus egg dens in October) and have begun to build our relationships with a cross section of stakeholders in South Australia – including marine scientists, researchers, businesses and community groups in Whyalla and further afield in South Australia, First Nations traditional owners, SA government environment representatives, community and environmental interest groups. We are now commencing expanding our supporter and interested party networks nationally and internationally. Our aim is that the stakeholders we partner, collaborate and link with for the film and its long-term impact campaign will be proud of their association with Electric Love Fest, and will see and experience benefits to their own related activities from the greater awareness and interest the project generates, here in Australia and worldwide. There will be no doubt – Giant Cuttlefish are super groovy!!

Via our multi-platform audience building and engagement offerings during the project’s phases (fundraising, production, release) main call to action is expand the appreciation and knowledge of the Giant Cuttlefish, with vigilance on the measures required to ensure their preservation and conservation long-term. More broadly, encourage better understanding of all facets of the environmental issues faced by our marine life; promote the idea that protection and conservation actions don’t need to always be big, grand or radical to be effective and be beneficial to all in our communities; highlight stories that celebrate wins, however small, of progress in these areas, not just those that speak to the threats and losses; encourage the Electric Love Fest community to learn more, do more, wherever and however they can, and share their stories and experiences. Our impact campaign to continue on audience engagement keeping the call to action/awareness goals and inspirations alive & kicking!