Power to the People
When you try and organise for a hundred angry villagers comprising Morris dancers, undercover Women's Institute members, disappointed schoolchildren and a dozen restless cows and sheep to invade a prominent part of London, you'd better be on first name terms with the Editorial Policy department.
When we set about making the three part ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ2 series Power to the People we knew we were in for a rocky ride. The premise was simple enough: take a group of angry people who feel they've been pushed too far and no-one is listening to them, and follow them as they stage a symbolic act that helps them to finally be heard.
Taking a village to London to for the day, following a recently formed platoon of abandoned soldiers as and getting 40 isolated old people together to in an attempt to storm the pop charts is not the most traditional way of covering current affairs topics. But we wanted to make films where there was a real sense of closure for the people involved rather than leaving them as poor victims as so many films involving 'victims' tend to do.
The results were incredible. The comments about all three programmes showed that the idea of people taking a stand and fighting back really struck a chord with the public and never more so than the stunning response to the Zimmers (our band with a combined age of 3,000) who entered the charts at number 26 last week and has been watched by over two million people on YouTube.
We trod a fine line making the series. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ quite rightly cannot be seen to campaign and we made sure we chose people who had been pushed to their limits and were prepared to fight back. We also clearly reflected both sides to every argument. These films were not polemics but they were incredibly empowering and show that all of us, if pushed hard enough, have a point where we're prepared to say 'enough is enough'.
