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Jack Johnson Rocks The Rock
Upcoming Jack Johnson Concert Documentary Highlights Surf, Rock and Recycling.
SOLANA BEACH, CA - Ira Opper Films and action sports network FUEL TV are co-producing an exciting new surf-lifestyle film featuring Jack Johnson’s sellout Kokua Festival last January. The documentary “Kokua”, which features music and surfing by Johnson and Kelly Slater, is slated to premiere Memorial Day Weekend on FUEL TV (www.fuel.tv).
On January 3rd, 2004, renowned surfer-filmmaker musician Jack Johnson hosted the first annual Kokua Festival before a cheering sold-out crowd of 8,000 at the Blaisdell Center in downtown Honolulu. The Kokua (the Hawaiian word for “help”) Festival was Johnson’s way of raising money to raise awareness about Hawaii’s threatened island environment through grade-school education that teaches recycling, organic gardening, alternative energy and an array of sustainable earth-friendly practices.
For Jack, who grew up surfing the beautiful powerful waves of Oahu’s North Shore, the Kokua Festival was a way to have fun while giving back to his island home. Oahu, a small island that measures only 30 by 40 miles long, is dealing with a tsunami of trash. With Oahu landfills scarce and near filled to capacity, the need for a massive recycling effort is critical.
“The world is a finite place, especially when you take it down to an island,” says Johnson who penned two platinum albums, “Brushfire Fairytales” and “On and On” and also directed the groundbreaking surf film “Thicker than Water”. “Through the Kokua Hawaii Foundation kids can now in a fun way learn that recycling is their responsibility and just as much as putting trash in a trashcan.”
Ira Opper Films, Solana Beach, Ca., creators of the acclaimed Surfer’s Journal surfing documentaries, filmed the 5-hour concert that featured an all-star lineup of DJ Logic, Makana, Willie K., Amy Hanaiali’I Gilliom, Michael Franti and Spearhead. The documentary director, Emmy award winning surf filmmaker Ira Opper said, “the music, the surfing and the message are combined thru the imagery of hangin’ with Jack. From cruising the beach on his bike to performing to a sold-out audience, his message is to save Hawaii’s beautiful natural environment.”
The documentary, which follows Jack through a day on the famed “Seven-Mile Miracle” of surfing (including a segment of he and his friend Kelly Slater surfing second-reef Pipeline), carries a strong environmental message. In one scene, Jack returns to his old elementary school, Sunset Beach Elementary across from Pipeline, to perform the new recycling tune he wrote for the kids called “The 3-R Song; Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”.
“Given the opportunity to work with Jack and to bring such an important and often forgotten message to our audience, we were immediately interested in co-producing this one-hour special to air on FUEL TV,” said CJ Olivares, FUEL TV’s VP of Programming and Marketing, in support of the project.”
For more information on the Kokua Foundation see:
www.kokuahawaiifoundation.org and www.kokuafestival.com
For more information on FUEL TV or scheduling information visit www.fuel.tv
Press Contact: Dustin Hood, phone: 858.481.7283 xt 12
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