Meltdown - 1987[]
Directed by David Bailey, composed by Vangelis, Rated U.
Description: A van is seen driving, with some shots of a man monitoring the CCTV and eating. He walks out as the van reaches a barrier. We then see people putting on protective clothing and gas masks. After they are allowed through the barrier, they stop at a seemingly empty road. Next, they open the back of the van and pull out a metal capsule, carrying it along. The capsule is lowered into a hole. This hole also has a tombstone with the radioactive symbol on top, revealing there is a child inside of it. It reads,
ADAM SMITH
AGED 7
1992 - 1999
One of the workers, possibly the mother, throws in a flower, as we see a tear rolling down her eye. Whilst the other workers are burying the capsule, the camera zooms out slowly to reveal hundreds of similar graves, where others have been buried in the same fashion. The camera then cuts to black and text fades in,
Nuclear Power.
Is it worth the risk?
The GreenPeace logo also fades in, with their address.
Music/Sounds: A droning ambient track with a choir, composed by Vangelis. At the end, there are also the sounds of a Timpani and the wind howling.
Availability: Rare, it can be seen on YouTube.
Scare Factor: Nightmare. The darkness, along with the subject matter will surely unnerve viewers, especially children since this PIF was rated 'U' by the BBFC.
Shield - 1987[]
This PIF was made in Germany by Interteam Films, in Grunwald, in 1987. It was directed by Thomas Bohn. It was shown in cinemas in Germany and the UK, Rated U.
Germany, Interteam Films,1989.
Description: A battle of knights is shown on stage which symbolizes the Ozone layer against the chemicals Derived of Chlorofluorocarbons. The other knight's shield is gradually destroyed. The knight with the sword then stabs his opponent with it. The earth is then shown with holes in its "shield" and UV rays penetrating it as text appears below.
FX/SFX: Computer Animation along with Live Action
Music/Sounds: Epic slightly electronic music. The sounds of swords and metal clanging. A man screams in the end.
Greenpeace - Great Britain - 1991
Trivia: This version the warrior or knight sticks the sword to his opponent and then shows an image of the earth with too many holes in the ozone layer, however this is censored in the British version so that it was less violent. At the end of the original German version of the PIF, the text says, "Wir dürfen unseren Ozon-Schutzschild nicht zerstören", which translates to, "We must not destroy our ozone shield". The English versions text is different and instead says, "Save the Ozone Shield. Stop making CFC's NOW!"
Availability: Rare on YouTube, Can also be found on culturepub.
Scare Factor: Medium to High. The earth's protective layer eventually breaks away and the knight representing the ozone layer is stabbed by the knight representing UV rays as he lets out a painful scream.
Oil - 1990[]
Not much is known about this PIF, besides the fact that it was made in 1990 and is rated 15.
Description: Oil is poured on a naked foam body of a woman throughout the PIF. Eventually it zooms out and
Cleveland Steamer
says,
"Nature is beautiful. Let's keep it that way."
FX/SFX: Live action
Music: None. Just beach noises.
Availability: Rare on YouTube.
Scare Factor: Medium. The eeriness of it makes it unsettling at least.
Antarctica (Late April 1991)[]
This PIF was shown in cinemas. It is one of the longest PIFs that Greenpeace has done, being three minutes long. It was shown in cinemas in Late April of 1991. Rated U, apparently. Directed by Tony Kaye.
Greenpeace - Antarctica (1991, UK)
Description: Many people from around the world are playing a Risk-esque board game called, "Exploitation". The PIF shows footage of dolphins and pilot whales being killed, elephants being shot, harp seal pups getting clubbed, and sea animals such as cormorants getting caught in oil spills. Forests are shown being cut down as smokestacks blow exhaust into the air. It then shows footage of orcas, Adelié penguins, and icebergs in Antarctica. Text comes up that says, "There is one continent left untouched by man, please help us to keep it that way."
Availability: Somewhat common on Youtube.
Music/Sounds: Intense music plays during the game. Some of the players are laughing in a distorted way, and gentle music plays as Antarctica life is shown.
Scare Factor: Near the Edge. Contains footage of elephants, dolphins, and sea animals being killed. Also contains parts of the game exploding and the players laughing menacingly in a distorted almost demonic manner will make many people stay up at night, the music isn't any better.
Fish Dishes - 1992[]
This PIF aired in Spain.
Greenpeace - Spain - 1992
Description: Dead fish and garbage are shown floating in the water. In Spanish, a male narrator describes the dead fish and garbage as,
"Poached Hake In Parsley Sauce" (Dead hake amongst seaweed)
"Squid In Ink Sauce" (Dead squid in an oil spill)
"Sardines In Oil" (Dead sardines in oily water)
"Dover Sole With Dressing" (Dead flatfish amongst plastic garbage including can holders)
The man then says, "Keep adding these ingredients, and before long, we won't be able to eat fish at all..."
Fish are then shown swimming around while the Greenpeace logo appears in front in green text.
FX/SFX: Live Action.
Availability: Can be found on YouTube and Culturepub.
Scare Factor: Medium to High. The dead fish and squid floating amongst garbage and oil can gross out some viewers.
No More Chernobyls - 1992[]
This PIF aired in the UK.
Greenpeace - Great Britain - 1992
Description: An eye with a yellow iris opens. It then shows a pressure cooker symbolizing a nuclear plant reactor building up pressure. A male narrator assures the viewer that the pressure valves are safe and that they might as well use them. The pressure cooker eventually explodes in a large fireball. Pictures of the Chernobyl disaster flash on the screen as the pressure cooker explodes. The eye is shown with a yellow nuclear symbol for a pupil. The words, "No More Chernobyls", appear on the screen as the eye closes.
FX/SFX: Live Action with photos
Music/Sounds: No music, but this ad has music. The sounds of a pressure cooker releasing steam, bubbling rapidly, and then slowly exploding as a bell rings.
Availability: Very rare on Youtube
Scare Factor: Medium to High. The pressure cooker exploding can be scary along with the photos of Chernobyl victims.
Plane Crash - Early 2000's[]
Nickname(s): “The Stupidest PIF Ever Made”, “Bottom of the Barrel”, “The Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing of PIFs”
A Greenpeace advert against nuclear power, Rated U when shown in cinemas.
Description: We see video footage of a family on a beach, waving to the camera and playing with their dog. One of them runs to a nearby nuclear power station, then the camera goes back to a boy playing with a dog. They then hear plane noises, and they all get suspicious about it. They then panic and run for cover. The camera then focuses on a plane, which is about to crash into the nuclear power station, presumably causing a nuclear explosion that vaporizes the family and causes an international incident. Before we see the crash, the screen goes white and says, “DO WE REALLY WANT MORE NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS?” The text then fades out and then fades in saying, “TELL TONY BLAIR NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT THE ANSWER TO CLIMATE CHANGE”, The text then fades out, and the Greenpeace logo fades in, along with the URL at the bottom.
FX/SFX: The camera shaking, the plane, and the fade ins and outs.
Cheesy Factor: COMPLETELY NUKES THE SCALE! The acting and the plane CGI is quite mediocre, but the real cheese here is that if a plane crashed into a nuclear power station, the plane would get crushed due to the reactor walls being strong and thick. Even if the plane somehow did pierce the walls, it wouldn't cause a nuclear explosion as if it were a nuclear weapon, because a nuclear weapon requires a controlled explosion on all four sides of the nucleus to cause such an explosion, meaning Greenpeace DOESN'T KNOW HOW NUCLEAR WEAPONS ACTUALLY WORK. To make matters worse, the general setup and payoff come off as two of the most out-of-place uses of unintentional bait-and-switch moments ever conceived for a PIF that scream, "What were they selling again?" and only factors in how clueless it is with its angle. To whit, the family on the beach on an overcast day near the power plant could make a good message about waste on a beach posing a hazard if it involved one of the kids tripping over a hazard. Then when the plane comes into view, it seems that it is intended to be a warning about the dangers of terrorism, until the message straight-up leaves it hanging, and talks about getting Tony Blair to shut down nuclear power. Not only does this immediately date the PIF significantly, but Tony Blair led the left-leaning British Labor Party, which given their namesake angle, would have likely supported environmentalism more so than the Conservative Party. And this doesn't even factor in how nuclear power plants don't even release harmful chemicals in the same way that fossil fuels do with rudimentary security protocol in place, this PIF seemingly being a product of nuclear power being villified after Chernobyl. Just what was Greenpeace thinking when they came up with this PIF? Even if the walls were unprotected, the chances of a plane crashing into a nuclear power station (presuming no-fly zones are in effect) are literally nonexistent unless done so intentionally by terrorists. This has to be one of the worst PIFs ever made. This was so bad that Greenpeace DISOWNED This PIF.
Music/Sounds: The family laughing and playing, the wind and the plane noises.
Availability: Rare, but preserved on YouTube.
Scare Factor: None to Low. The shakiness of the camera, the family becoming vaporised, and the plane can scare a few, but you'll mostly be laughing at how stupid this PIF is.
Onslaughter - 2008[]
Dove Onslaught(er)
Rated 15
Description: In a parody of Dove's Onslaught advert, we start with a black screen which reads "A film about palm oil. Onslaughter." We then see a young girl named Azizah with a miserable expression looking at the screen. After a while, we go into a rapid-fire montage of rainforest related images like trees, birds, and orangutans. Eventually we see clips of people chopping the trees down and bringing the palm oil to make Dove soap, intercut with pictures of what appear to be dead orangutans. We cut back to Azizah who is revealed to be standing in front of a devastated rainforest; she eventually walks away.
As she does this, the text, "98% of Indonesia's lowland forest will be gone by the time Azizah is 25. Most is destroyed to make palm oil, which is used in Dove products."
We cut to black as this text appears, "Talk to Dove before it's too late". A parody of the Dove logo appears with a chopped tree next to the logo and the dove mascot flying away. The website to Greenpeace and their logo appear below.
FX/SFX: Live action.
Cheesy Factor: One of the birds shown near the beginning is an eclectus parrot, which does not live anywhere that orangutans live.
Music: An original song called "There They Go" by Czech band Ohm Square.
Sounds: Trees being chopped down and low grunting from orangutans.
Availability: Rare. It can be seen on YouTube.
Scare Factor: High, as the imagery will likely unnerve you.
Kit-Kat/Vulnerable Orangutan - 2010 (Revised)[]
A sickening but effective cinema PIF, Rated 15.
Description: In a office, the camera pans to a man shredding papers. The man is seemingly bored of this, and looks at the clock. He rests his head on the shredder surface, exhausted. The scenes changes to the red screen with the white text, "Have a break?". Then, the scene changes back to the man tearing open a Kit-Kat wrapper, where the Kit-Kat chocolate is shaped none other than a orangutan's finger. The supervisor gets up from his chair and asks the man briefly, before the supervisor has a double take of what the man is eating. Before the female colleague is about to go inform him, the man eats the Kit-Kat, with different crunching sound effect that is different from Kit-Kat. Droplets of blood squirt on the keyboard, and the man wipes blood off his chin. The scene changes to the red screen with the white text, "Give the orangutan a break...", before it changes to two orangutans at the mercy of their environment being destroyed, with trees cut down. The scene changes to the red screen with the message, "Stop Nestlé buying palm oil from companies that destroy the rainforests.", The last shot focuses on the orangutan finger shaped Kit-Kat broken in two, and has blood slowly spreading out, next to the normal Kit-Kat chocolate and its wrapper. It cuts to the black screen with the text, "TAKE ACTION AT: www.greenpeace.org/kitkat" with the GreenPeace logo underneath.
Music/Sounds: Just the sounds of the office, the man crunching the orangutan finger shaped Kit-Kat with some rather unpleasant crunching sound effect, the trees being cut down and collapsing, then the last sound we hear is the orangutan screaming out in fear.
Availability: Rare. It can be seen on YouTube.
Scare Factor: High to Nightmare. The man eating the orangutan finger shaped kit-kat, the orangutans left vulnerable in their wrecked rainforest, and the orangutan screeching can all be nerve-wrecking. The crunch when the man bites through the bone will easily leave viewers cringing.
Ghost Birds - 2011[]
This PIF aired in New Zealand.
Nickname(s): "No Surprises", "Oil Painting"
Description: On a gray background, there is an oil marking that looks a bit like a penguin in the center of the screen. The screen then changes to show another penguin-like oil splat. The screen shifts to show many similar oil blots that look like penguins one at a time in rapid succession. It looks a bit like the oil spill is animate due to the speed. After 38 seconds, it suddenly shows a dead little blue penguin covered in oil. An off-screen person wearing gloves with oil on them carries the penguin corpse away, leaving behind one of those oil stains seen earlier. Text appears saying, "OVER 20,000 BIRDS WERE KILLED BY THE 'RENA' OIL SPILL." The screen starts zooming out, revealing all of the oil markings from before as the text fades out and is replaced with more that says, "DEEP SEA OIL DRILLING COULD BE 1,000 TIMES WORSE." The screen continues zooming out and countless penguin oil stains can be seen before the screen fades to white with the Greenpeace logo in black and the information under it.
FX/SFX: Live action.
Music/Sounds: The Radiohead song "No Surprises" plays throughout.
Availability: It's unknown if it played anywhere else, but it was uploaded by the official Greenpeace NZ channel.
Scare Factor: High to Nightmare. This PIF is mostly sad, but the dead penguin and the other penguin-shaped oil spots that implied that all of those penguins were dead. can still shock some viewers.
Depression Factor: Melancholic. Dead penguins. Need more be said?