Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past year you have heard about this movie called A Billion Lives.
It was the brainchild of director, Aaron Biebert, a nonsmoker, who was intrigued by this new thing he heard of called “vaping.” As he researched the market and looked into the history of vaping, some bad things surfaced. Those bad things included efforts by competitors, primarily Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, to squelch the industry.
The Big Boys were threatened by our world, and they should have been. They ignored vaping for a remarkably long time and when their market share eroded they decided to get on board. They bought Ecig companies. Some started their own. Then came the bad shit: the smear campaigns. The negative publicity. Evidence of collusion between anti vaping organizations that surprisingly, were also against us.
As Aaron filmed Billion Lives some truths became evident.
When they launched this officially last year, in New Zealand of all places, many took notice and the regulators actually started looking into the research, the science behind vaping. They’re still working on it and the hope is that they may lighten up their objections.
Finally, the movie came to the US and premiered at many vape events. It has been viewed by tens of thousands of people, both vapors and non. It has been screened for legislators and regulators behind closed doors. The hope is that it will give them pause and maybe elicit some common sense. But this is a big paradigm shift and things move slowly.
Today you’ll get the story right from the horse’s mouth so chill out and listen to this journey from idea, to execution, to launch.
Since we recorded this interview with Aaron some progress has been made. After lots of conjecture of how to get this movie in “the mainstream,” it is now available for purchase. The links to do that are in the show notes, so if you’ve not seen it, it’s worth the price of owning your own copy.
What You'll Hear Today:
Billion lives reflects the number of people that are projected to die from
tobacco in this century
Their first video footage was at a vape fest and he was totally unprepared for
the chaos!
Billion Lives launched in Spring, 2016, in New Zealand
Some anti-vaping regulations got over turned and things may improve
Over 200 venues have screened the movie
Private screenings have been done for Congresspersons
No DVD release while the movie is viewed in theaters
They are launching on iTunes and looking to hit #1, then following with others,
and taking pre-orders for Blue Ray. ETA: NOW
The movie was made for the public and not necessarily for vapors
A sequel is a consideration…
To contact Aaron or follow: www.abillionlives.com, or follow on Twitter and
Facebook