Franny Armstrong
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Former pop drummer and self-taught filmmaker Franny Armstrong, born
1972, has directed three feature documentaries - The Age of Stupid
(2008), McLibel (2005) and Drowned Out (2003) - which have together
been seen by 70 million people on TV, cinema, internet and DVD
worldwide. In the early days of the internet in 1996 she founded the
McSpotlight website. Through her company, Spanner Films, Franny
pioneered the "crowd-funding" finance model, which allows filmmakers to
raise reasonable-size budgets whilst retaining ownership of their films
In March 2009, the solar-powered Age of Stupid "People's Premiere" set a new Guinness World Record by being simultaneously screened in 63 cinemas across Britain, whilst only producing 1% of the emissions of a standard premiere. It also hit No 1 at the UK Box Office, backed by zero pounds spent on advertising. Then in September 2009, a million people watched Stupid's Global Premiere event - featuring Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson & Radiohead's Thom Yorke - in 700 cinemas in 63 countries, linked by satellite.
In September 2009 Franny founded the 10:10 climate campaign which aims to cut the UK's carbon emissions by 10% during 2010 and which has amassed huge cross-societal support including Adidas, Microsoft, Spurs FC, the Royal Mail, 75,000 people, 1,500 schools, a third of local councils, the entire UK Government and the Prime Minister. 10:10 launched internationally in March 2010 and, as of July 2010, has autonomous campaigns up and running in 41 countries, where some of the key sign-ups include the French Tennis Open, the city of Oslo and L'oreal. 10:10 estimates that organisations doing 10:10 have so far cut 500,000 tonnes of C02.
She is a Londoner born and bred.
- Age of Stupid is the most successful known example, raising £900,000+
In March 2009, the solar-powered Age of Stupid "People's Premiere" set a new Guinness World Record by being simultaneously screened in 63 cinemas across Britain, whilst only producing 1% of the emissions of a standard premiere. It also hit No 1 at the UK Box Office, backed by zero pounds spent on advertising. Then in September 2009, a million people watched Stupid's Global Premiere event - featuring Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson & Radiohead's Thom Yorke - in 700 cinemas in 63 countries, linked by satellite.
In September 2009 Franny founded the 10:10 climate campaign which aims to cut the UK's carbon emissions by 10% during 2010 and which has amassed huge cross-societal support including Adidas, Microsoft, Spurs FC, the Royal Mail, 75,000 people, 1,500 schools, a third of local councils, the entire UK Government and the Prime Minister. 10:10 launched internationally in March 2010 and, as of July 2010, has autonomous campaigns up and running in 41 countries, where some of the key sign-ups include the French Tennis Open, the city of Oslo and L'oreal. 10:10 estimates that organisations doing 10:10 have so far cut 500,000 tonnes of C02.
She is a Londoner born and bred.
