kids unplugged

In a world where tamariki are tethered to technology, "kids unplugged" is a vibrant, short-form documentary series showcasing kids choosing wild adventure over Wi-Fi — inspiring a healthier, happier generation through outdoor play, community, and connection.

The internet used to be an escape from the real world, now the real world is an escape from the internet....

Today’s kids are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis — and one of the biggest culprits is excessive screen time.   With research proving a phone-based childhood leads to anxiety, unhappiness and social isolation, kids unplugged will demonstrate that a play-based childhood builds resilient, happy, healthy, more than capable young people.  It champions children living life unplugged from their screens - mountain bikers, surfers, hikers, and environmental kaitiaki - kids whose playgrounds are the ocean, rivers and mountains.

Through their eyes, we witness the transformative power of outdoor adventure and its role in shaping strong, capable, and deeply connected individuals. Their stories, struggles, and triumphs will inspire audiences to rethink what childhood should be. We’ll show that thriving childhoods don’t happen behind screens — they happen outside, unplugged, and together.

We're aiming to film our first series this winter -  five episodes starting in the Bay of Plenty (& then hopefully beyond)— but to make it happen, we need your support to get this series off the ground!

Community is at the heart of all that we do.  As both filmmakers and parents, we, Anton and Kylie Steel, are turning the camera toward a critical nationwide conversation, that means a lot to us!

kids unplugged is deeply rooted in our long-standing commitment to community storytelling. Our feature film The Z-Nail Gang was produced with over 450 local contributors and won the Western Bay of Plenty Trustpower Community Awards, while our recent documentary Taking Back Our Beach (currently screening on TVNZ On Demand) captured the grassroots fight to restore Tauranga’s coastline following New Zealand’s worst environmental disaster.

We have platform support from Radio New Zealand, Stoney Creek, The Parenting Place, Safe Surfer, Makes Sense, and Youth Encounter to share the web-series - these organisations are all committed to/supportive of the concept of re-introducing a childhood of hands on adventure in nature and authentic connection with each other and ensure the series gets out to a wide New Zealand audience.

We'd love you to be part of this project too! 

With highly reduced non-commercial rates, we aim to fund this as another local community project, building on the success of our previous community films.  A combination of our Boosted campaign ($15,000), community grants and private contributions, will cover the baseline production and delivery costs for five episodes…
 

• Production costs include over 620+ team hours of work (research, admin, planning, and filming), plus transport costs, equipment hire and talent koha. 
   
• Post Production is estimated to include 475+ combined hours (Editing, Sound Mix, Graphics, Colour Grading), and includes extras such as hard drives for media storage.
   
• Marketing and release will easily exceed 100+ hours (marketing and release oversight, brand assets graphic design, social content clips creation).
   

Our hope is this crowd-funding campaign is just the beginning — while $15,000 gets us to the starting line, every extra dollar helps. The more we raise, the more we can do — and the less we carry personally as a family to make this happen. We’re rallying as much support as possible to tell these stories well, and to make this journey sustainable.

It will only take 300 people or families each giving $50 to reach our minimum target. 
But it could also look like:
– 3 generous contributors giving $3,000
– 2 giving $2,000
– 5 giving $500
– 10 giving $100
– and 200+ giving whatever they can.

Every contribution matters — big or small — and together, we can champion children living life unplugged.

kids unplugged is for children, by children. Each episode our three young presenters, Malachi (14), Judah (12) and Ezra (7) (aka "The Steel Brothers"), will head out to meet an awesome tamariki/rangatahi who lives immersed in the outdoors — embracing the Bay of Plenty’s beaches, bush, rivers and trails as their playground for adventure, learning and connection.

With their youthful curiosity, they will uncover what makes our featured tamariki thrive, taking young viewers on a journey of discovery and inspiration where they will witness the power of learning from one another and building caring, inclusive relationships.

Our featured young champions might look like...

• a courageous kid embracing and excelling at adventure sports
• an energetic young volunteer involved in acts of service and conservation in their local community
• a Māori whānau teaching their children traditional ecological wisdom and survivals skills
• a passionate youth involved first hand in environmental care and advocacy
• an off-grid family living sustainably with their whenua (land), outside consumer-driven choices
• a nature lover rewilding their backyard
• a guardian of indigenous wildlife learning skills to care for and protect them

kids unplugged fosters youth-led storytelling and reciprocal learning (Ako). The inclusion of local youth in both in-front and behind-the-camera roles provides them with new skills in media, storytelling, interviewing, and environmental awareness—empowering the next generation of storytellers.

To engage younger audiences, kids unplugged will incorporate dynamic colourful visuals, including comic hero graphics, fun animated elements, and playful sound effects. Vibrant “discover/play/unplugged mode” segments will keep energy high and attention refreshed.

kids unplugged is part of a crucial conversation and wider social movement to restore health and wellbeing for our young ones, reduce the harm of screens and social media and encourage the value of immersive play based childhood experiences. Tamariki are spending up to a third of their after-school time on screens and New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the OECD. Outdoor play builds resilience, mental health, and community — and we urgently need more inspiring role models to show it can be done!

This series will...

• Celebrate Tamariki
• Promote Outdoor Play and Exploration
• Reflect Aotearoa’s Diversity
• Amplify Youth Voice

We are actively collaborating with organizations focused on outdoor adventure, family wellness, young people and digital safety.  Our hope is the reach over 100,000k children and families with strategic platform partnerships and envision more partners coming on board as the project builds momentum (please contact us if you'd like to help amplify this vision).