FEATURE
FEATURE
Vape Wave director Jan Kounen explains how this major film project changed him
Film made Kounen rethinks his entire strategy about portraying smokers in movies .
Vapouround Magazine writer Patrick Griffin gives his thoughts about Vape Wave - a feature-length movie documentary about the electronic cigarette and the global industry it has spawned . Vape Wave is currently on a cinematic tour of France and plans are currently underway for it to be released throughout Europe and further afield .
Vape Wave is a feature-length movie documentary about how the global electronic cigarette industry developed and grew to what is is now .
Its director Jan Kounen has just taken it on a very successful cinematic tour of France since its release at the end of September and it is now being seen throughout Europe too . It is a movie which will be enjoyed by vapers but is really aimed at as many smokers as possible . It ’ s slogan is “ Let ’ s Make Cigarettes History ” and Kounen would love nothing more for that to become a reality . In the last issue I wrote about my thoughts on the movie and in this issue we speak to Jan Kounen about the Vape Wave project and discuss what the film means to him and what inspired him to make this movie . Jan ’ s story is very typical in terms of his transition from smoking to vaping . He is a former smoker of 30 years who has never felt the desire to smoke another traditional cigarette since taking up vaping on December 10 , 2013 . He soon became rather obsessed with the whole idea of vaping . He explained : “ I became fascinated by the whole vaping community when I realised how
56 ISSUE 08 VAPOUROUND MAGAZINE creative and inventive it was . “ Soon I found that I was working by day and delving deep into the world of vaping at night as I tried to learn as much about this subject as I possibly could .
“ I found that it was taking up a lot of space in my head and the more deeply I looked into vaping the more questions I found that I needed to find answers to and it occurred to me that this was something that smokers really needed to know and understand .”
Being an established film director , the next move was obvious for Jan and he decided that making a documentary about vaping would be his next move . He knew if he could come up with something which would appeal to a mass audience that he had a chance of getting smokers to really think about an alternative which could get them off tobacco and possibly save their lives . Kounen decided at once that he was not going to try and bully people into giving up smoking but that he would simply present information from the point of view of a number of current vapers who were all former smokers . They all told their own fascinating stories about their journey from being smokers to being vapers and the positive impact this had had on their lives . It was to be no boring documentary though . “ I saw that vaping needed some sexy treatment ,” said Kounen . “ I wanted to make a documentary in the style of “ gonzo journalism ” which was going to be interesting and fun to watch . “ I knew that if I got this right then the movie could have a strong impact on people ’ s health . I wanted to introduce vaping to smokers so that they may decide to stop smoking and give it a try instead . “ I wanted smokers to see a cultural side to vaping , exploring how vaping started and then move on to explore all of the fascinating aspects of the vaping industry .” He certainly did not cut corners in the making of Vape Wave . It took two years to film and Kounen traveled to Korea , Germany , England , France , the USA and even Tahiti in his desire to show vaping in as many different environments as possible .