Advocating for Green Filmmaking and Environmentally Conscious Films

This week we gave thanks for our family and friends who came together yesterday to have a remarkably stress-free holiday. Today in our inaguaral “Green Clips” post, we give thanks to our friends in the blogosphere who are fighting for green causes by highlighting some posts we bookmarked this week as being related to our goal here of encouraging a greener film and television industry, and a greener planet in general. Here we go!

The Great White Way is going green! Broadway, another arm of the massive entertainment industry in the US, is launching a massive green initiative. [GreenBiz]

Universal Studios adds solar powered electric carts to its studio lots, allowing folks to cruise from soundstage to soundstage emissions-free. Awesome! [ecorazzi]

GreenPeace releases its latest guide to green electronics. Nokia is close to scoring a 10 on their meter. Apple, unfortunately, is still behind. [Unplugged]

Greenhouse, a club in New York, is proving that parties can be green too, with LED lighting and high-efficiency heating and air. Maybe a greener Broadway will throw their parties there? [Environmental Leader]

Barack Obama plans to green the White House by getting its energy efficiency evaluated. We look forward to seeing the changes he makes to consume less power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Talk about setting an example! [ecorazzi]

In preparation for writing an ongoing series of posts on green filming best practices, we wanted to begin by making everyone aware of many helpful guides that already exist. It’s unfortunate how little publicity these documents have received, but we hope to help green filming practices go from being little-known and voluntary to widespread and mandatory.

California Film Commission Green Resource Guide

Provides contact information for eco-conscious companies dealing in warddrobe, catering, tape stock, set design, office supplies and more. Of course it is California-based, but some of the the companies may have locations in other parts of the country.

Film New Mexico Green Filming Program

This website provides many resources for productions wishing to film in New Mexico, including a green filmmaking guide, and outlines incentives for filming in the state that benefit environmentally sensitive productions.

EMA Make Your Production Green

A guide from the Environmental Media Association listing environmentally friendly resources for banners and signage, invitations, catering, plant rentals, and more.

UK FIlm Council Environmental Strategy

The UK Film Council has recently announced plans to make London the greenest place to film. While the program does not appear to be in full swing just yet, this page outlines their overall strategy and links to a guide for greener filming.

Boulder, Colorado Green Filming Resource Guide

A guide from Boulder, Colorado about green filming in the area, including local green resources.

Let us know if we’ve missed anything. We’ll continue to build this list as more states and countries are inspired to author green filming guides. And remember, even if your area is not providing a green filming guide, you can use some of the tips in those listed above and apply them to your own work!

When the UCLA Institute of the Environment released their environmental report card in 2006, it didn’t paint the movie industry in a very good light. In the report card, they write,

…in watching film – or television – it is easy to overlook the sprawling industry that lies behind the scenes, bringing entertainment to life. Even less obvious are the environmental impacts of filmmaking, which involve energy consumption, waste generation, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and physical disruptions on location.

This ignorance may have given the industry a get out of jail free card for most of its life, but we hope the UCLA study shed some light on the need for environmental friendliness in the motion picture and television industry. To see what happened as a reaction to the study, to give an idea of the state of green in entertainment, and to provide context for the rest of the writing on this blog, we’ve constructed the following Green Film Industry Timeline. Enjoy!

November, 2006: UCLA IoE releases their annual Environmental Report Card, which breaks out the environmental effects of the Film and Television Industry in Los Angeles.

December, 2006: The state of New Mexico announces a voluntary green filmmaking initiative, which gives filmmakers filming in New Mexico guidelines and resources for environmentally conscious filming.

April, 2007: The Canadian greencode project launches, aiming to “make media with no impact.”

October, 2007: The California Film Commission publishes a Green Resource Guide, designed to “help productions minimize their environmental impact.”

February, 2008: In response to growing interest in filming in the UK, the Mayor of London and Film London spearhead an effort to make the capital city the “greenest place to film.”

September, 2008: American University’s Center for Social Media and Center for Environmental Filmmaking begin writing The Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking, a component of which is a survey that can be taken here.

October, 2008: A team including a former Paramount Pictures president announces plans to build “the first all-union built, green, SMART studio facility in the world” in Massachusetts.

Starting Saturday, NBC will begin the “Green Your Routine” campaign, which will feature NBC/Universal talent doing “The More You Know” PSAs (I wanted to link to Family Guy’s parody TMYK PSA, but I can’t find it anywhere. What gives, Hulu?) about living green, and NBCU shows doing special green segments. This effort is part of the larger Green Is Universal campaign, an “initiative dedicated to raising Green awareness, effecting positive change to the environment, and substantially greening its own operations.”

While we applaud NBC’s efforts to go green, much of the focus seems to be on giving advice to viewers on how to go green. Why not take a more internalized approach and, instead of creating a PR-driven Green Week, just consistently feature green behaviors in NBC shows both on and off the air. Let’s see some green product placement and Dunder Mifflin recycled office paper!

Speaking of product placement, NBC is launching a line of “green” merchandise to coincide with green week. We can’t help but wonder about the environmental costs of producing these products. After all, generating new things is often worse than sticking with old ones. For example, a new Prius takes more combined energy to produce than a new Hummer. A bit of a digression, sure, it’s easy to find reasons to question the motives of Corporate Social Responsibility efforts like these.

While it is outwardly positive and viewers could learn helpful green tips from NBC’s all-star lineup, after all is said and done we’d like ask, how has it changed the NBC for the long term? How green was the Green Is Universal campaign? We’d love to see the numbers.

Visit NBC’s Green Is Universal website.

The Futon Critic has the entire press release and a schedule of NBC’s green programming.

To break the champagne bottle over the proverbial hull of this ship we’re calling Film Greener, we thought it would be appropriate to answer the question of why green filmmaking is important. Or rather, why it is more important than green-everything-else. There is no doubt that making every industry, and every aspect of our own lives, a little more environmentally friendly is extremely important. However, we believe strongly that advocating for a greener film industry can not only have direct environmental impact, it can also have an impact on movie-goers, television watchers, and all participants in the entertainment industry. Here are some reasons we believe the film industry is a great target for greening:

It’s highly visible

By its nature the entertainment industry is in the public eye. In America, 70% of people see movies regularly, which equates to over a billion movie attendances each year. Movies made according to green filming best practices and films with environmental themes raise awareness about environmental issues in a way that other media can’t.

It’s a huge polluter

A 2006 study done by the University of California Los Angeles concluded that Hollywood represented a major contributor to poor air quality in Los Angeles. The movie industry was found to produce more emissions than aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels or semiconductor manufacturing (which are other major industries in the five-county region surrounding and including Los Angeles). Though some studios have taken steps to reduce their emissions by recycling set materials or, in the case of The Day After Tomorrow, planting trees, the study found that these efforts were the exception and not the rule. All this simply means that the film industry is primed for greening. Unlike other industries that have been hit with heavy regulations and have already taken the easy initial steps towards eco-consciousness, Hollywood can  take some very small steps and see big results.

It’s a role model

For better or worse, people follow celebrity trends. Celebrity endorsements have already had major effects on other causes, such as getting out the vote. Hollywood can also serve as a positive green role model not only to individuals but to other industries. By demonstrating environmentally friendly practices and having characters engage in eco-conscious activities, films can have an effect on how people act in their own lives. Similar to how we now expect characters in films to drive with their seatbelts on, we should also expect them to recycle and take public transportation when reasonable. Clearly we don’t expect James Bond to start riding the bus, but why shouldn’t Moneypenny throw her papers in the recycling bin?

Many celebrities are already involved

Hollywood types are notoriously liberal and environmentally conscious, but not many of them have the power to affect change at a high level in the industry. Those that can have already shown that it’s possible to make successful films that are also green. Syriana, for example, which was produced by George Clooney, was entirely carbon neutral. Those that can’t have such high-level control can still set an example in the way they lead their own lives, by refusing to engage in the conspicuous consumption that is synonymous with celebrity. If the film industry launches more green initiatives, we have no doubt that celebrities will be excited to jump on board.

Now that you’ve read why we feel strongly about greening the film industry, we hope you’ll join our cause. Tell your friends about this blog, and support environmentally friendly films and filmmakers. Let’s get started!

Photo by the JoshMeister on Flickr.