By Sarah Horwath
It’s the industry’s dirty little secret, and no amount of subversion will make it go away.
That’s why the not-for-profit environmental media arts organization Planet in Focus is working to promote social and ecologically sustainable production practices in the film and television industry.
“Planet In Focus Green Screen is an innovative program, and it started about three years ago when members of the film and television industry got together and wanted to do something about [the fact] that production has a huge environmental footprint,” says Sarah Margolius, executive director of Planet in Focus.
- Director Michael McGowan of Score: A Hockey Musical with actor Stephen McHattie – Photo by Ken Woroner, Courtesy Score: A Hockey Musical
The Toronto-based organization educates industry professionals and the film-going public on the enormous impact film and television production has on the environment.
One of the ways Planet In Focus Green Screen is helping film productions remain environmentally conscious is by providing them with reports that measure their environmental savings. These include waste audits, greenhouse gas reduction modeling, as well as other initiatives.
“We are probably the most comprehensive and innovative program of its kind in North America,” Margolius says. “We are able to measure the impact of a production’s actions so we can see how many trees you saved or how many tons of greenhouse gas emissions you saved.”
Margolius says that a 2006 UCLA study showed that the film industry in Los Angeles is one of the main industries that contribute to a negative environmental impact. She says the film industry should strive to be a model for other industries in making ecological changes.
Avi Federgreen is a Canadian film producer and avid environmentalist. He approached Planet in Focus in 2009 for advice on what environmentally friendly production methods he could implement while creating his film, Score: A Hockey Musical. “We are the first real Canadian feature film that has gone to the extent that we went to,” says Federgreen.
Planet in Focus helped the relatively small $5 million production save more than 10,000 plastic water bottles, something Federgreen says was very rewarding for him as an environmentalist.
He says it is “appalling” how much waste the Canadian film industry produces and how little is being done about it. “How many Canadian features actually went green last year? I would probably say the numbers are pretty small. How many TV series went green? It would be less than you can count on one hand.”
Federgreen has promised that he will go green where he can on set and every movie he creates will not devalue the industries environmental impact. “There aren’t many producers out there like me that are adamant about going green. We take it extremely lightly; it’s kind of ridiculous. I don’t know what needs to happen to make it change. But we better do something and we better do something quick,” he says.
Planet in Focus is a strong advocate for getting youth involved, through programs such as their Youth, Camera, Action! – an environmental production program for youth. The program, held every summer in downtown Toronto, helps teach about 25 kids between the ages of 13 and 18 to make a short film based on an environmental subject matter. By doing so, the youth learn about green practices.
Planet in Focus organizers are banking on those who become eco-conscious at a young age to keep the environment in mind later in their careers. “We would like to get Green Screen into the post-secondary school system to teach them how to green their production, and I think that’s a very important initiative that we want to move forward on,” says Kathleen Mullen, programming director for Planet in Focus.
Another initiative is their Environmental Film Festival, an event held annually in Toronto. Their 12th festival will take place from Oct. 12 to 16, 2011. “It’s a forum for discussion on important issues related to films, with distribution, production and pre-production,” says Margolius.
“Going green is not a charity,” Margolius adds. “You don’t have to sacrifice a lot of money to go green. This is actually an opportunity for our industry to get ahead and really foster a sustainable production.”
