Green Filmmaking: Combating Global Warming in the Film Industry

2023-10-06 04:00:00

To fight global warming, all companies will have to have halved their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This is easier in some sectors than in others. The film industry, for example, is very energy intensive. In France, it represents around 1% of national emissions. The sector is mobilizing to reduce its impact. Here too, certain productions are trying to make efforts.

Combat commotion at Dodaine Park in Nivelles. This is where Elie Semoun is directing his next film. Its title: Ducobu goes green.

I arrange carpooling

Amandine Frisk ensures that the ecological soul of the film is respected during filming. A mission that requires creativity, surrounded by nature. “There are four sorting bins, including the compost. And there is a container to put the dirty cups, so they go back to the table to be washed”she describes.

On a shoot, what emits the most greenhouse gases is transport. To reduce this pollution, technicians are invited to carpool or take public transport. Even the stars of the film participate.

“I arrange carpooling because since I’m at the same hotel as the actors, I can bring them back, I bring everyone back”explains Elie Semoun before joking: “And this morning, I stole some pain au chocolat from the hotel to bring back to the management. You want to know everything? On the other hand, I don’t know if it was local cuisine”.

Around the set today, 80 technicians who need to be fed and watered. Here plastic water bottles and over-packaged snacks are replaced by water fountains and snacks provided by a local organic cooperative.

Reducing these emissions begins when writing the script

“It creates a lot less waste and it’s not necessarily more expensive because good management is done. In fact, our waste is dominated by five per week, compared to normal filming. any benefit for eco-friendly filming”underlines Amandine Frisk.

Cinema is regarding making its audience dream. Simulate a sunny day when it starts to rain. In France, a shoot emits on average 750 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 750 round trips from Brussels to New York by plane. Reducing these emissions begins well before filming, when the script is written.

“If at some point we realize that there is a helicopter with a private jet, we can talk regarding it by saying: is it really necessary for this person to come by helicopter? that we can’t make him come in another way, in a gentler way?”she points out.

We’re not here to annoy people

Especially now that investors are getting involved. Benjamin Vanhagendoren works for Wallimage. The Walloon audiovisual economic fund partly pays Amandine’s salary. It also grants a bonus to exemplary films. “We are not here to annoy people, we are here to help them, support them in this process. My job today is to come and see on set that it works and to identify the flaws”he specifies.

In France, some are going further to push cinema to become greener. Jean-Baptiste Foucart, eco-referent explains: “Ecoprod in France already requires that productions carry out a carbon assessment of their productions, before the film and following filming. And from 2024, subsidies will be allocated according to this carbon assessment”.

An approach that is being considered by us. In a few months, Wallimage should offer cinema professionals a free tool to calculate their carbon footprint.

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