University of South Carolina University of South Carolina
Scholar Commons Scholar Commons
Senior Theses Honors College
Fall 2023
Oscars vs. Ozone: The Motion Picture Industry’s Impact on Oscars vs. Ozone: The Motion Picture Industry’s Impact on
Climate Change and What They Are Doing About It Climate Change and What They Are Doing About It
Alexis J. Simpson
University of South Carolina - Columbia
Director of Thesis:Director of Thesis: Dr. Lauren Steimer
Second Reader:Second Reader: Dr. Kelly Wolf
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses
Part of the Environmental Studies Commons, Film Production Commons, and the Sustainability
Commons
Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
Simpson, Alexis J., "Oscars vs. Ozone: The Motion Picture Industry’s Impact on Climate Change and What
They Are Doing About It" (2023).
Senior Theses
. 652.
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses/652
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Table of Contents
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Climate Change…………………………………………………………………………………………………..6
a. The Science
b. The Impacts
c. How This Concerns the Motion Picture Industry
The Motion Picture Industry and Climate Change……………………………………………………………..10
d. Pivotal Publications
e. Location, Location, Location: Regional emissions differences
i. Why California?
ii. Why Georgia?
iii. The Rise of “Y’allywood”
iv. Challenges to ‘Greener’ Sets
f. Industry Roles, Research, and Reactions
Case Studies…………………………………………………………………………………………………….33
g. Earth Angel: “Strategy, Staff, Stuff and Stats”
i. Founding
ii. Process
iii. Challenges
iv. Success Stories
v. Impact
h. The Amazing Spider-Man 2: “We compost in the kitchen, which is disgusting, but we do it”
i. Partnership
ii. Saving Another Kind of ‘Green’
iii. Amazing Spider-Man Social Media!
i. The Volume: “The culmination of over a decade of innovation in the virtual production
space”
i. The Filmmaking Revolution that Began with a Roar
ii. How It Works
iii. Rave Reviews
iv. Lights, Camera, Less Impact
v. Drawbacks
vi. The Future
j. Greening or Greenwashing?
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………52
Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………………………...55
References………………………………………………………………………………………………………57
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Abstract
Human activities, primarily the combustion of fossil fuels, have drastically altered Earth’s
environments, via warming, habitat loss, and loss of food and water security for the peoples and animals
living in its biosphere (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2023). The oft cited culprits for these
changes are industries such as energy, transport, and agriculture (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, 2023). One that frequently escapes public discourse on this matter is the motion picture industry.
This thesis will focus on demonstrating that the motion picture industry, which includes, but is not limited
to, film and television production (and, as such, will also be called ‘the film and television industry’), has
notably contributed both historically and currently to the global effects of climate change. Such
contributions can stem from the industry’s emissions (Sustainable Production Alliance, 2021) and waste
(Victory, 2015), with examples including travel for cast and crew (Sustainable Production Alliance,
2021), energy use for production equipment and soundstages (some of which run on diesel) (Victory,
2015), and disposable physical sets and costumes (Environmental Media Association, 2014). It is
somewhat common for film companies or productions to keep track of and occasionally share these
statistics (Swart, 2023) but it is difficult to find research that has taken a broader approach and examined
these characteristics of this industry as a whole. Endeavors that have are older (Corbett & Turco, 2006)
and therefore their data is not accurate to present-day levels, which is an obstacle to accurately depicting
the impacts of the industry today and how they have changed over time.
The goal of this thesis topic is not to be pessimistic and only disparage the motion picture industry
for its activities and the harm they cause; pessimism is not usually a useful rhetorical tool for encouraging
behavioral changes. Instead, the intention here is to give an accurate picture of the current practices of
productions and share examples of progress occurring in the industry that are combating the negative
impacts of these practices in the hopes of reducing (or altogether eliminating) them. This will hopefully
demonstrate that there exist already proven successful methods that can be used to minimize or even
reverse the motion picture industry’s harmful impacts without significant changes to budget or efficiency.
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It is impossible to find information on all types of productions, therefore most of the information utilized
in this thesis is about “tentpole” productions, which are the largest in budget, billing, and release, making
them the most reported on and most highly visible to those outside the industry. Other than having readily
accessible data on their operations, using tentpole productions will allow the audience of this thesis to
identify at least with the kind of media being analyzed, even if they are unfamiliar with the more complex
processes within the motion picture industry that are known only to people within this industry or
industries closely related to it. In summary, the goal is to make the issues and progress in this industry
understandable to the average stakeholder (in this case, examples could include all consumers who
participate in this market and, more generally, people who are affected by climate change) because
currently there is a gap in up-to-date, comprehensive, academically and journalistically informed research
on this timely topic.
One of the major findings of this research was that there are two big contributors to a production’s
negative environmental impacts: its energy consumption, both as production utilities and fuel for travel
and equipment, and waste, such as props and sets but also single-use plastic from catering. There have
long been sustainability-focused roles at major production companies, but several industry individuals
have confirmed in sources used in this thesis that there is an underlying fear at these companies of
bringing the ‘wrong’ kind of attention to the industry if major changes were made that suddenly show
how poorly environmental issues were handled before they were enacted. This has led to a lot of talk and
not much action, such as the founding of prominent multi-company alliances that focus on researching
and educating about how to be ‘greener’ on set but do not enforce these practices on their own sets. As a
result, third-party organizations and nonprofits have stepped in to help ease the transition and success of
increased sustainability on set, providing services like set and general waste recycling, advising on
facilities and equipment changes to reduce energy use, and connecting with local communities to donate
unused meals or materials. However, convincing productions that these changes are necessary and to foot
the bill for their services (often very small in comparison to the budgets of the productions they are
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working on) is still something these consultant companies struggle with, according to some of the groups
doing this work. One way productions are taking it upon themselves to improve is through the
development and adoption of new technologies, which they can then use to generate profits by allowing
other companies to utilize them, a promising avenue for sustainable change in the industry. Many notable
production companies have also set goals for renewable energy use, net zero carbon and greenhouse gas
emissions, and electric vehicle use within the next few decades, all of which seem increasingly attainable
as even more technological development occurs in this fast-paced, ever-changing industry and the ones
closely related to it. While it is by no means close to perfect, the research for this thesis finds that there
are multiple innovative and quickly spreading options for lowering and eliminating a production’s
impacts within the motion picture industry, and there are a few ways they could become even more
widely embraced.
One such way is through legislation, such as California’s recently passed Advanced Clean Cars
Program, which mandates that all new passenger cars, trucks and SUVs sold in California be zero
emissions by 2035. Fuel is a huge component of the motion picture industry’s carbon footprint,
particularly from travel, so enforcing this law in other states highly utilized by the film and television
industry could help minimize this component of a production’s impact. Another example is through the
creation of a tax credit, a huge factor in a production deciding where to film, that rewards sustainable
behavior for productions. This would give a portion of a production’s spending back to it, so long as it
was on eligible sustainable measures determined by the issuing film commission or state government. An
additional option could be a strategy mentioned previously: the enforcement of ‘greener’ practices on the
sets of motion picture companies who are members of an industry group (such as the Sustainable
Production Alliance) that has determined exactly how and where certain practices could lower a
production’s footprint. Any or all of these ideas could help advance the motion picture industry even
further in its journey to do less harm to the environment in its work. Further research on this topic could
involve comparing the sustainability goals of various production companies and evaluating their progress
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and setbacks in reaching them. Alternatively, a line of research explored somewhat but not in depth in this
thesis is how a production’s footprint changes based on where it films; a more thorough comparison of
state-by-state or even country-by-country differences could be enlightening to productions who want to
factor in how ‘green’ they can be when deciding what location to film in. This industry is a highly visible
and therefore a hugely influential one when it comes to establishing and spreading more sustainable ways
to work, and the goal of this thesis is to show the necessity of and options for doing so.
Climate Change
The Science
Author Andrew Hoffman wrote in his acclaimed book How Culture Shapes the Climate Change
Debate that “The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [is] an organization
of thousands of scientists that summarizes the vast body of climate science and presents conclusions in
“consensus statements”...these consensus statements by the IPCC have been endorsed by nearly two
hundred scientific agencies around the world.” The IPCC wrote, in their sixth Assessment Report
published in 2023, that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have
unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850–1900
[levels] in 2011–2020” and that, in turn, “Human-caused climate change is already affecting many
weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse
impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people (high confidence)” (IPCC, 2023). This group
uses qualifiers like “____ confidence” within their statements to show how statistically certain what they
are saying is, based on data from around the world and their thousands of scientific contributors. Those
two statements alone are cause for concern, but the IPCC gets much more specific in their writing to
ensure readers feel the necessary sense of alarm from these truths, via analysis of the data and patterns
that led them to make these statements. They describe how almost half (42%) of historical net CO
2
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emissions occurred in just the thirty years between 1990 and 2019, primarily due to fossil fuel (such as oil
and coal) combustion and other industrial processes (IPCC, 2023). The scientists also state that the sectors
of energy, industry, transport and buildings accounted for about 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions
in 2019, and about 20% came specifically from agriculture, forestry and other land use (abbreviated
AFOLU) (IPCC, 2023), showing that there are sizable negative impacts from how those industries are
doing business-as-usual. Other papers about the topic give hard numbers on the science: “The estimated
global annual emissions of CO
2
were about 5 billion metric tons in 1950, increasing to 22 billion metric
tons by 1990, with the most recent estimate (2019) reaching over 36 billion metric tons. This amounts to
greater than a sevenfold increase in annual atmospheric CO
2
emissions in 70 years, while the world
population rose only threefold in that same time frame” (Chapman & Ahmed, 2021). They also show
exactly who is to blame: “As early as 2004, the United States and China emerged as the top emitters,
accounting for nearly 40 percent of the world’s total” (Posner & Sunstein, 2008). The IPCC has a goal of
warming no higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius above 1850-1900 temperature levels to minimize the impacts
of climate change as much as possible, given the damage already done, and uses models to show how this
path (1.5 degrees) and other plausible temperature increases (such as 2 degrees) could occur in its report
(IPCC, 2023). The specific temperature values modeled are based on theorized ‘Shared Socio-economic
Pathways,’ meaning ways in which the world could develop in the time spans modeled, given current
technologies and growth and potential increases/changes in them (IPCC, 2023). The scientists found that
if annual CO
2
emissions from 2020-2030 were the same amount as emissions in 2019, nearly all of the
carbon “budget” (total amount that can be emitted) for keeping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius would be
gone, and more than a third of the carbon budget for staying under 2 degrees Celsius would also be
depleted (IPCC, 2023), making these minimally-detrimental pathways much more difficult to achieve.
Additionally, they write that “assuming [carbon] policies that were implemented by the end of 2020 [are
accomplished], projected [global] emissions…lead to a warming of 3.2 degrees, with a range of 2.2-3.5
degrees Celsius (medium confidence)” (IPCC, 2023), a much higher number than is ideal for ecosystems
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and livelihoods to continue existing as they are now. Indeed, climate change is already and will continue
to wreak havoc on global communities in a variety of ways if not dealt with decisively.
The Impacts
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is very clear in its writing of the sixth
Assessment Report what will happen (and what already has) due to climate change: “Climate change has
caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in [land and water-based] ecosystems
(high confidence). Hundreds of local losses of species have been driven by increases in the [severity] of
heat extremes (high confidence) with mass mortality events recorded on land and in the ocean (very high
confidence). Impacts on some ecosystems are approaching irreversibility such as the impacts of…the
retreat of glaciers…[and] permafrost thaw (high confidence),” (IPCC, 2023). In addition, they note that
climate change has affected food and water security globally, two basic human rights, and that even when
they are available, “the occurrence of climate-related food-borne and water-borne diseases (very high
confidence)…have increased” (IPCC, 2023). Because of these issues and other “climate and weather
extremes,” populations are being displaced from Asia, Africa, and North America (IPCC, 2023), with one
paper finding that “over the next 30 years, the global climate crisis will displace more than 140 million
people within their own countries and drive many more across national borders,” (Chapman & Ahmed,
2021). The latter source also detailed that UNICEF estimates there are one billion children who are “at
extremely high risk of the impacts of the climate crisis,” due to their increased vulnerability to disease,
famine, and temperature extremes (Chapman & Ahmed, 2021). It is primarily poorer nations who will feel
the brunt of climate change impacts, despite often contributing much less overall and per capita to
greenhouse gas emissions that caused it (Chapman & Ahmed, 2021). A 2008 article details why: “The
wealthy nations, including the United States, are in a much better position [to handle climate change] for
three independent reasons: First, they have much more adaptive capacity. Second, a smaller percentage of
their economies depend on agriculture, a sector that is highly vulnerable to climate change. Third, the
wealthy nations are generally in the cooler, higher latitudes, which also decreases their vulnerability,”
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(Posner & Sunstein, 2008). This does not mean there are not still dangers to these countries arising from
climate change; the IPCC writes that they are highly confident that waiting to act will further cement the
use of high-emissions infrastructure as the norm, leading to higher risks of stranded assets and costs for
the industries reliant on them (IPCC, 2023). Stranded assets are those that turn out to be less profitable
than expected because of changes caused by the climate crisis, such as natural disasters that destroy them,
technological requirements/regulations that make them obsolete, and/or market shifts in cost or price that
makes them undesirable to produce or consume. Climate change, if not combated swiftly, is certain to
cause socio-economic problems to some degree worldwide, which is why it will take international
cooperation, especially from the worst emitters, to avoid such problems.
How This Concerns the Motion Picture Industry
One could argue that the general welfare of peoples and ecosystems is enough of an argument to
make the motion picture industry concerned about climate change. But if those reasons do not suffice,
there are several other impacts that could be particularly damaging for this industry. The risk of stranded
assets was mentioned previously, and the concentration of major film hubs along the coast (Los Angeles,
New York City, etc.) means they are likely to be susceptible to this risk. The IPCC report asserts that
climate change effects will include heatwaves and drought more frequently and in conjunction with each
other as temperatures rise, leading to higher likelihood of wildfires, and stronger tropical storms and more
flooding are also likely, particularly in “coastal and other low-lying cities and regions” (IPCC, 2023).
Droughts are already negatively affecting California more and more frequently, as well as wildfires;
flooding and stronger storms like hurricanes have impacted New York and southern states like Georgia, a
rising favorite location for Hollywood, in increasing numbers in recent years. These weather extremes
make ‘business-as-usual’ much more difficult to accomplish, and in an industry so focused on time
management in order to minimize spending, more frequent climatic interruptions will lead to major
setbacks. One way to demonstrate how these risks could create stranded assets for the motion picture
industry is through the concept of an outdoor soundstage (such as the massive “ranches” found in
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California). If temperatures are hitting higher highs and lower lows and there are more frequent instances
of wildfire, storms, and flooding/landslides, it may become impractical to shoot outdoors and therefore
this stage will become useless, making it a liability rather than an asset for the company that owns it.
There is also the issue of sea level rise which will create “risks for coastal ecosystems, people and
infrastructure” (IPCC, 2023), a category that encompasses places like New York and Los Angeles where
filming often occurs. The IPCC warns that they have high confidence that once-a-century extreme sea
level events will occur near annually in many coastal areas by 2100, and average yearly rates of sea level
rise have tripled from 1901 to 2008 (IPCC, 2023), indicating that by the next century the industry may
need to relocate to more climatically stable locations as L.A. and NYC are slowly overcome by the
oceans that border them. These truths demonstrate why even an industry so seemingly disconnected from
the issues of science and pollution needs to pay attention to and do their part in solving this multinational
problem.
The Motion Picture Industry and Climate Change
Pivotal Publications
In 2006, the first wide-ranging study on the motion picture industry in California’s contributions
to air pollution and emissions was published by the University of California at Los Angeles’ Institute of
the Environment, a study they completed at the request of the California Integrated Waste Management
Board (abbreviated CIWMB). In the paper, the authors write that “The objectives of the study were to
identify existing environmental best practices within the industry, based on interviews and case
studies…[and] throughout, the “motion picture industry” includes film and television production. The
focus of the study was exclusively on the production side of the industry, not on distribution or on
content,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). They also outline that “CIWMB selected the motion picture industry
due to its high visibility: environmental best practices uncovered while studying the motion picture
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industry are more likely to attract interest from and to be implemented by other industries,” (Corbett &
Turco, 2006). The report’s contents are largely quoted, directly or indirectly, from industry individuals
who shared their perspectives/opinions with the authors about the topics they were researching (Corbett &
Turco, 2006). In terms of the data they included on the industry’s activities, the research team used a tool
called the “Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIOLCA)” that researchers at Carnegie
Mellon University developed. They also utilized the publicly available Toxics Release Inventory
information that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires companies who create harmful toxins
in their operations to report (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Using findings from 2003-2005, they created
several charts comparing the footprint of the motion picture industry in L.A. to California and the United
States as a whole by “identifying several other industries which are relevant in California as a basis for
comparison: aerospace, petroleum refining, apparel, hotels, and semiconductor manufacturing…[these
sectors were] chosen to include a benchmark that is thought of as highly polluting, such as petroleum
refining and a benchmark that is thought of as clean, such as hotels, and a few other sectors which have
significant presence in Los Angeles and in California, such as apparel, aerospace, and semiconductors,”
(Corbett & Turco, 2006). They analyzed common “criteria” (they use “conventional”) pollutants like
nitric oxide and carbon monoxide that are monitored by air pollution regulations across these categories,
and stress that “[the] findings reported [in the resulting charts] should be interpreted, at best, as
indications of relative orders of magnitude rather than precise estimates of impacts,” (Corbett & Turco,
2006). The first chart they constructed shows a comparison of the level of pollutants from these industries
in the L.A. metropolitan area. It demonstrates the finding that “within the Los Angeles metropolitan area,
the size of the motion picture industry makes it the largest contributor to conventional air pollution of the
five sectors for which we can determine the total emissions associated with their activity in the Los
Angeles area,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006).
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Figure 1. Metric tons of conventional pollutants associated with the motion picture, aerospace, apparel, hotel, and
semiconductor manufacturing industries in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Source: Corbett & Turco, 2006
The second and third charts, seen below, expand the comparison of these industries to the whole of
California and the entire United States. In California, the considerable size of the film and television
industry in the state leads to it having pollutant levels of the same magnitude as more high-polluting
industries like semiconductor manufacturing and aerospace (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Across the U.S. the
motion picture industry is much less prevalent than the other sectors studied, causing its pollutant levels
to diminish considerably in comparison to the more widespread industries (Corbett & Turco, 2006).
Figure 2. Metric tons of conventional pollutants associated with the motion picture, aerospace, apparel, hotel, and
semiconductor manufacturing industries in the state of California. Source: Corbett & Turco 2006
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Figure 3. Metric tons of conventional pollutants associated with the motion picture, aerospace, apparel, hotel, and
semiconductor manufacturing industries in the United States. Source: Corbett & Turco 2006
The findings for each sector’s greenhouse gas emissions were very similar: the motion picture industry
only trailed aerospace in emissions in the L.A. metro area, had a similar amount of emissions as hotels
and apparel across California, and had a significantly smaller amount of emissions as compared to the
other industries across the entire U.S. (Corbett & Turco, 2006).
Emissions and pollutants are not the only indicators of the lack of sustainability initiatives on set.
There is also massive amounts of physical waste from discarded single-use items, props, and sets, with
one interviewee telling the researchers that “It is usually cheaper for the art department to throw sets away
rather than dismantle and reuse them, and indeed, most projects do not recycle sets because it is easier and
more cost-effective to simply throw them away,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). There is also the matter of
what these sets are built from: in addition to plastic products with long decomposition timetables like
Styrofoam, the industry highly favors a material called lauan, found in tropical rainforests, in set
construction. The authors write, “The environmental implications of using lauan include tropical forest
destruction which in turn threatens indigenous cultures and habitats and contributes to global warming
…despite their best efforts, [designers] find [lauan] substitutes inadequate, as one can make lauan look
like anything else, to a degree that has not yet proven possible with other materials,” (Corbett & Turco,
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2006). Scripts are another massive source of waste, particularly on TV shows where they are constantly
being edited and reprinted: one 2004 TV show used 1,255,000 sheets of paper in six months (Corbett &
Turco, 2006). Even if a production using a soundstage in California implements recycling and other waste
diversion practices, there is still the issue of what to do when they move to shoot “on location,” meaning
outside of the well-equipped studio lots.
Because of the sheer size of productions in the twenty-first century, shooting a production on
location often means transporting dozens of people and tons of equipment to a site that may not be
physically able to handle such intrusion. Authors Corbett and Turco (2006) detail how “To prepare for this
army’s arrival, the production may have to pave roads and prepare support services, such as restrooms,
holding areas, meet other special needs that various departments may have, get the props ready, and
prepare for craft services to offer catering and trash collection.” Productions also have huge energy
demands for all the lighting, cameras, trailers, and other equipment utilized, and providing enough of it
outside of a studio lot often means the use of diesel generators, which create noise and air pollution
(Corbett & Turco, 2006). It is also rare that all members of the production “army” are needed at once,
giving those who are not required for a scene ample time to wander the location and damage the
environment around the set (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Examples of this have occurred with many big-
name films: a 2019 article from Kyle Fitzpatrick at Vice detailed how “Crew on 2017’s Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales allegedly dumped chemical waste while filming in Queensland,
Australia, potentially tainting local water; 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road damaged sensitive areas on the
African Atlantic coast while filming, endangering local reptiles and cacti; a contractor hired during The
Expendables 2's production damaged a protected bat habitat in 2011…[and] 2000’s The Beach led to the
ruin of Maya Bay Beach in Thailand.” When considering these issues through the lens of present-day
progress and knowledge, it may seem like most of them could be easily avoided if certain strategies were
implemented. So why were they not?
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Corbett and Turco found several common threads in their interviews with industry professionals
as to why productions had not undertaken sustainability initiatives. The primary reason seemed to be that,
in the motion picture industry, there is a “constant tension between creative and financial
pressures…[constant] conflict between wanting to do things right but always needing to do things fast”
(Corbett & Turco, 2006). One example of this can be seen in an article from The Independent, which
described how a director shared with them her preference “to have all the lenses in a truck outside, so that
when I needed a lens, I could just ask for it, rather than the night before having to make plans and check
that the specific lens was ordered and delivered,” (Aftab, 2007). This meant there was “an enormous truck
that would follow her from location to location or sit idling at a studio” (Aftab, 2007), releasing emissions
as it went, even though its presence could be easily avoided with minimal planning ahead by the creative
team. There is also the fact that the industry is highly decentralized, comprised of thousands of
contractors and small businesses. This leads to a “focus on short-term, everchanging production teams
rather than long-term physical supply chains…[which] stand[s] in the way of its adopting many of the
environmental programs that are common in more traditional industries,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). The
authors write, “An additional challenge is that the studios do not make money operating sound stages, and
thus they prefer to rent space from another studio if it is cheaper than using their own. As a result, studios
have limited ability to encourage environmental behavior by the production crews on the sound stages, as
a studio that is perceived as being too difficult to work with will not be able to rent out their sound stages”
(Corbett & Turco, 2006), further emphasizing the prioritization of profits above all else. Even though
some environmental practices might save a production money, it would have to be a savings of at least six
figures to convince a larger set, which often spends that on just one filming day, to change its behaviors
(Corbett & Turco, 2006). There is also fear of the wrong kind of attention that stops motion picture
companies from pursuing sustainable measures. That same high visibility that made the CIWMB
interested in enlisting UCLA to create their report is a reason that filmmakers do not want to change their
behavior, as it may make their audiences aware of the fact that how they were working before was
environmentally problematic (Corbett & Turco, 2006). This made it exceedingly difficult for the
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researchers to get any “official”/concrete answers and access to the data and practices of the motion
picture industry. This fact was reinforced in a deep dive into a decade of industry publications that the
authors conducted. They identified that from 1991 to 2004, “motion picture and TV
industry…demonstrated significant interest in environmental issues, both in the early 1990s and again
since 2002, but…the bulk of this interest manifests itself in environmental content of shows and films and
in environmental activism and philanthropy of celebrities, rather than in industry operations” (Corbett &
Turco, 2006). They conclude their seventy-page report with a poignant statement: “From the
environmental impact estimates, greenhouse gas emissions are clearly an area where the motion picture
industry can be considered a significant contributor. From the interviews, it is clear that very few people
in the industry are actively engaged with greenhouse gas emission reduction, or even with discussions of
the issue,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Although this document was published in 2006 and much has
changed in the film and television industry and public opinion since, similar issues still exist on the sets of
present-day productions.
In 2015, Jonathan Victory authored an article titled "Green Shoots: Environmental Sustainability
and Contemporary Film Production,” and it provides a useful update on where the motion picture industry
was ten years after the UCLA publication. Victory (2015) starts by pointing out that sustainable
advancements made in the industry could have a ripple effect on the other industries that work with
and/or are influenced by motion picture companies, a point also made in the UCLA paper. He references
an earlier Canadian report that detailed how energy consumption is a huge part of each segment of the
production process, from offices used in pre- and post-production work to the building, operating, and
lighting of sets during shooting (Victory, 2015). Victory (2015) acknowledges that thanks to innovations
in technology, “the more widespread digital post-production process conducted entirely through computer
equipment can be potentially powered by clean energy sources,” and uses that to explain why “[his] paper
shall focus primarily on the pre-production and production stages of the feature film production process
as they arguably comprise the most energy-intensive part of film production and [are] the part where
17
reducing consumption and minimizing environmental impact remains the most challenging.” He then
identifies lighting and the use of generators as the two most problematic on-set issues that he plans to
discuss. For film lights, the issue arises in that their design historically has led to them putting out more
heat than light, wasting much of the massive amount of energy they require (Victory, 2015). However,
filmmakers are resistant to switching to more energy-efficient lights like LED because of their
significantly distinctive look from traditional lights (Victory, 2015). One cinematographer told Jonathan
Victory how “different types of lights can affect the color temperature of a shot: ‘Basically because there
are lots of different bulbs used to create one LED panel, you get weird color temperatures off them; they
are not the same as the tungsten or daylight color temperatures which are the standard settings on most
cameras,’” (Victory, 2015). This effect can be combated with the use of color gels, but LED lights still
look “softer” and less like the usual direct light of tungsten bulbs (Victory, 2015). In addition to the
uncomfortably hot environments film lights create, the use of on-set generators (often needed for location
shoots with no electric grid connections) can lead to “particulate emissions, air quality [problems], and
smog formation,” which harm not only the actors and crew in the immediate vicinity but also the Earth’s
atmosphere as a whole (Victory, 2015). Making swaps to reduce these problems comes down not only to
aesthetic and ease of use, but also manpower. Victory (2015) writes that, “Efforts to maximise the
environmental sustainability of film sets will be difficult to implement and hard to measure without
assigning a specific person or team of people to organise them.” He contends that the unit production
manager has the oversight to do such, but this would be another burden on their “already considerable
workload” (Victory, 2015). He debates the potential of “Production accountants…[being] tasked with
some kind of auditing of a set’s waste production, energy consumption and carbon footprint,” but comes
to the conclusion that “implementing the environmental measures necessary to mitigate these is most
likely outside the skill-set of accountants,” (Victory, 2015). These questions are likely also being raised in
the offices of production companies, and with no clear answer to them, it seems the environmentally
harmful practices of film sets will continue to go unchecked.
18
In addition to analyses done by parties outside of the motion picture industry, several publications
have been released by industry groups that are concerned about the footprint of their sector. One such
report is the Screen New Deal, an ambitious plan to revolutionize how motion picture production works.
The authors analyzed nineteen “tentpole” productions, which have the largest budgets, in order to
“highlight the maximum potential impact of a single given production” (albert et al., 2020). They found
that “transport has the largest impact in terms of carbon emissions, accounting for just over 50% of total
emissions for tentpole productions” and of that, “70% is associated with land transport, and 30% with air
travel” (albert et al., 2020). The next biggest culprit for emissions is energy, primarily as electricity and
gas consumption; this comprises 34% of these productions’ total emissions (albert et al., 2020).
Interestingly, the authors noted that the “wide use of diesel generators accounts for 15% of total carbon
emissions” (albert et al., 2020), further corroborating the discussion of their detrimental impact in earlier
sections of this paper. The authors created the chart below detailing the breakdown of an average tentpole
production’s carbon emissions, as reported by the production using the Production Environmental
Accounting Report (PEAR), a tool resulting from the collaboration of two film and television industry
groups, the Sustainable Production Alliance and the Producers Guild of America’s PGA Green Initiative.
Figure 4. Data analysis of the carbon emissions resulting from an average tentpole film production.
Source: albert et al. 2020
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The Sustainable Production Alliance, whose members include “Amazon Studios, Amblin Partners,
Disney, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Participant, Sony Pictures Entertainment, ViacomCBS
and WarnerMedia,” released a similar report (Sustainable Production Alliance, 2021). The report, titled
“Carbon Emissions of Film and Television Production,” shares “industry-wide production carbon
emission averages for SPA’s member company productions in the years between 2016 and
2019…[including] 161 feature films, ranging from tentpole movies to medium and small films, and 266
television series, from single and multi-camera TV series to scripted and unscripted shows, shot…around
the world.” The carbon emissions data was collected with the use of PEAR, the same reporting structure
used in the Screen New Deal’s analysis. The results are shown in the following charts, which show
average emissions per feature/episode and classify them by category, separating the type and size of
productions for added insight into the differences between various kinds of sets.
Figure 5. Average carbon emissions for feature-length films, categorized by the size of the below-the-line budget for the
production. A tentpole has a budget of USD $70 million and above; a large production is between USD $40-70 million; a
medium production is between USD $20-40 million; and a small production is USD $20 million and below. Source: Sustainable
Production Alliance 2021
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Figure 6. Average carbon emissions for television series, categorized by the format of production. Source: Sustainable
Production Alliance 2021
The report gives context to some of the disparities between emissions levels, noting “Differences in these
averages are not only because of the length of the show. In general, one-hour scripted dramas film on
location more often than 1/2 hour scripted single-camera shows. Additionally, 1/2-hour multicamera
shows are faster to film than 1/2-hour single-camera shows and are mostly filmed on stage with very
little, if any, location shooting,” (Sustainable Production Alliance, 2021). These results are still striking:
even the “smallest” feature film emits carbon emissions in a quantity equal to seventy-six homes’ yearly
electricity use, and unscripted television episodes emit the equivalent of driving three gasoline-powered
passenger vehicles for a year (Environmental Protection Agency, Greenhouse Gas). Considering there are
hundreds of productions larger than these in this study alone, the implications of it are that there is
massive, detrimental environmental impacts occurring due to the operations of these companies.
Another crucial factor to consider is that film and TV creation has become an activity not limited
to the borders of California in recent decades. A publication by film students at Columbia University in
New York City details how productions filming there struggle to be sustainable. They write, “often,
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throwing away old sets, furniture, and costumes is the cheapest and most logistically manageable option
for New York productions for the short-term,” (Stalter et al., 2018). Additionally, “productions in New
York City rarely have control over emissions from utilities…because productions lease sound stages,
which are operated and maintained by companies or individuals that are independent of the productions”
(Stalter et al., 2018), indicating that any changes productions would like to see in terms of utilizing clean
energy sources are completely out of their control, unlike on studio lots or soundstages owned by the
production companies. Even when sets in the Big Apple pursue sustainable practices, it often comes with
little financial gains to justify them: “Productions spend an average of $44,500 to implement sustainable
initiatives on-set. However, these initiatives save them an average of $44,000,” (Stalter et al., 2018).
These disparities among regional filming locations and their respective footprints are even larger across
states like Georgia and California, who have become two of the most competitive sites for motion picture
productions in recent decades.
Location, Location, Location: Regional emissions differences
Why California?
“Hollywood” has been a word that conjures images of celebrities, blockbusters, palm trees, and
glamour for many decades, but it was not always the movie mecca it is today. Through the turn of the
nineteenth century, bigger, more well-established cities like New York and Chicago served as the
locations for what little moving image productions there were (Roland, 2017). However, as the ability to
make longer films became possible, directors needed more reliable weather than these cities boast, and
cheaper labor than they were currently paying (Roland, 2017). A 2017 Hollywood history recap from PBS
of Southern California detailed how, “Los Angeles was also known at the time [1910s] as the capital of
open-shop, non-union labor, where businesses could exploit cheap workers in large numbers…wages for
carpenters and other service personnel were 25-50% cheaper than on the East Coast.” Another reason for
filmmakers’ escape to California was that it was far from the extremely litigious Thomas Edison and his
company, Motion Picture Patents Company, a.k.a. “the Trust,” which “held patents on motion picture
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processing and projection equipment” and made “aggressive and intimidating demands for licensing fees”
of those who used them (Roland, 2017). Once there, though, motion picture makers found even more
reasons to stay, like the diverse geography and largely available (therefore cheap) land on which they
could build the studios of their wildest dreams (Roland, 2017). California then became a popular
filmmaking destination, but it was World War One that cemented its status as the movie capital of the U.S.
Roland of PBS SoCal writes about this transition, explaining that “films were needed to replace European
products; more efficient production facilities were needed to make them; more money was needed to
finance them; and more theaters were needed to show them. It was only at this point that “Hollywood”
began to designate the entire movie-making machine.” The rest is (cinematic) history.
Why Georgia?
California rested on its laurels for many years, unchallenged as the most desirable place to create
a film in the U.S. In the past couple of decades, however, many states have worked to present themselves
as viable locations for motion picture making to invest its large budgets. A hugely successful example of
this is Georgia, who in recent years has become so prolific in filmmaking it has earned the nickname
“Y’allywood” or the “Hollywood of the South.” The latter phrase appears on a page from the New
Georgia Encyclopedia (2007) website that also stated, “In the five years spanning 2013 through 2017,
more projects filmed in Georgia than in all previous decades combined.” A variety of factors made this
possible for the Peach State, but there was one major selling point for Hollywood: one of the most
generous tax credits in the country.
Being on the East Coast and a fairly populous and history-rich state, Georgia had been an
attractive location for films since the beginning, but it was the 1972 film Deliverance that put the state on
the movie map (Dominey, 2007). Craig Dominey (2007) of the New Georgia Encyclopedia writes about
the topic, “Deliverance was locally controversial in its perceived depiction of mountain residents as
backwoods hillbillies. But the production was an economic boon to the state, a fact not lost on then-
governor Jimmy Carter. He established a state film commission in 1973 to market Georgia as a shooting
23
location for future projects.” Several successful movies were made in the following years, but nowhere
near as many as Hollywood was producing in the same period. This started to change with the creation of
a production tax credit by Georgia in 2005, which “produced a $475 million economic impact to the local
economy, an increase of 283 percent from 2004” (Klowden et al., 2010). Hoping to capitalize on this,
Governor Sonny Perdue raised the credit even further in 2008, and the Georgia Department of Economic
Development (2008) released a press statement that said the following: “'We know that our excellent
talent base and outstanding locations make Georgia a very desirable place to film,' said Governor Sonny
Perdue. 'This legislation puts in place the economic cornerstone that will encourage producers to convert
that desire into action.'…'The new incentives will put Georgia among the top five states in the U.S. in
terms of financial competitiveness for entertainment projects,' said Ken Stewart, commissioner of the
Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD).” The 2008 legislation made it so that the
“potential [tax credit] total of 17 percent [increased] all the way up to an eye-catching 30 percent on all
qualified film-related spending in Georgia. The current tax credit includes a 20 percent base credit for
filming, post-production work, and video game development and animation with a minimum expenditure
of $500,000 in a single year. An additional 10 percent credit called the Georgia Entertainment Promotion
is available if filmmakers include a Georgia logo or similar placement in the final project” (Klowden et
al., 2010). These are similar rules to other states, but Georgia sets itself apart by not mandating an end
date on when qualified productions must fulfill and claim it by (Dockterman, 2018). A Bloomberg article
by Gregory Zbylut (2023) compared how the Georgia program sized up to its biggest competitor,
California, writing, “Georgia’s film credit applies to any production, be it game show, talk show, film, or
episodic television. By contrast, California excludes commercial advertising, music videos, talk shows,
game shows, sporting events, awards shows, reality television programs, documentaries, variety
programs, daytime dramas, [and] half-hour episodic television shows…In addition, Georgia requires that
production companies spend at least $500,000, whereas California requires a minimum $1 million.” It is
not just the tax credit drawing in studios, though, as cost savings can be found in other areas of production
too in Georgia: “Georgia’s relaxed labor rules mean employees don’t have to belong to a union, though
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major studios and production companies usually use union crews. The union salary for a “grip” who
works with a camera crew can start at nearly $38 an hour in California. The same position, unionized
through the local chapter, pays about $26 an hour in Georgia. Taking into account union and pension
contributions, labor costs for that position in Georgia are about 25% lower than in California,”
(McWhirter & Schwartzel, 2015). Hollywood lawyer Stephen M. Kravit (2016) explains why the
generosity from Georgia in The Movie Business Book, stating, “For a local economy, a visiting production
can mean a substantial boost, as millions of dollars can be spent during shooting,” (Kravit, 2016). And the
benefits for the state do not stop when the cameras quit rolling; one town in Georgia has taken on a new
life after The Walking Dead filmed there, bringing in year-round tourism revenue despite the show ending
years ago (Dockterman, 2018). It is easy to see why Georgia has worked so hard to encourage deep-
pocketed producers to choose their state over all the rest for their next blockbuster, and in many, many
instances in the past dozen years, it has worked.
The Rise of “Y’allywood”
Georgia has had several feet in the door of the media industry for years, including being home to
“the Turner empire, which includes CNN headquarters, TNT, and the Cartoon Network,” and the well-
known status of Atlanta as a major center for hip-hop music (Klowden et al., 2010). The 2008 tax credit
hike has exponentially increased the presence of this industry since its creation, so much so that “In 2016,
more major feature films were made in Georgia than in California, according to data from the Los
Angeles film office” (Dockterman, 2018). “Superproducers” like Tyler Perry and studios like Marvel have
put down major roots in the Peach State, building massive soundstages and even mini-towns for crews to
live in (Dockterman, 2018). In an article titled “How Georgia Became the Hollywood of the South,”
Eliana Dockterman (2018) at TIME Magazine writes that, “In 2007, the film industry spent $93 million
on productions in Georgia. In 2016, it spent over $2 billion. In the past decade, the tax perk has attracted
the Hunger Games franchise, the Fast and Furious movies… television hits like Stranger Things, critical
darlings like Atlanta and reality series like ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’.” Georgia had over 450 tax
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credit-qualified TV and film productions take place in fiscal year 2018, each of which spent at least
$500,000 in the state to earn this designation (Ho, 2018). Rodney Ho of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
wrote in an article (2018) that “The Governor’s office said there was $2.7 billion in direct spending in the
state from these productions, which ranged from “The Walking Dead” and “Ozark” to “Tag” and “Mile
22,”…the same amount as the previous year, when some big-budget extravaganzas such as “Black
Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War” were in production. Overall, it’s [a] ten-fold increase from 2008
before the tax credits were [increased].” The numbers of productions and dollars spent have certainly only
continued to tick higher; it seems Georgia’s hope to make the “Y’allywood” moniker true is undoubtedly
being realized.
Challenges to ‘Greener’ Sets
Another major difference between California and Georgia, and the one of most note for the topic
of this paper, is that the environmental footprint of each state as it relates to the operation of the film and
television industry is vastly different. The Sustainable Production Alliance created the following charts as
a more specific look at regional carbon emissions, with the numbers drawn from the same dataset used for
the 2021 report “Carbon Emissions of Film and Television Production”.
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Carbon emissions by region and production type. Overall, data was collected from 75 film and 242 TV productions
in the USA, and 22 film and 39 TV productions in Canada. The following summary shows total and percent average
emissions sources by region based on the production type with the most data per region. For medium-sized films,
being Atlanta-based results in about 2.5 times more emissions than being L.A.-based. For hour-long scripted
dramas, Atlanta productions create over 3 times more emissions than L.A. ones.
Source: Sustainable Production Alliance 2022
Housing and total utilities have some of the largest discrepancies in metric tons of CO
2
emitted across the
two regions, likely because of the dissimilar sources of energy in each region. Georgia is home to three of
the top fifty dirtiest power plants in the United States; California has zero power plants in the same list
(Hope, 2022). Environment Georgia (2022) writes on their page that, “In 2020, the 10 most climate-
polluting plants in Georgia were responsible for 91.5% of global warming emissions from the power
sector [in the state] despite only generating 56.5% of total electricity.” Air travel is also much higher in
the Atlanta region, as stars, executives, and even sometimes crew members (if Georgia cannot provide
enough of them, due to their lack of a longstanding motion picture-related talent base) must be flown into
the area repeatedly if they do not have a residence there to stay in throughout filming and post-
production/reshoots. The filming locations across the Atlanta region are also more scattered than in L.A.,
27
due to increased available space to build on (Dockterman, 2018), causing even more travel for those
working on productions there, further raising the emissions of each one. This, in combination with the
general population growth of the area, has resulted in worsening air quality conditions for the region, in
some years becoming so poor that they have barely met EPA standards (Lutz, 2022). According to data
from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (January 2023; April 2023), Georgia consumes seven
times more energy from coal than California, despite the latter having a population four times the size of
the former. In terms of electricity generation (which may be exported for use to other states), Georgia
generates eighty times more coal-fired power than California (U.S. Energy Information Administration,
January 2023; U.S. Energy Information Administration, April 2023). In contrast, California generates
thirty-two times more hydroelectric power and six times more nonhydroelectric renewable power than
Georgia, specifically as electricity (U.S. Energy Information Administration, January 2023; U.S. Energy
Information Administration, April 2023). The Energy Information Administration (Coal explained) shares
on its website that “Several principal emissions result from coal combustion…[leading to] acid rain and
respiratory illnesses…smog…haze…lung disease…[and] both neurological and developmental damage in
humans and other animals,” and that “in 2021, CO
2
emissions from burning coal for energy accounted for
about 20% of total U.S. energy-related CO
2
emissions and for nearly 60% of total CO
2
emissions from the
electric power sector.” Coal-firing is a massive contributor to greenhouse gas production, resulting in
exacerbated climate change effects that, as previously discussed, are wreaking havoc on global
communities and will only worsen unless the world significantly reduces its collective emissions.
Hydroelectric power, on the other hand, only potentially creates large emissions if fossil fuel-burning
power sources are used to produce the concrete and steel used to make it (U.S. Energy Information
Administration, Hydropower explained). However, the EIA (Hydropower explained) points out that
“given the long operating lifetime of a hydropower plant (50 years to 100 years) these [initial] emissions
are offset by the emissions-free hydroelectricity.” Other renewable energy resources also may have some
emissions associated with them in the short term, but given their ability to be utilized multiple times,
unlike coal or other nonrenewable sources, it is likely that net emissions from their use will be zero or
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negative. Because energy use is typically one of the biggest components of a production’s emissions,
studios and stars concerned about the environmental impact of their operations should take into
consideration the grid cleanliness of the states that are trying to draw them in with generous tax credits
and lower labor/living costs.
Industry Roles, Research, and Reactions
And productions have been worried about the environmental impact of their operations, as
evidenced by the creation of groups to research and calculate just how big of a footprint their work
creates. As early as 2003, Corbett and Turco (2006) found that “environmental manager” was a role at
several major studios, including Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros., and that these managers “share
information about their environmental practices freely with each other, and…meet regularly.” The
Hollywood Reporter published a “Sustainability Issue” in June 2022, and one article was about the
environmental executives at major film companies and what their motivations were today. Lisa Day,
manager of environmental sustainability at The Walt Disney Co., repeats the sentiment of twenty years
prior when it comes to sustainability on set, saying, “We [entertainment companies] can be as competitive
as we want to at the box office, on our linear channels and our streaming services, but this
[environmentalism] is an area where we really need to be cooperative and not competitive,” (Chuba,
2022). Jennifer Lynch, senior VP of corporate social responsibility and internal communications at
Paramount Pictures, also chimed in on the topic, sharing her perspective that “Someone that might be
working on Mission: Impossible 7 for us this year, when they go to work…for Warner [Bros] next year,
they bring with them that sustainable expectation and behavior….Then it doesn't just become a studio-by-
studio initiative — but an industry-wide one,” (Chuba, 2022). Warner Bros./Discovery’s director of
sustainability, Mike Slavich, added to the conversation as well, stating “For a lot of us, looking back and
seeing how quickly and how effectively the industry mobilized to address the challenge of the pandemic
and come up with solutions that we could all agree upon and implement quickly on that scale, is a great
lesson for sustainability…I think that you can apply those learnings and say, ‘OK, let's apply those same
29
resources, that collective effort to solving some of these other problems,’” (Chuba, 2022). There are still
several major roadblocks within the industry, with Slavich noting that “Fuel still remains the biggest
impact area of our production…because of the heavy-duty vehicles that we're using and the generators
that are required to power our sets…On the vehicle side, there just isn't inventory yet [of] the alternatives
[like electric or hybrid vehicles] in place to be able to purchase those vehicles. With generators, as well,
there isn't an inventory of mobile batteries that can replace the power needs that we have,” (Chuba, 2022).
This has not stopped the studios from trying to curb the problems that they can, though. The Hollywood
Reporter article (2022) outlines the various ways each one is stepping up to the challenge to lower their
impacts: “Disney has a 2030 goal for achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions for direct operations;
Sony aims for 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030…Paramount is part of the U.S. Department of
Energy’s Better Climate challenge, committing to a 50 percent greenhouse gas reduction in 10 years;
NBCUniversal aims at being carbon neutral by 2035; Netflix projects it will achieve net zero greenhouse
gas emissions by the end of 2022; and Amazon has a 2040 net zero carbon goal and says it’s on track to
powering its operations with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. Across the board, the companies
have pledged to focus on water conservation (via artificial landscaping and water refill stations), energy
efficiency (via renewable energy sources and conservation), waste minimization (via reusing, recycling,
and composting), low emission transportation (via electric vehicles) and sustainable building design (via
LEED certifications),” (Chuba, 2022). While this list is by no means exhaustive of everything the industry
is undertaking, it shows the across-the-board commitment of these companies to do a little more good.
This commitment can also be seen in the industry organizations formed to learn about and combat
the negative side effects of filming. One such organization is the Environmental Media Association,
which began a “Green Seal” program in 2003 because they “wanted to be able to work behind the scenes
with productions to teach people how to be more sustainable,” according to EMA’s Chief Executive
Officer, Debbie Levin. The EMA website describes the Green Seal program as a “recognition program
honoring progress in sustainable production for movies, television shows (animated and live action)
30
filmed commercials and print advertising,” (Environmental Media Association, EMA Green Seal). The
program operates on a 200-point scale, with a minimum of 75 points required to receive EMA Green Seal
recognition (Environmental Media Association, EMA Green Seal). In recent years, some projects have
done enough to earn 125 points or more, and for them the EMA awards a Gold Seal of recognition
(Environmental Media Association, EMA Green Seal). The award ceremony is highly publicized and
often has several notable celebrities present as recipients or presenters, which furthers the prestige and
therefore appeal of earning a Green or Gold Seal. Another example is the Producers Guild of America’s (a
trade association for producers dating back to the mid-1900s) establishment of their ‘PGA Green’
committee, which went on to establish the Production Environmental Accounting Checklist or PEACH
that provides scores for films applying to the EMA Green Seal program. In 2010, PGA Green partnered
with the Sustainable Production Alliance, a “consortium of the world’s leading film, television, and
streaming companies dedicated to accelerating the transformation of the entertainment business into a
more sustainable industry,” (The Credits, 2020). Together, they created the Green Production Guide,
which would eventually publish the “Carbon Emissions of Film and Television Production” report
discussed earlier in this paper. This report concluded with a look at the future endeavors of the SPA as it
related to the findings of the study. The authors wrote, “Given that emissions from fuel use are most often
the primary contributor to a production’s carbon footprint, SPA has prioritized finding solutions to
transition the fossil fuels used in film and television productions to clean, renewable energy
solutions…electrical grid tie-ins reduce the need for diesel generators…When tie-ins are not available,
emerging developments in battery generator technology promise [can be] clean, portable power
alternatives…Powering… with battery generators directly improves air quality on set while also
eliminating noise pollution, improving human health while reducing overall carbon emissions for the
production,” (Sustainable Production Alliance, 2021). The GPG continues to research and report the
environmental impacts of the motion picture industry, as well as develop and share tools and methods to
help reduce them.
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The interviews done by the UCLA study also yielded similarly interesting avenues for affecting
change in the motion picture industry. Interviewees stressed their experiences that the industry was based
on systems of seniority and mentorship, and therefore changes would have to be made by the more well-
connected and influential figures to stick (Corbett & Turco, 2006). The authors wrote, “When asked how
environmental best practices could best be implemented within film production, these interviewees agreed
that the production hierarchy within the motion picture industry must become the vehicle for
implementing any “green” production strategies, and that, furthermore, it is crucial to first “educate and
influence the influential.” Each interviewee further recommended that the unions within the industry
would be significant resources for helping to educate the “influential” - directors and producers - about
green practices and that the DGA and PGA would be the most effective unions to do so,” (Corbett &
Turco, 2006). This statement proves that the later decision by PGA to develop a committee dedicated to
sustainability with the goal of publishing and disseminating information and tools about “green”
production was a wise one. Interviewees also referenced the success of the American Humane Association
(AHA) Film and Television Unit when theorizing how new practices could be enforced on set (Corbett &
Turco, 2006). The AHA got involved in film in the 1940s and continued to be vocal about animal rights
on set until they successfully obtained an agreement with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Alliance
of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) in the 1980s (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Ever since,
the “No Animals Were Harmed...” disclaimer has become so commonplace in the end credits of films it is
hardly noteworthy, a major victory for the AHA advocates. The research team writes that “during our
conversations with individuals within the motion picture industry, the animal welfare analogy was raised
several times as a model towards which the environmental production guidelines should strive. The
encouraging conclusion one can draw from this is that an outside organization such as the AHA can be
effective in ensuring widespread adoption of better practices,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). The paper goes
on to identify the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) “green building rating
system” and the ISO 14001 “environmental management systems standard” as two potential outside
organizations that could help increase the sustainability of sets/studios. According to the authors, LEED is
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a “complete framework for assessing building performance and meeting sustainability goals…[that]
emphasizes state of the art strategies for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency,
materials selection and indoor environmental quality,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Warner Bros. had already
used LEED standards for a remodel of one of their buildings at the time of the study’s publication in
2006, and LEED’s popularity has only increased since. ISO 14001 is not as popular in the United States
but is well-known and utilized internationally, which creates the opportunity for U.S.-based productions
that “[don’t] yet have an environmental management system in place” to have a “framework provided by
ISO 14001 [as] a reasonable place to start” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Additionally, the global popularity of
it means that “holding [a production] company to this internationally recognized standard allows it to
compete more effectively in today's global marketplace” (Corbett & Turco, 2006), potentially leading to
greater profits for a company willing to invest the money, time, and energy in adhering to these standards.
In an industry so fixated on finances and fame, any route to improved sustainability that reputable
individuals or organizations endorse and/or results in reduced costs is one they just might be willing to try
out.
In the twenty-first century, more and more productions are willing and able to adjust their
standard practices to make themselves a little ‘greener.’ One example is Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film
Inception, which utilized solar power for the base camp of its set, a component that requires “about 10%-
20% of the power that the set requires” (d’Estries, 2010). The two sequels to The Matrix, both released in
2003, had at least 12,000 tons of materials utilized in their sets, but the production worked on “a joint
project between Warner Brothers, the city of Alameda [filming location], the Alameda County Waste
Management Authority, and The ReUse People [non-profit recycling organization], [through which] 97.5
percent of all the set material was recycled,” (Corbett & Turco, 2006). Jordan Peele’s 2022 film Nope
pursued several sustainability initiatives on set, including “[working] closely with their fuel vendor to
obtain renewable diesel fuel, which has approximately 80% less lifecycle carbon emissions than standard
diesel…[using] LED set lighting, which use 70% less energy than conventional counterparts…avoiding
33
the use of over 170,000 plastic water bottles by using reusable and aluminum bottles…and [donating]
2,200 meals from excess catering to those in need in the Los Angeles area,” (NBCUniversal, 2022). Nope
earned a Gold Seal from the EMA as a celebration of their numerous efforts to reduce their environmental
impact. As impressive as all these accomplishments are, there are some organizations and innovations
going above and beyond even these high benchmarks to "green" the habits of Hollywood.
Case Studies
Earth Angel: “Strategy, Staff, Stuff and Stats”
Founding
Emillie O’Brien attended New York University’s film school and realized quickly after
graduating that she wanted to focus on the intersection of sustainability and filmmaking. In a 2021
interview with Atmos, she shared that she “was shocked by the sheer amount of waste on film sets,”
adding, “Film is also a circus-like industry. We come in, we set up camp, and then we leave. But it
requires a ton of power, transportation, and diesel generators,” (Demasi, 2021). This paper has previously
discussed the damage caused by these processes at length, and O’Brien knew she wanted to help further
along the elimination and improvement of these environmentally unfriendly ways of doing business. She
told Huffpost in 2017, “I felt compelled to use my environmental activism and knowledge of production
to help advance [sustainability on set]. I took my first job as an Environmental Steward on a Big Beach
movie back in 2011, where I spent approximately 16 hours per day digging through set trash. It was on
that job that I earned the nickname Earth Angel,” (Dong, 2017). Her exposure and reputation from
working on that first film led her to booking two more blockbusters, Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and Sony’s
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Dong, 2017). After her success in both “greening” these sets and
demonstrating why it was important, she decided to transform Earth Angel from a nickname to a business
(Dong, 2017).
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Process
The Earth Angel website (Services Overview) has a section titled "Our Model,” which outlines
how their “on-set sustainability experience [has] resulted in identifying the four key areas that have to be
addressed when implementing sustainable production practices: Strategy, Staff, Stuff and Stats. Simply
put: it’s all about the 4 S’s.” Speaking to Reana Johnson (2021) of Refinery29, founder O’Brien
emphasized that “sustainability efforts have to be just as easy and obtainable as other methods:
‘[Sustainable options] have to be part of the infrastructure. It has to be just as easy as picking up the
phone and calling that one vendor that they used to call all of the time. And it will show up tomorrow. It's
got to be like that.’” Jennifer Sandoval, current director of business development at Earth Angel, was kind
enough to answer a few questions for this thesis about how the company is introduced to and strategizes
with productions, along with what goals and challenges they often have. She said the usual way they are
approached to work with a production is by “either a studio, production company or producer…mostly
above-the-line person. However, we have been really lucky to work with incredible department heads and
crew that may have had some influence with the production in hiring Earth Angel,” (J. Sandoval, personal
communication, November 8, 2023). In terms of how they get things done, she said, “Our main areas of
impact are waste management, clean energy, fuel reduction and sustainable sourcing. Together with our
Strategy Manager, we come up with a customized plan that is approved by the production. Because the
supply chain and infrastructure are not the same in every region, and because each production is unique,
the production goals may vary from one project to the next. So, we really make our recommendations
based on the informed decisions of the client,” (J. Sandoval, personal communication, October 25, 2023).
She got into the specifics, sharing “If productions are kind of starting out with their sustainability efforts,
we usually start with a basic waste management plan where we encourage multi-stream collection and
sorting all of the production waste on site. Our on-the-ground Eco Reps, who are part of the crew, are
absolutely critical in assisting with these efforts as it is not always very straightforward. Having waste
vendors that understand the specific needs of the film and television industry and providing the
productions with the right equipment to be able to sort properly will generally lead to higher diversion
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rates. After awhile, the crew will get the hang of what goes where and we can see better outcomes,” (J.
Sandoval, personal communication, October 25, 2023). O’Brien echoed this sentiment this year in a
conversation with Sharon Swart of The Hollywood Reporter, stating, “When productions sign Earth Angel
on to a project, they’ll have up to seven specialists that will be working on the project throughout the
process, including experts in analytics, material recovery, waste and energy strategy, education, industry
relations, as well as a project supervisor and on-set eco-coordinator. We’re a sustainability department.
We are working every single day on-set along with our fellow departments.” When asked if they are ever
successful enough on a set to change behaviors so that they don’t need to be rehired, Sandoval replied,
“Because Earth Angel's services cover all aspects of sustainability, it is difficult for productions to really
take on the work themselves as they simply do not have the time and capacity to do what we do. We have
an entire "back of house" team that supports our Eco Reps and Eco Coordinators. They help with
everything from budgeting, to strategy, to finding and providing fully trained Eco Reps, to sourcing green
vendors and also data collection and reporting. Our services are very comprehensive so until this work
can someday be fully integrated into other crew roles, or until productions hire their own sustainability
departments, productions can rely on Earth Angel to do this work for them, sort of like an outsourced
Sustainability Department,” (J. Sandoval, personal communication, October 25, 2023). O’Brien has also
pointed out the benefits of having such well-trained consultants to reporters before: “There's a lot of
different actions that you can take, and I think it can feel overwhelming to people, but [by] really dialing
in on: Okay for this project, we want to focus on eliminating single-use plastics for this project. We want
to focus on getting as many hybrid and [electric] vehicles as we can onto this project, like really zoning in
on what's available to your project, [sustainability can work],” (Wilson, 2022). However, coming up with
relevant ‘green’ solutions is only half the battle: Earth Angel still must convince the productions to
undertake them.
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Challenges
Sandoval admitted in her interview that “Probably the most difficult thing is trying to get
production to cover the sustainability costs,” (J. Sandoval, personal communication, October 25, 2023).
O’Brien has also stated that as a hurdle, telling Swart (2023) that “One of the largest contentions to
bringing us on a project is creating a new line item in the budget, [though] more and more productions are
seeing the value.” She shared that Earth Angel’s overall services average around $30,000-$40,000 per
project, but also pointed out that if productions were able to find funds to meet the COVID crisis, the
climate crisis should be met with a similar urgency (Swart, 2023). However, it is not easy convincing an
industry that focuses so heavily on the bottom line to change business-as-usual, especially if it comes at
an added cost. Discussing her early experiences with promoting Earth Angel’s mission, O’Brien described
how “I started a business for a previously non-existent service. That in itself is our biggest obstacle. The
fact that this is uncharted territory and that most production budgets do not even include line items for
sustainability means that I often have to fight just to be able to do my job,” (Dong, 2017).
Another challenge is time: Sandoval and O’Brien have both emphasized that the earlier Earth
Angel is brought onto a project, the more likely it is that they can identify where improvements can be
made and incorporate the costs for doing so into the budget before principal photography begins (J.
Sandoval, personal communication, October 25, 2023; Swart, 2023). As time goes on and more concern
for the climate crisis grows, the industry is warming up to making sustainable changes, but making them
happen is still particularly difficult in the U.S. Swart (2023) writes, “Production execs who have worked
with Earth Angel note that part of the issue that’s working against greener sets is that there isn’t one
vision for sustainability on a national scale in the U.S. Sets tend to be greener overseas because there’s
much more existing infrastructure, as some countries are already ahead in terms of eco-mindedness.
Luckily, Earth Angel is still finding ways to move Hollywood forward in the fight for sustainable sets.
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Success Stories
In 2019, CBS’ Evil contracted Earth Angel to help lower their set’s carbon footprint (Low, 2019).
Some of the ways they did so included “no paper scripts or call sheets, only hybrid cars for transportation
to set, biodegradable eating utensils, water stations on set in lieu of single-use plastic bottles, untouched
food [was] donated to food banks or nonprofits, [and] when the production [wrapped], set decorations and
furniture [were] given to organizations like Habitat for Humanity,” (Low, 2019). Jennifer Sandoval shared
that “If we are fortunate to be hired to work on a television series, we tend to get invited back for
subsequent seasons as the crew may be more receptive and everyone has a better understanding of what is
possible and tend to want to do better,” (J. Sandoval, personal communication, October 25, 2023). This
certainly does not mean movies are any less interested in contracting Earth Angel’s services: Fox 2000’s
2019 film The Woman in the Window also hired Earth Angel for 53+ shoot days in New York City (3BL
Media, 2019). Over the course of eight weeks, their set avoided the use of 57,600 plastic bottles, recycled
13 pounds of electronic waste and 17 pounds of textiles, donated 86,371 pounds of materials, and avoided
24 metric tons of CO
2e
using hybrid vehicles (3BL Media, 2019). In addition, 47% of all lumber
purchased was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or the
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), and the Wardrobe Department purchased
25% of the movie’s costumes from thrift stores, rather than new from retailers (3BL Media, 2019).
Another recent partner of Earth Angel is the critically acclaimed 2022 film The Whale, directed by Darren
Aronofsky, an earlier admirer of founder Emillie O’Brien’s work (they previously collaborated on Noah
in 2014) (Swart, 2023). On The Whale, Earth Angel was able to help the crew “divert 5.4 tons of materials
from landfills and recover an additional 2.1 tons of donations during its wrap, achieving an overall
diversion rate of 82 percent,” (Swart, 2023). Some of the materials were donated to a local performing
arts academy and over a thousand meals were donated to local food banks (Swart, 2023). As impressive
as these numbers are, they are a mere fraction of what Earth Angel has been able to accomplish since its
founding in 2013.
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Impact
The Earth Angel website has an entire page dedicated to “Our Impact,” and the numbers do not
lie: they are making a difference. In their 2022 report, they share that they worked on 32% more projects
than 2021 and 49% more than 2020 (Earth Angel, Our Impact). The forty-one 2022 productions included
four feature films, 19 television shows, and 8 commercial productions; across all of them, 5,042 metric
tons of carbon dioxide were avoided, the equivalent of 567,346 gallons of gasoline not being consumed or
981 homes’ energy use for one year (Earth Angel, Our Impact). Aggregating across all their years of
operation, Earth Angel has diverted 19 million pounds of waste from landfill, recovered 241,000 meals
for food banks and those in need, avoided 16,016 metric tons of carbon dioxide, saved 901 trees, avoided
nearly 3.9 million plastic water bottles, and donated 365,372 pounds of material (Earth Angel, Our
Impact). Perhaps most importantly to their clients, they have saved $1.2 million for the productions they
have worked on (Earth Angel, Our Impact).
As previously discussed, consensus on the need for action to avoid the worst dangers of climate
change is all but universal among scientists; as the same becomes true for industries, they will be looking
for more innovative ways to reduce their own impacts and lessen the likelihood of dire global
consequences from climate change. For the motion picture industry, working with a company like Earth
Angel is a great place to start.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2: “We compost in the kitchen, which is disgusting, but we do
it.”
Partnership
As mentioned in the previous section, one of Earth Angel founder Emillie O’Brien’s first major
films that she worked as a sustainability consultant on was Sony’s 2014 blockbuster The Amazing Spider-
Man 2. Emillie shared about that gig in an interview with Trina Dong (2017), saying “Spider-Man was the
hardest job I've ever done. I even gave myself tendinitis from lifting garbage day in and day out. But it
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proved the success of the model of having a designated sustainability representative on the production to
make these achievements possible.” Her work would help make this film "the most eco-friendly
blockbuster in Sony Pictures' history," (at least, at the time) (Dong, 2017), as well as a recipient of a
Green Seal from the Environmental Media Association, an organization mentioned earlier that scores a
film’s self-reported sustainable practices and awards those that go above and beyond in their pursuit of
‘greener’ sets. Debbie Levin, president of the Environmental Media Association, told the Hollywood
Reporter a simple truth made evident by Earth Angel’s collaboration with Spider-Man: “At the end of the
day, for the cost of an eco-manager’s salary, you could be saving thousands of thousands of dollars and
saving obviously unbelievable resources for the environment,” (Girkout, 2014). Indeed, through
O’Brien’s efforts, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 saved around $400,000 (Girkout, 2014), ten times how
much Earth Angel’s services typically cost. This is obviously a huge achievement for one production,
especially one the size of this film, and the production team was not shy about sharing how and why they
turned a beloved red-and-blue superhero a little more green.
Saving Another Kind of ‘Green’
The main source of information for how ASM2 accomplished its sustainability goals is a
promotional reel put together with members of the crew (Environmental Media Association, 2014), who
each share a little about how their respective departments did their part to help reduce their production’s
environmental impact. Mark Friedberg, production designer, shared that “We have…stores of walls from
old sets that we are constantly reusing…We’re gonna have a lot of steel to give back, we’re gonna have a
lot of glass to chop up and give back” (Environmental Media Association, 2014). In total, over 49 tons of
materials were recovered or donated, which the video (2014) states is equal to 142 NYE balls. John
Frazier, special effects supervisor, described that “All the snow we used is totally biodegradable, [the]
atmospheric smoke is all water-based…which makes it less harmful for the atmosphere and the actors,”
(Environmental Media Association, 2014). In a similar vein, stunt coordinator Andy Armstrong said that
they used biodegradable material to recover spilled oil and other byproducts from their car crash stunts,
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ensuring these fluids did not get into drains of where they were filming (Environmental Media
Association, 2014). O’Brien shared that they began a textile recycling program for all the loose fabrics
left over in costumes, which they would then take to weekly farmers markets to sell (Environmental
Media Association, 2014). She also stated that they were able to donate leftover food after lunch in the
amount of 5,861 meals, all going to a local shelter, which was the equivalent of 7,620 lbs. (Environmental
Media Association, 2014). The team also conserved almost 200,000 plastic water bottles, enough to
surround the island of Manhattan, and diverted 755 tons of the set’s total waste stream, equal to 3 Statue
of Liberty’s (Environmental Media Association, 2014). Costume designer Deborah L. Scott described
how in her department, “We use eco-friendly detergents, we use mostly cold water” and added that “We
compost in the kitchen…which is disgusting, but we do it” (Environmental Media Association, 2014).
The latter statement shows that even if people may be resistant to change in ‘business-as-usual,’ the
collective buy-in of the whole production can make these changes easier to embrace, as they become the
new norm for ‘business-as-usual.’ O’Brien recognized this early on, telling Trina Dong at Huffpost in
2017 that “From sorting food waste on the catering truck to instructing actors on proper recycling
procedures to making refillable water stations readily available at video village, our day is mainly about
making the Earth Angel system easy, convenient and consistent for all cast and crew to adjust to…Being
in the trenches alongside them before call time, and even after the cameras are off, is the way that we've
earned our industry's respect.” Of course, a little positive reinforcement never hurts, and that is one
method O’Brien utilized while on set with ASM2. She shared in the YouTube video (2014) that “We did a
Green Crew Member of the Week, and they would get some kind of a prize, be it a Sony t-shirt or free
movie tickets or Blurays. People got really into it!...My problem right now is I have too many people I
want to reward, which is a great problem to have!” This further reinforces the idea that getting everyone
excited and willing to participate in these sometimes-tedious activities is a crucial part of success. E.
Bennett Walsh, executive producer, echoed this sentiment: “Because it’s on the set, because it’s in the
office, everybody just started to get the habits of it, and it has an impact,” (Environmental Media
Association, 2014). And the impact is not contained just to the set of The Amazing Spider-Man 2; makeup
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artist Howard Berger stated that, after seeing the massive benefits of ‘greening’ the Spider-Man set,
“Working on this movie, I’m going to go back home to LA and implement a little bit more stricter policies
in terms of being green and recycling,” (Environmental Media Association, 2014). This domino effect is
the ultimate goal of Earth Angel when working with a production, and it is safe to say the Amazing
Spider-Man 2 crew passed with flying colors.
Amazing Spider-Man Social Media!
Emillie O’Brien did not stop at tasking the crew members to be more sustainable in their
everyday lives through her work on The Amazing Spider-Man 2. She, with the endorsement of Sony, also
took to Twitter, creating the handle @EcoSpidey and providing exclusive content like “factoids on
production-based measures (such as: “755 tons were diverted from landfill or reused while making The
Amazing #SpiderMan 2—that’s the same as 3 Statues of Liberty”), shout-outs to “Green Crew Members
of the Week,” photos of the stars’ involvement in community activities such as tree planting or bike
riding, and posts linking the film to environmental cross-promotions” (Ashe, 2019). This helped ASM2’s
sustainability messaging reach a much wider audience than just those working on the Sony lot where
filming occurred. The Twitter campaign encouraged users, Spidey fans or not, to “step up 2 the challenge
of being sustainable” and referenced Spider-Man’s iconic “#withgreatpowercomesgreatresponsibility”
mantra as motivation to join the ASM2 team in efforts to be ‘green’ (Ashe, 2019). EcoSpidey also did
cross-promotion with the organization Earth Hour, created by the World Wildlife Fund, which sponsors a
one-hour turn off of all lights and non-essential appliances at events across the world (Ashe, 2019). The
two organizations did a “co-joined publicity tour and online campaign with several videos featuring
Spider-Man and its cast endorsing the event,” leading to total funds raised for WWF of $60,000 (Ashe,
2019). With far-reaching and inventive methods like this, it is easy to see why activists praise The
Amazing Spider-Man 2 so highly, even to this day, for its accomplishments in sustainability.
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The Volume: “The culmination of over a decade of innovation in the virtual production
space”
The Filmmaking Revolution that Began with a Roar
In 1991, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park made a revolutionary leap forward with its use of
computer-generated graphics for its dinosaurs. At the time, it was an unsanctioned experiment by the
digital artists working on the film. Time was of the essence, as per usual for films working on tight
budgets, but it was also their greatest challenge when trying to design these programs from scratch.
Digital artist Jean Bolte has said that “it took a long time, I think it was six months to paint one dinosaur”
(Kasdan, 2022), and the film had plenty more than one dinosaur in it. Painting them to look realistic was
only half the battle: they also had to roar and run realistically. Steve Williams, special effects artist and
animator, shared in a documentary about the movie’s making that “It took me four months to figure out
that [the first T. rex running] animation” (Kasdan, 2022). However, although the initial CG learning curve
was steep, it was not long before the special effects team got the hang of it. Williams stated that “The last
shot I animated was the Rex chasing Jeff Goldblum…by that time, you know, it took me just five, six
days to animate that shot,” (Kasdan, 2022). Director Steven Spielberg recounted that upon watching the
first animated T. Rex running shot, “I had a kind of religious experience, and probably the greatest
epiphany I’ve ever experienced in my own world of making movies. That was the moment that I suddenly
saw that everything was going to change…and we’re never going to go back,” (Kasdan, 2022). He was
right. Ed Catmull, computer graphics artist, summed it up well: “Now suddenly…these projects that
George [Lucas] has initiated, in the video editing…in digital audio, in the computer graphics, all of them
come together, and the industry changes in about a three, four year time span,” (Kasdan, 2022). And the
world of filmmaking was never the same.
How It Works
A couple of decades later, a new pioneer in this field emerged: actor, director, and producer Jon
Favreau. Favreau directed the live-action 2016 remake of The Jungle Book and wanted to use the
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opportunity to improve the possibility for interactive light on sets and actors while filming a
blue/greenscreen-heavy film; his goal was to accurately capture the “things that you cannot fake later
effectively” (Baruh & Bestenheider, 2020). He was able to improve but not perfect this process and
pushed the envelope further on the 2019 live-action Lion King. For that film, he utilized virtual reality to
stage the shots planned for the film, from which he could then practice and analyze camera and light
placement in the VR space to make sure light and shadow were captured accurately when actually filming
(Baruh & Bestenheider, 2020). This meant less reliance on CGI (computer-generated imagery) in the
post-production process to fix any inaccuracies that occurred during day-of filming, saving time and
money for the production. Just a few short years later, Favreau’s dream to avoid post-production
headaches from day-of filming’s mistakes would make lightyears of progress in being realized, with the
creation of “The Volume.”
To hear Favreau put it, the creation of The Volume is not particularly impressive: “The
technology was there. Using newly available hardware, these fast video cards for gaming, these really
good screens, and motion capture technology, so you had positional data on the camera. We made what
we call the Volume. Because that’s what they call a motion capture volume. It wasn’t like we coined it, we
were just using that term,” (Kasdan, 2022). But just like those first CG dinosaurs in 1991, this tool’s use is
likely to forever change the way of filmmaking. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM, for short), the company
that began under George Lucas in 1977 and created the revolutionary special visual effects of Star Wars,
Jurassic Park, Casper, and Rango, was also the company that built The Volume. Chief Creative Officer of
ILM, Rob Bredow, said about their development process, “The basic idea is, what if you had a perfect
screen that surrounded you almost 360 degrees, above you and all of your sides, and you could make any
digital environment that you wanted to create on that wall. It’s thousands of these small patches that make
up this seamless wall, and it’s really kind of amazing…It’s just a continuous surface to your eye and to
the camera,” (Kasdan, 2022). Technically speaking, The Volume is a “20’ high by 270-degree semicircular
LED video wall and ceiling with a 75’-diameter performance space, where…practical set pieces [are]
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combined with digital extensions on the screens,” (Industrial Light and Magic, 2020). How it works is
that digital artists take real photos of locations or set pieces and manipulate/expand them to fill the entire
wall of screens, at a level of detail that actor/director Taika Waititi has said “Sometimes you’d walk into
that Volume and you wouldn’t even realize where the screen were…even to the human eye, you’d get
deceived and you wouldn’t quite be able to figure out where the practical stuff ended and where the LED
screen began,” (Baruh & Bestenheider, 2020). Julie A. Turnock, author of Empire of Effects, described it
as “a functional equivalent of rear-screen projection…a kind of real-time compositing,” demonstrating
how ILM managed to take pieces of old processes and new ones to develop this new means of making
media. This “wall of screens” allows everyone on set to see effects and backdrops while they are
shooting, rather than being surrounded by blue or green sheets for months and hoping everything looks
right in post-production. This was exactly the goal at ILM, and an extremely impressive one at that. Tom
Grater (2021) at Deadline wrote in an article about The Volume, “The…giant LED screens…display
high-quality digital backdrops that encircle a production stage and move as the camera moves, creating a
real-time, dynamic landscape. Rendered via gaming software, these photo-real images effectively remove
the need for green screen.” The effect of the walls “moving as the camera moves” is a phenomenon called
parallax, which means the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different
positions; this is what the use of positional camera data accomplishes. It is the same concept as in first-
player video games, wherein what a player views as they move throughout the game changes with their
position. These various digital advancements had been steadily improving and growing more accessible in
the twenty-first century, but the major feat of ILM was, as Jon Favreau puts it, “[combining them] in a
way nobody’s done it before” (Baruh & Bestenheider, 2020). For filmmakers, actors, producers, and
executives who have been fortunate enough to work with The Volume, it has made a galaxy of difference.
Rave Reviews
The Volume’s first major use was on the Disney+ series The Mandalorian in 2019, and it got rave
reviews from all parts of the production and the greater film and television industry for how seamless it
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made creating such a complex and highly anticipated series. Janet Lewin, co-producer on the show, said
about The Volume that it “allows filmmakers unparalleled creative control and collaboration during prep
and shoot, which is a game-changer on a huge visual effects driven series like The Mandalorian”
(Industrial Light & Magic, Stagecraft). For a series as beloved and expansive as Star Wars, fans have
lofty expectations for worldbuilding and visual effects. This feeling was shared in a quote from Chris
Bannister, ILM’s Executive Producer of Virtual Production: “One of the things that made virtual
production a perfect fit for The Mandalorian is that they had to create an entire series worth of Star Wars
landscapes at the same cinematic quality that the franchise has always embraced,” (Grater, 2021). The
Volume was able to deliver that. Jon Favreau, who created, executive produced, and directed parts of The
Mandalorian, said that “What [George Lucas] was able to achieve with a lot of time and money with the
[Star Wars] prequels, we were able to do on a TV schedule and budget because we were afforded all of
that through the technological innovations that had happened since he had done that,” (Kasdan, 2022). As
previously discussed, budget is the end-all, be-all in motion picture making, so finding ways to reduce it
is always a goal in the forefront of everyone’s mind. The Mandalorian season one was able to entirely
avoid location shoots thanks to the use of The Volume, a huge source of savings for the production. Rob
Bredow, CCO at ILM, has described how The Volume can make it so “you can be anywhere in the
world…if you want to be in Iceland one day, and you want to be in the desert the next, you can literally
change between those locations with a button click back at the computer that’s controlling the Volume,”
(Kasdan, 2022). Dave Filoni, executive producer and director of The Mandalorian, seconded this: “We
could change the Volume within the half-hour to be a completely different set” (Baruh & Bestenheider,
2020). Bredow explained that this massively increased the location possibilities for the show, sharing,
“You can bring these locations — these amazing desert locations, these amazing buildings that you would
probably never be able to take a crew of 100 or 200 people to, because they just might not be suitable for
that big of a team,” (Lee, 2020). Co-producer Janet Lewin noted similarly that “Rather than relocating the
cast and crew from one location to another, The Mandalorian team shot half of the series on one
Stagecraft [general name for The Volume] that provided more than 60 backdrops,” (Lee, 2020). The
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biggest benefit of the Volume by far, though, was the freedom and control it gave back to the creatives
using it. This includes actors like Carl Weathers, one of the stars of The Mandalorian, who said “I found it
[The Volume] as liberating as anything I‘ve ever worked on, because…you didn’t have to pretend
anymore” (Baruh & Bestenheider, 2020), and directors like Rick Famuyiwa, who has done several
Mandalorian episodes and shared that “I found that what it did was that it…put me back in a set…the
freedom of that was invaluable,” (Baruh & Bestenheider, 2020). Additionally, technical crew got out of it
the ability to capture “as-if-shot-on-location lighting aesthetic” (Turnock, 2022), to “shoot more quickly
on the day, and acquire many in-camera finals, [reducing] VFX shot costs…a major benefit considering
today’s compressed post schedules” (Industrial Light & Magic, Stagecraft), and to “see everything come
together in real-time on a monitor on set; if a particular effect isn’t marrying well with your backdrop, you
can make an adjustment there and then,” (Grater, 2021). As wonderful as the time and cost savings from
such a versatile tool are, executive producer Kathleen Kenedy put it best when discussing the root of why
The Volume works so well: after many years of polka-dot pajama “costumes” and massive blue and
greenscreen “sets”, “I think we’re getting back to real filmmaking” (Kasdan, 2022).
Lights, Camera, Less Impact
The benefits The Volume brings to the creators of motion pictures are notable and exciting, but if
those were the only ones it had, it would not be a worthwhile inclusion in this paper about the motion
picture industry and climate change. Luckily, The Volume’s innovative traits also greatly improve the
sustainability of the productions using it, not just their bottom line. As mentioned earlier, its use
completely negated the need for location shoots in The Mandalorian season one, saving emissions from
travel and energy use in the places they might have traveled to without it (Industrial Light and Magic,
2020). The Hollywood Reporter wrote in its 2022 Sustainability Issue that “The studio [Disney] reported
that the technology [The Volume] reduced the show’s carbon emissions by an average of 30 metric tons
for each shooting location eliminated” (Chuba, 2022), which is the same carbon emissions from over
3,000 gallons of gas consumed, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas
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Equivalencies Calculator (2023). The Volume also required only about half the set to be physically built,
as the rest could be “extended…off into the distance digitally,” (Kasdan, 2022). A massive room of
screens may seem like an electricity bill nightmare, but Janet Lee (2020) at Variety wrote in an article “the
team used LED-powered lights that use 70% less energy than the equivalent incandescent light.” Rob
Bredow, ILM’s Chief Creative Officer, expanded on this, saying: “There’s a lot of construction that can’t
be reused after a big production. You save on all of that with virtual production—you can use these LED
walls for years. It does draw some power, but they’re quite energy efficient. You can also re-use
backgrounds. We have generic locations from all over the world where people have commonly shot
movies, such as Iceland. All you need to do is layer your own production design and set dressing,”
(Grater, 2021). And this is just the beginning for The Volume and technology like it.
Drawbacks
While there are many notable upsides to utilizing technology like The Volume, there can also be
negatives to production relying on it. The primary concern arising from a shift to virtual production tools
is how they alter and potentially eliminate the workflows and job roles present on a set. The film and
television industry operates on a “line” system, wherein “the ‘line’ refers to the separation between
worker categories. Workers hold specific legal privileges and distinction by whether they are identified as
being a “creative” (above-the-line) or “technical” (below-the-line)” (Hendricks, 2022). Tech like The
Volume could disrupt the usual divisions that help determine pay, seniority, and time on set for workers in
this industry, and this may cause problems for the unions and guilds that are organized around specific
above-the-line and below-the-line occupations (Hendricks, 2022). Some of the roles that have been
eliminated historically on virtual production projects include “production designers, set dressers, hair
stylists, make-up and costume designers, special effects technicians, and boom operators,” and a producer
on the tech-heavy film Avatar (2009) described how “When we are on a live-action set you’ll have more
than 100 people. When we’re on a [motion] capture-set, we will maybe have 15 people,” (Hendricks,
2022). Jobs that still do exist are experiencing a change in responsibilities, with one study finding that
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“Cinematographers are losing the ability to claim sole authorship of cinema images as visual effects
artists and other authors now participate in the design and creation of each shot of a Virtual Production
film narrative,” (Hendricks, 2022). There is also the key challenge of learning these modern technologies
that makes their adoption harder, as it will require additional time and money for a production to either
find or train a workforce to be proficient with new virtual tools (Hendricks, 2022). This is in addition to
the cost of purchasing or accessing the tools in the first place if the production company does not have
their own systems to work with. While virtual productions are becoming more ubiquitous as
advancements occur and disseminate more rapidly, there are still “traditionalists” like directors Martin
Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola who remain opposed to the use of heavy visual effects. Prominent
Hollywood figures like these two men hold much sway over the opinions of the rest of the industry
(Hendricks, 2022), presenting further challenges to the widespread use of these “extended reality” tools
like The Volume, despite their cost-effectiveness and lower environmental impact. A lot of doubt still
exists among film and television creators about the merits and drawbacks of virtual productions, but that
is not stopping companies like Industrial Light and Magic from continuing to innovate and improve these
tools.
The Future
As outlined earlier, this technology has been the result of a steady march forward in digital
innovation for over three decades. Industrial Light and Magic only hopes to continue pushing it farther.
Lisa Day, the manager of environmental sustainability at The Walt Disney Co, outlined to The Hollywood
Reporter that “It's still in its infancy, obviously, and we're doing a lot of work to try to figure out where
the line is,” (Chuba, 2022). It might not make sense to do every piece of media in a mostly digital
environment, but if it can save time, money, and the environment, Day believes it is worth it to
experiment (Chuba, 2022). The Volume’s technology has already been used for feature films, episodic
series, music videos, and commercials (Industrial Light & Magic, Stagecraft), demonstrating its
versatility. ILM writes on their website, “With 3 purpose-built StageCraft volumes located in the greater
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Los Angeles area and one in Vancouver, British Columbia available for hire for all types of work…For
those filming elsewhere in the United State or in Europe, we can build a mobile, or pop-up, bespoke
volume designed to meet your project’s specific needs when and where you need it,” (Industrial Light &
Magic, Stagecraft). Director Taika Waititi, who worked with The Volume when he directed episodes of
The Mandalorian, employed a pop-up version in Sydney, Australia for his Marvel film Thor: Love and
Thunder (Grater, 2021). The ILM team also does not want cost to be an issue for those wanting to try out
The Volume for whatever media they are making. In a recent article from Deadline, Tom Grater (2021)
wrote that, “The Stagecraft team are keen to note that, while the majority of fully-fledged virtual
production shoots to date have been blockbuster-level projects, their vision is for the tech to become
viable for all levels of filmmaking. ‘Our target pricing has been to achieve a Stagecraft day for less than
the price of what it takes to move a production across the same town,’ [Rob] Bredow [CCO of ILM]
explains, ‘It can work out creatively and economically favorable. We find crews commonly shoot 30-50
percent more pages or coverage per day, depending on how they want to use that efficiency. It opens up
the possibility for Stagecraft to be used on a wide variety of productions.’” It seems the sky is not even
the limit for Industrial Light and Magic, seeing as they have already conquered solar systems. One thing
is for certain: movie magic is getting a lot more eco-friendly with the use of tech like The Volume, a
positive change that could not come too soon for the motion picture industry and the global communities
it affects.
Greening or Greenwashing?
While all these advancements certainly are impressive steps for the motion picture industry to
take in reducing their environmental impact, much of the ‘green’ accomplishments and accolades arise
from within industry sources and reporting. This creates the potential for a phenomenon called
“greenwashing,” through which media scholar Toby Miller (2019) says “governments, corporations,
individuals, unions, non-government organizations, whatever we consider to be agents or actors in the
social world endeavor…to legitimize their activities by saying ‘we’re pro-environment,’ when in fact, this
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is a bit of a cloak for other activities.” Miller (2019) frames this phenomenon in the motion picture
industry as the result of there being more obvious culprits in the climate change debate, such as oil
extraction, and therefore little critical attention is given to the comparably harmless operations of the
motion picture industry. He says that to get the full picture of this industry’s negative impacts, consumers
must think about the many sources of labor and materials, and who controls them, to understand the
ramifications of business-as-usual (Miller & Suresh, 2019). For example, film cameras can be built with
rare metals mined using techniques dangerous both to people and ecosystems (Williamson, 2023), but that
is rarely (if ever) discussed as a consequence of the motion picture industry’s operation. Although the
physical materiality of this industry is shifting with the change in consumer preferences from VHS and
DVDs to video-on-demand and streaming, there are still invisible environmental consequences. In 2018,
video-on-demand-related internet services created 102 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions (Hoad,
2020), the equivalent emissions of twenty homes’ electricity use for one year (Environmental Protection
Agency, Greenhouse Gas). With the switch to digital, media productions require more data storage both
during and after filming, and continual increases in quality/definition are leading to one data executive to
state “total market demand for entertainment and media digital storage is projected to more than double”
by 2025 (Lan, 2022). One source stated that “larger data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of
water each day” and that they use “up to 50 times as much energy per square foot as a typical commercial
office building,” with only 10% going to computing and over 40% going to cooling alone (Williamson,
2023). This only scratches the surface of the ripple effect impacts the film and television industry has on
the environment, but there are a few other notable greenwashing examples pertaining to the case studies
presented here.
In a paper published by Melanie Ashe of Concordia University, she discusses the
environmentalist messaging promoted by The Amazing Spider-Man 2. She outlines that there were
“multiple advertising strategies…launched, some that purposefully stressed the environmental advocacy
angle—and others that ignored it entirely,” (Ashe, 2019). Ashe (2019) also emphasizes that all the
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sustainability marketing done by the ASM2 team was about the production process, entirely neglecting to
admit how much of a footprint was generated by post-production activities like the worldwide press tour
that required dozens of carbon dioxide-spewing international flights and massive stages for premieres to
be built and used for merely one night. This is one example of “greenwashing” within this film, but
unfortunately, it is not the only one. A notable achievement shared in the promotional reel about the film
stated that through Emillie O’Brien’s efforts, the production conserved nearly 200,000 plastic water
bottles (Environmental Media Association, 2014). However, ASM2 also ran a media promotion with
plastic water bottle company Evian, a video of which has over thirty million views on YouTube alone
(Imageworks VFX, 2014), indicating the film/production company is not as anti-plastic as they portrayed
themselves to be. Another example of misleading sustainable marketing can be found on the set of Earth
Angel partner production The Woman in the Window. One of the changes heralded as ‘green’ on their set
was the use of Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood for almost half of the sets (3BL Media, 2019).
In 2018, Yale University’s School of the Environment published a piece titled “Greenwashed Timber:
How Sustainable Forest Certification Has Failed,” in which they discussed how there have been
accusations made in Russia, China, Peru, and Romania that the FSC had certified companies logging
illegally and were slow to rescind or suspend their certifications (Conniff, 2018). The author, Richard
Conniff (2018), wrote that “many logging companies appeared to obtain an FSC certification for
management practices on one forest, and then use it to cast a halo over their far more extensive dealings
in forests elsewhere.” The many historical instances of shady business practices from this organization
indicate that sustainability advocates should be more cautious about touting their involvement as an
environmental ‘win’ for a production. Given the lack of international regulation on groups like the FSC, it
often takes non-governmental organizations conducting their own investigations to determine their
legitimacy, and it is likely there are numerous other companies being celebrated as ‘green’ that are, in
actuality, anything but. As corporate environmental activism grows more popular among motion picture
companies hoping to win over climate-conscious consumers, it is necessary for said consumers to
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critically examine all self-published reports of sustainability for what issues or inquiries may have been
left on the cutting room floor.
Conclusion
Anthropogenic climate change is a topic that the vast majority of scientists agree is occurring and
is extremely dangerous to global ecosystems and ways of life, yet minimal collective action is being taken
to reduce it. There are several common targets for climate activists when lobbying for legislation or
mandates related to their contributions to climate change; these include the sectors of energy,
transportation, and agriculture. A separate but equally prominent sector is the motion picture industry, but
it rarely comes up in conversation with the phrases ‘environmental impact’ or ‘carbon footprint.’
However, it makes a sizable contribution to both topics, primarily through its massive energy
requirements for equipment and travel, and the enormous amounts of waste it generates from set-building,
props, and catering services. There is little up-to-date, comprehensive research available about the overall
environmental impacts of this industry, but this thesis aimed to fill in some of the gaps left by scholarly
publications with firsthand comments and stories about where the industry’s footprint comes from and
what they are doing to reduce it. And they are working to reduce it, although often with third-party
organizations that are not large enough to cover all the sets that could benefit from their services. There
are some initiatives being generated within the industry, though: one thing moviemakers have always
done well is pioneer advances in technology, and the same is true for their pursuit of sustainable
technological alternatives to how they are doing business currently. Because these technologies can be
repackaged for use by other facilities and companies, they present a unique opportunity to both be more
sustainable and generate profits, unlike using ‘green’ consultants on set, whose salaries detract from any
savings they might be able to create with their suggestions. Through the research conducted for this
thesis, a few other options emerged as plausible paths for the motion picture industry to continue to
reduce its negative environment impacts.
53
The first option is a legislative route, which would be the responsibility of some level of
government in the places where filming is taking place to make it applicable to productions. This could
take the form of a technology requirement, such as the state of California and the European Union’s
recent mandates that all new passenger vehicles in their respective boundaries be zero emissions by 2035.
Productions use vehicles both on set and to get to it, ranging in number from dozens to hundreds of
vehicles per set, so this type of legislation would cut down emissions significantly from travel. The
second option is also governmental: adding in a tax credit increase for productions that spend part of their
budgets on implementing sustainable procedures on their sets. Tax credits are allotted by local or state
governments or film commissions and are already a very familiar and expected part of production
planning/budgeting. The availability and size of them often determines the locations in which it films, so
providing another means to save money (and one that would also do good) is likely to add to the
attractiveness of the location offering it. This is already a route pursued by international film commissions
(Green Production Guide), demonstrating its soundness as a sustainable option and the willingness of
productions to change their operations to take advantage of it. The third option relates to the oversight of
the motion picture company financing a given production, and entails the requirement of a system like the
Production Environmental Accounting Report (PEAR), developed by the Sustainable Production Alliance
to measure the use and success of sustainable practices on sets, to be used on any production it is deemed
relevant to (which, seeing as they all have an environmental impact, should theoretically be all of them).
This system can show companies where their operations are lacking or excelling in terms of minimizing
environmental impacts, and if they do choose to use the PEAR system, they could be eligible for awards
like the Environmental Media Association’s Green or Gold Seal simply by recording their day-to-day
practices. The final, and potentially simplest, option ties applies to the catering or craft services provided
by sets for the crew and actors. It is the reduction, if not elimination, of meat from the menus utilized by
these services. Animal agriculture makes up about 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions (Environmental
Media Association, EMA Green Seal), and cows are a particularly potent source of methane release, the
second most abundant human-contributed greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (Environmental Protection
54
Agency, Importance). Methane is also over twenty-five times more effective at trapping heat in the
atmosphere than carbon dioxide, worsening the phenomenon of global warming that is part of and
contributes to climate change. These four options are just a few of the ways that the motion picture
industry (and others like it) could work to improve their current operations to lessen their contributions to
anthropogenic climate change and its globally damaging effects. Although there is still a long journey
ahead for the motion picture industry to reach net zero carbon/greenhouse gas emissions, as will be
necessary for every industry in order to minimize the negative consequences of climate change, there is
already meaningful change being brought about by passionate and progressive individuals and
organizations. Moviemakers have always strived to be picture-perfect in their on-camera work; the goal
of picture-perfect practices behind the camera is getting closer and closer every day, too.
55
Appendix
1. Transcript of 10/25/23 and 11/8/23 interviews with Jennifer Sandoval, director of business
development at Earth Angel
[ALEXIS SIMPSON] What area of productions is the most frequent thing you make recommendations on
for clients? It can be as specific as many sets using Styrofoam containers at craft services or a majority of
productions not using recycled materials for sets/recycling the materials they do use.
[JENNIFER SANDOVAL] Whenever we work with productions, we make sure that we understand their
needs, goals and budgets. Depending on the level of service the production chooses, we work with our
team to provide information about what can be achieved, how much it costs and then we provide a plan of
action to help them reach their goals. Our main areas of impact are waste management, clean energy, fuel
reduction and sustainable sourcing. Together with our Strategy Manager, we come up with a customized
plan that is approved by the production. Because the supply chain and infrastructure is not the same in
every region, and because each production is unique, the production goals may vary from one project to
the next. So, we really make our recommendations based on the informed decisions of the client.
[SIMPSON] What is the easiest thing to convince clients to change, and what is the thing that gets you the
most pushback and is hardest to convince them of?
[SANDOVAL] Change, in any capacity, can be very challenging. If productions are kind of starting out
with their sustainability efforts, we usually start with a basic waste management plan where we encourage
multi-stream collection and sorting all of the production waste on site. Our on-the-ground Eco Reps who
are part of the crew, are absolutely critical in assisting with these efforts as it is not always very
straightforward. Having waste vendors that understand the specific needs of the film industry and
providing the productions with the right equipment to be able to sort properly will generally lead to higher
diversion rates. After awhile, the crew will get the hang of what goes where and we can see better
outcomes. Probably the most difficult thing is trying to get production to cover the sustainability costs.
However, as mentioned in the first response above, if we are able to meet with the production early
enough and establish a budget to cover these costs before principal photography begins, (which isn't
always the case) it makes it much easier to implement our strategies and we tend to see much better
results. Also, trying to get people to change the way they do things can be very challenging, but as more
people learn about the importance of looking at their own impacts and how they affect the overall carbon
footprint of the production, we tend to get more engagement and collaboration.
[SIMPSON] Has any general type of production (independent, tentpole, documentary, etc.) or specific
company been super receptive to your suggestions and/or that you get rehired by often? Or even better,
that permanently changes their processes to not need to rehire you?
[SANDOVAL] If we are fortunate to be hired to work on a television series, we tend to get invited back
for subsequent seasons as the crew may be more receptive and everyone has a better understanding of
what is possible and tend to want to do better. Because Earth Angel's services cover all aspects of
sustainability, it is difficult for productions to really take on the work themselves as they simply do not
have the time and capacity to do what we do. We have an entire "back of house" team that supports our
Eco Reps and Eco Coordinators. They help with everything from budgeting, to strategy, to finding and
56
providing fully trained Eco Reps, to sourcing green vendors and also data collection and reporting. Our
services are very comprehensive so until this work can someday be fully integrated into other crew roles,
or until productions hire their own sustainability departments, productions can rely on Earth Angel to do
this work for them, sort of like an outsourced Sustainability Department.
[SIMPSON] I see you have headquarters across the US and Canada, and one thing I’m researching with
my thesis is if looser environmental regulations (which often allow for lower costs) have added to the
interest and increase of productions moving from California to places like Georgia and North Carolina.
Do you see any major or notable differences in similar-sized clients between the two areas in terms of
green practices, including how often you get hired in each place?
[SANDOVAL] Successful sustainability outcomes are highly dependent on available infrastructure,
environmental regulations and a knowledgeable and sustainable supply chain. These can vary greatly
from region to region. For areas that are outside the typical hubs (LA, NYC, Atlanta), Earth Angel does
extensive research and vets vendors throughout the "Out of Service" region to help build its strategy,
understand costs and execute on its sustainability plan. Generally, our work is focused in the major
filming hubs mentioned above, not necessarily because of the available green sustainable production
options, but for other economic or labor incentives. We would love to see film commissions and other
government bodies create green incentives to entice productions to their areas. And given the crisis on our
hands, I envision that we may see some of these types of incentives or rebates sooner than later.
[SIMPSON] Do you ever say no to client requests, and if so, why?
[SANDOVAL] Earth Angel always does its best to provide comprehensive services to productions of all
types (long form, short form, live events etc.), however, there have been times that we have had to turn
down jobs due to lack of capacity or resources.
[SIMPSON] Is there any recent shining example of sustainability on set that I should look into for another
case study topic?
[SANDOVAL] I would refer to the 2022 Earth Angel Annual Impact Report for some interesting
information and to better understand our work. Due to confidentiality reasons, we cannot really share any
information from any particular productions that we work with, but you can get a sense of the overall
impacts from our Annual Report. I would also check out the albert and Green Production Guide websites
for some interesting case studies and other great info.
[SIMPSON] How do you find clients/what is the initial process like for getting hired onto a production?
From your other answers I've gathered you supply Eco Reps to sets to help monitor the systems you and a
client decide to implement after creating a sustainability strategy together, but what department is usually
the one who expresses interest in contracting your services? Are they typically above-the-line or below-
the-line employees?
[SANDOVAL] Typically, we are initially brought on by either a studio, production company or producer.
I would say mostly above the line person. However, we have been really lucky to work with incredible
department heads and crew that may have had some influence with the production in hiring Earth Angel.
57
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