By Bill Mountain (ACrew4U) and Jenny Manby (Plastic Pictures)
EVCOM are proud to have partnered with Bill Mountain (Acrew4U) to produce a Sustainable Corporate Production Guide, which aims to take sustainability from the abstract to the practical. The report provides ‘how to’s’, workbooks, case studies, further reading and training modules and is free to download here.
In this extract from the guide, Bill asked Jenny Manby (Plastic Pictures) to share her top tips for baking sustainability into your story.
Scripting and creative development is a great place to start thinking about how a shoot could be more sustainable. The following tips may help:
Location considerations
- Think about adjusting the idea so that you could shoot locally where possible, not abroad.
- Allow for seasonal weather advantages to keep shoots in your own hemisphere/country.
- Think about the most sustainable location, i.e. think about what already exists to reduce set-build materials and props required.
- Think about what crew are available locally when shooting outside of London – you should always try and use local crew wherever possible.
Make the story sustainable
- Avoid developing something that might destroy something or create a lot of waste – food fights or dropping something from a height etc.
- Work in some sustainable actions into the script. i.e. smart meter, or reusable water bottle, electric or hybrid cars as props, have characters turn off the lights when they leave a room etc.
- ‘Big hitters’ in terms of emissions help you target where you can make reductions when you get into production; whether that’s using local crew to reduce travel, or changing your catering from meat to vegan.
This is a key step before you begin.
Set-build with sustainability in mind
- If you need a set build, keep sustainable materials in mind – avoid poly etc. and favour materials which can be reused, rehomed or recycled.
Planning well makes for less impacts
When putting your time-line together make sure you work in the time to make sure the project is as sustainable as possible. This will help you achieve the following:
- Time to find sustainable suppliers.
- Time to sustainably source materials, props, wardrobe etc. rather than going with the quickest/easiest option.
- Allow staff to be better rested leading to better productivity and working relationships.
Download the full report here.