Is This Really Sustainable?

Sustainability in film is not just about turning the lights off and not using plastic bottles during production, it is also about the transport we use, where we source our food and accommodation, these are just a few things I learnt during a lecture with Denzil Monk about sustainability in film. He also showed us multiple organisations that allow us to monitor the Co2 we emit during production which changed my whole perspective of filmmaking as so much more goes into making a film production sustainable than changing a few minor things, you have to change almost everything that you do if you want to help in the fight against global warming.

Before this lecture I just thought that He was just going to show us some graphs and some basic ways to improve our sustainability while filmmaking. However, I was completely wrong. Instead, he showed us websites such as Screen Cornwall and The Sustainable Creative Charter, which helps other filmmakers monitor their Co2 emissions while filming which proves useful as we can look back onto films made by others or our past films and see where we can improve our sustainability. Because an average film will create 2,840 tonnes of Co2 (BFI, 2020) which is a massive change from the average person in the UK which emits around 5 tonnes of Co2 per year (Ritchie, H. and Roser, M. 2020). Also, we were shown how much films can be more sustainable than other forms of media. Take Enys Men for instance, an indie horror film that only produced 4.5 tons of Co2 emissions while on average an hour of television produces 5.7 tons of Co2 (Barradale, 2023). Which is a huge step forward for practicing sustainability in film. This is because they achieved this by using things such as electric transport, an old, renovated camera and more that they managed to reduce their footprint.

Another aspect of sustainability in film is not only the amount of electric we use or fuel, but the amount that we put in a landfill. During this lecture we had an activity that we had to make a plan for a production that has as little waste into the landfill as possible and man people came up with creative ideas that can combat the amount of waste, we put in using the obvious reduce, reuse, recycle. Some people had ideas of multi-purpose utensils such as sporks and some people had a different approach such as food cans to eat from then clean them out and drink from them to then repurpose what we use and so we don't make any unnecessary waste.

In conclusion, we have learnt ways to reduce our footprint and help in the fight against global warming. I plan on using these different methods to be more sustainable while making our films and hopefully contribute to a better world where we produce as little Co2 as possible but also making films that still revolutionize the filmmaking world.