The French film funding institution Centre National du Cinéma (CNC) launched a new initiative in 2014 to support sustainable solutions that is gradually gaining recognition in the French Film / TV industry. The green grants are part of CNC’s program, which has a yearly budget of €6m to support TV and feature-film service providers. “In 2014, we supported one project with a €24,000 grant. This year, we’ve already greenlighted three projects with grants totaling €85,000”, reports Baptiste Heynemann, Head of Technique and Innovation at CNC. “Depending on the size of the company, we support anywhere from 40% to 60% of the cost of investing in environmental protection. In addition, the CNC pays up to 70% of the expenses incurred in commissioning environmental studies, including energy audits.
Among the companies investing in sustainable solutions is the French film equipment rental house and studio group TSF, where Woody Allen rented the equipment for films such as Midnight in Paris and Magic in the Moonlight. While the CNC supported TSF’s investments in LED lights, most of the green grants were awarded for investments in Green IT.
The Paris-based animation studio Supamonks, which is moving to a larger facility and shifting its focus from advertising to TV production, wants to take a new approach to production that favors sustainability. Key to the transition is a render farm that consumes less electricity and gas. “The render farm is located in radiators, which are using the thermal discharge of the devices to heat the office”, explains Pierre de Cabissole, Head of Production at Supamonks. “We’re partnering with Qarnot, which developed this technology.” The new Supamonk studio facilities will be equipped with two heaters comprised of 64 rendering nodes.
Qarnot’s Q.rad innovative heating technology uses processing units as primary heat source to maximize computing energy efficiency while simultaneously providing free heat to buildings and homes. Qarnot Computing’s Cloud service distributes HPC workloads efficiently to Q.rad’s digital heater farm according to the host’s needs for heat and HPC workload constraints. Qarnot sponsored the rendering of the animated film “Cosmos Laundromat”. The movie’s 3-D renderings, performed on Qarnot’s heaters, represented one year of free heating for about twenty households.
This smart green processing solution was developed as an alternative to energy-consuming data centers where more than a third of the electricity is used to cool processing units. “The energy impact of this solution, when compared to the current set-up with data centers and conventional heaters, results in a carbon footprint that is 75% smaller”, emphasizes Paul Benoit, Founder & CEO of Qarnot Computing.
CNC also provided Green IT investment support to the Parisian post-production house MacGuff Line, which created the visual effects for Il était une forêt by Luc Jacquet, among others. Another signatory of the Ecoprod Charter is the audio-visual company Datacare, which developed a vehicle with a completely autonomous platform dedicated to data processing for productions on location. Equipped with a solar panel and embedded batteries, the truck is powered by renewable energy. Thanks to its own internet connection, the mobile working station facilitates data exchange with post-production studios, labs, and broadcasters. “It reduces the number of physical deliveries to laboratories, editing rooms, and production offices”, emphasizes Ouadi Guénich, Founder & CEO of Datacare. Furthermore, the integration of a data storage solution in a vehicle will substantially reduce the number of hard drives used during a production.
“The time for half-measures and climate denial is over. Unless we move quickly away from fossil fuels, we’re going to destroy the air we breathe, the water we drink, the health of our children, grandchildren and future generations. If we’re going to avoid the worst of the impacts, then we’ve just got to act boldly. And we must act immediately."
Robert Redford
Actor, Director, Producer, Environmentalist
"The media has a powerful role to play in the fight against climate change. Through films, television, and all media outlets, we must continue to deliver the message that solutions are out there and are happening now. We have to make it attractive for people to take action. Movies like Avatar, The Day After Tomorrow, and documentaries like Years of Living Dangerously, which I was proud to be a part of, have been very popular, reaching and inspiring millions of people. And I believe films in particular can really inspire and make people want to take action. It’s great to see some of my film-industry friends working with climate related organizations to push forward those messages."
„It‘s high time to reorganize film production in Germany in a ‚greener‘ and more sustainable way. So far, I am flabbergasted by how much our industry works in environmentally harmful ways.To this very day, it starts with until today one-sided print-outs of scripts, and then it continues with plastic bottles in production offices and lots of plastic waste with every catered meal, and it doesn‘t stop with the limousines that pull up to a red carpet.
For many years, people have sneered at me when I brought my own cup or I declined to eat cheap meat served on paper or plastic plates with plastic knives and forks. It would be great if the Green Shooting Card could change all that.“
Director (Ben X, Time of My Life)
„It’s absolutely great that filmmakers all over the world are trying to clean up their act, and are trying to film as sustainable as we possibly can. Still, I think we shouldn’t underestimate the incredible power of the moving image to also change the hearts and minds of people.
So, apart from trying to be more environmentally aware in our business, I think the big gain lies in how we might make everyone more environmentally aware. Yes, cinema can change the world.
I think filmmakers should start using the powerful weapon in our hands that is the camera.
Let’s not only try to do ‘less bad’. Let’s try to do right, and help drive the change that we all know needs to arrive.“
“We are living in a time in which we can’t afford to behave irresponsibly towards nature. The more important is it that film productions try to work as environmentally friendly as possible. A film team produces every day tons of garbage. I try to avoid using plastic cups on set, I bring my own cup, use ecofriendly cosmetics and avoid needless single rides.”
Photo ® Maddalena Arosio
Darren Aronofsky, Director, Noah / Jury President, 65th Berlin International Film Festival
“When we did Noah we knew we were making a film about the first steward of the earth, so we wanted to be good stewards ourselves. There’s so much waste on film sets. Because of groups like Earth Angel, we were able to change that a little bit.”
"As a TV and film producer I try to incorporate environmental storylines into my projects as much as possible. But it’s just as important, if not more, to ‚go green‘ behind the scenes! Therefore, I help run the Producers Guild of America’s Green Initiative.
We provide resources such as a Best Practices and a Carbon Calculator to help producers green their productions. We also partnered with all the major studios to create www.greenproductionguide.com which is a free green vendor database with over 2,000 vendors offering sustainable production solutions worldwide!"
‚Green screens excepted, we will do everything in our power to be as innovative as we can in order to make our production as green as possible.‘
Photo: (c) herbXfilm Dieter Mayr
Lars Jessen
Director (Fraktus, Dorfpunks, Am Tag als Bobby Ewing starb)
‘It is somewhat embarrassing that green filming is only now becoming an issue in our industry because there have long since been many possibilities to shoot more efficiently.
Technical innovations such as energy efficient lighting are as much a part of this as the awareness of every crew member.’
I do work with a company in the States called Sungevity that leases solar panels to homes. They figured out how to move forward environmentally and how to make it economically successful.
So that’s my small but steadfast global contribution. I think everybody doing a little bit is all that’s made any difference, ever.‘
Producer, Director and Visual Effects Supervisor (2001: A Space Odysee, Blade Runner)
"Trumbull Studios in Massachusetts is dedicated to being green as much as possible, including the use of LED lighting, solar power, and solar laptops. This is not just because our location has limited amperage and no three-phase, we believe we have a responsibility to our community and our planet to be a clean industry.
We are planning for digital photography in 3D 4K at 120 frames per second from remote and inaccessible locations that will not have available power. Solar is the way to go."
Dieter Kosslick, Director Berlin International Film Festival
„The Berlinale is already actively addressing the sustainability subject since years. We appreciate it very much that a growing number of filmmakers, among them this year‘s jury presiden Darren Aranofsky, is following green guidelines on set.“
Benoit Delhomme
Director of Photography (A Most Wanted Man)
‘I never have been told precisely what the rules are for shooting a green movie, but we are trying to do it. This is something new for me. Sometimes people overlight scenes at night. I don’t. If I can see with my own eyes, then it is enough for the film. In that sense I am a green DoP.’
Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons who stars in the Berlinale Competition entry The Night Train To Lisbon is a fan of source segregated recycling. „Especially in Germany you have done a lot for that. You are examplary in the matter of waste separation.“
The Hollywood actor travelled around the world to promote the environmntal documentary feature film Trashed by Candida Brady which deals with the global garbage problem: „We buy it, we bury it, we burn it and then we ignore it“, says Brady. „With Jeremy Irons as our guide, we discover what happens to the billion or so tons of waste that goes unaccounted for each year.“
Since the world premiere at the International Cannes Film Festival in 2012 Trashed picked up various nominations and awards at international festivals.
The Paris-based animation studio Supamonks, which is moving to a larger facility and shifting its focus from advertising to TV production, wants to take a new approach to production that favors sustainability. Key to the transition is a render farm that consumes less electricity and gas. “The render farm is located in radiators, which are using the thermal discharge of the devices to heat the office”, explains Pierre de Cabissole, Head of Production at Supamonks. “We’re partnering with Qarnot, which developed this technology.” The new Supamonk studio facilities will be equipped with two heaters comprised of 64 rendering nodes.
Robert Redford
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Hannes Jaenicke
Nic Balthazar
Nadeshda Brennicke, Actress
Darren Aronofsky, Director, Noah / Jury President, 65th Berlin International Film Festival
Tim Bevan
Thekla Reuten
Rachael Joy
Nikola Rakocevi
Nadja Schildknecht
Michael Bully Herbig
Lars Jessen
Helen Hunt
Douglas Trumbull
Dieter Kosslick, Director Berlin International Film Festival
Benoit Delhomme
Jeremy Irons