Francesca Nobili, a senior creative for advertising agencies and production companies in Europe and the USA, is an award-winning stop-motion animation filmmaker. With her creative lab Circle Entertainment, she produces stop-motion animated short films. While working as an advertising copywriter and creative director, Francesca Nobili felt that she didn‘t have much control of her creativity. Therefore, she decided to buy a camera and learn how to use Final Cut Pro. At first, she started making short projects to promote her client’s work. But then, she reveals, „I had this enlightenment: I don‘t need anyone with stop-motion-animation.“
She already had lots of material. Instead of buying the perfect prop, she just started looking around to see what she had on hand to create props, characters, and puppets. „Before I trash anything, I check to see if there‘s something about it that gives me an idea for what I‘m trying to create. Being organized is important. I just collect!“ That means even plastic packaging for dental floss. “They can be wheels or cups!” Her Los Angeles apartment is full of storage boxes with found materials.
She has been producing animated short films for nearly a decade. Her short film A Tale of a Sassy Little Girl won more than a dozen awards. Her approach is to find materials so that she can turn „something into something else“. When she created an animated rat, she made the body from an ear-plug, and she used twist ties for the tail. She has plenty in her kitchen, because she gets them every time when she goes food shopping. „It‘s all about being organized. The moment you have an idea, you want to find that piece immediately.“ In these situations, she just goes through her storage boxes and eventually she finds a piece that she has forgotten about that inspires her.
For the animated films that she presents on her Circle Entertainment, LLC, platform, she developed her own shooting technique. „It‘s freedom. It‘s magic. I don’t have any rules!“ She loves to experiment with new materials. „I started animating foodstuffs, which was really fun. Then I tried clay.“ Now she is preoccupied with wood and fabrics, because it is real. It‘s not a drawing, and it‘s not CGI. „Even my special effects are what-you-see-is-what-you-get.“ She combines stop-motion animation with live-action animation, which is helpful for certain special effects. For a horror music video, for instance, she burned a piece of the set so that there were real live-action flames.
Everyday life inspires her even when she‘s walking her dog. „If I see something on the ground that inspires me, I pick it up.“ Francesca Nobili treats this as an exercise, because „we aren‘t used to thinking this way.“ When she needs something that she can’t buy, she tries to find a work-around. „It is a fun process. Anything can be animated. Like I did with food.“ While she was working on her stop-motion animated short film Guacamole, she spent hours in the supermarket searching for the perfect tomato. People were looking at her suspiciously, so she simply replied: „Don‘t look at me. I‘m just looking for a tomato I can animate.“
And of course, the most eco-friendly approach is to reuse materials for props and puppets. It’s embedded in Francesca Nobili‘s DNA. And her approach inspires other artists. „Creativity is all about sharing! We need a platform where we can share techniques and materials“ emphasizes the filmmaker. Furthermore, it is helpful to produce short clips that demonstrate a special technique. „Knowing these little tricks can trigger a chain reaction. It is all about passion and inspiring one another.“
“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.