Adopting sustainable practices in camera and lighting teams can make significant contributions to lowering carbon emissions for a production. This section gives advice and insight from interviews with four different specialists who are already leading changes in their field.
From your department’s perspective, how can productions become more sustainable?
The support of the production team is a big factor. When the production team understands and prioritises the need for sustainable solutions, it can influence the entire production in positive ways.
What are your top tips for sustainability within your department?
Sustainable power tips
- Ultimately the biggest impact on carbon emissions for the camera and lighting crew will come from the choice and management of power.
- Encourage the production team to include the electrical department on any locations, so you can do smart power planning.
- Consider all the alternatives for power and assess which solutions are best-suited to the production, e.g.
- Can you can get on the grid and store that energy?
- Can you charge batteries off-site using renewable energy, e.g. solar power?
- Batteries – ideally have two so you can have one on charge while the other is in use.
- Where grid power and solar energy solutions are unavailable, using hybrid generators or certified HVO in generators as the next best options.
- Avoid oversizing generators or decentralised generator use as these lead to huge unnecessary waste.
- Consider what is needed to support the sustainable solutions, for example, making sure there are electrical charging points at studio.
- Educate people about what changes can be made in the name of sustainability, and the additional benefits of those changes, for example, batteries are completely silent (which is great for sound), don’t pump out fumes, are easier for the crew to move around than a bowser and don’t have cables, which means fewer trip hazards and can bring substantial cost savings.
Lighting tips
- Use LED lighting everywhere possible, including work lights.
- Book lighting equipment to cover most of the production rather than for every possible eventuality – so this doesn’t lead to over-sizing the main generator requirements.
- Encourage lighting packages with small batteries that can be recharged from the mains without using the generator.
- Switch off when not in use, including after any pre-light. Save power by dimming between takes, and don’t leave devices on charge or standby overnight.
- Recycle batteries, plastic lighting gels and any other waste.
Camera tips
- Make sure to connect camera equipment to the grid or mobile battery units for charging to reduce generator emissions and fuel consumption.
- Use rechargeable batteries and recycle old ones.
- Don’t overspec the size of the camera truck so you can reduce fuel consumption.
- Shoot digitally instead of on film.
- Order reusable consumables as much as possible, and donate unused consumables for use on other productions.
General sustainability tips
- Aim to educate yourself about the sustainable options available to you and share information with the people you’re working with.
- Try to do better than you did on your last job. Making gradual improvements is more realistic than trying to do everything at once.
- Plan more thoroughly so you know what kit and backups you need, so you can minimise what you’re ordering and moving.
Production wanted to shoot on Saturday and Sunday in a very, very populated area. We were told we couldn’t run any generators at this location, so we needed to work out how to get the production off-grid. We worked with electrical, location, video village, craft and facilities, and grips to understand the power and energy needs of the whole team.
We took the following actions:
- replaced generators with the grips and used an A5 kilowatt Voltstack to power their cranes, instead of the A7 kilowatt Honda they normally would have used. And we used Nellies when we died.
- powered video village with a large battery.
- worked out what batteries we’d need, and a management plan of how we’d take them away, charge them, etc.
- used LED lighting.
- used solar power on a school roof to produce a feed, and we generated 8-9kw from it to recharge our smaller units.
- used mains if needed.
In this way, we probably ran about 620k, and 10-5 cases as a film unit and were able to power the two-day shoot without noisy generators pumping out fumes. After we shot that location, the location department and the unit manager commented how helpful it was to not have to worry about noise or air pollution.
Adam Baker and David Sinfield, Green Voltage
What are the biggest challenges to working sustainably in your department, and how have you overcome them?
Budget allocation is the biggest challenge – there’s a perception that sustainable options and new ways of working cost more. But in some cases, sustainable options can work out cheaper, for example, it’s cheaper to rent batteries than run diesel generators because there is no diesel bill for the batteries. Showing visible savings against specific lines in the budget from using sustainable options can be a powerful tactic.
Departments tend to work in silos, and this can be a big blocker. Ideally, everyone (with the support of the producer) needs to sit down and work together – especially craft and location - so you can understand everyone’s needs and plan accordingly.
Another challenge is people not knowing what are the most unsustainable factors, for example, the worst thing you can do is run a generator idly - a generator running at 20% of its capacity can be using more fuel consumption than it would if it was at 80%. Sharing information to educate the people you’re working with empowers them to make better decisions in the future.
There is a misconception that solar isn’t a viable option in this country, but although it might not be ready yet to use as the primary power source, the technology is advancing all the time and the best thing we can do is harness the sun's power – it’s free!
How do you keep sustainability on the agenda?
We all need to speak up on set – talk to other departments and discuss what they need, suggest renewable energy options, ask questions about the corporation we’re hiring, etc.
On one production, we had great newsletters from the sustainability lead to get the whole crew onboard which was amazing. And it’s good to celebrate all wins – this helps to keep sustainability at the front of everyone’s mind, and share knowledge, which helps us all continuously improve.
What resources or groups would you recommend?
Albert sustainable suppliers directory – provides contact details for variety of camera, lighting and fuel suppliers within and outside the UK that are carbon neutral and/or provide renewable energy.
With thanks to:
Adam Baker, Green Voltage
David Raedeker BSC, Cinematographer
David Sinfield, Green Voltage
Stefan Mitchell, Electrician