► “This limits travel”
Michel Barthelemyproduction designer and César for best decor in 2010 for A Prophet and in 2019 for Les Frères Sisters, by Jacques Audiard.
“The motion picture industry does not resort to greenscreen shooting – with the set in post-production – for energy saving or environmental reasons, but simply because it creates images that the ‘we couldn’t do otherwise. Green screens, and more recently walls of LED screens (Light-Emiting Diode, light-emitting diode screen), also make it possible not to shoot in ecologically fragile or difficult-to-access areas, by reproducing the decor digitally.
For television series, digital makes it possible to produce more quickly by limiting travel and filming locations. It is above all an economic question, but in fine, it also limits the carbon footprint by avoiding transport. Because even if we can be much more eco-virtuous on many aspects – such as waste management –, it is difficult to act on transport. Moving a production, it is necessarily trucks.
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In this respect, the use of digital technology in the cinema is a bit like telecommuting. On the one hand, we gain on travel but on the other, we produce a lot of data whose environmental weight is still poorly measured. Not to mention the race for “always more”, with new cameras, new lights, new equipment with better definition. Technical solutions will not do everything for the environment, it takes a little sobriety.
Things are moving in the right direction. More and more contractors are demanding a carbon footprint and want filming to pollute as little as possible. We see a realization. »
► “The carbon footprint is not good”
Guillaume Allairedirector and trainer at the EMC film school, in Malakoff (Hauts-de-Seine).
“In terms of biodiversity, using green screens on shoots avoids disturbing the fauna and flora. This also allows you to limit interactions with the animals that must appear on the screen. But in terms of global warming, it is much more energy-intensive than a trip to the field. In lighting alone, the use of a green screen requires hundreds of thousands of watts. Then, the green background must be replaced either by entirely digital images, produced at a high cost of electricity and computing power, or by real images, which will have had to be shot. In any case, the carbon footprint is not good.
It would be relevant to promote the use and recycling of existing images, and to work on the scenarios while thinking, from the writing stage, on how to avoid displacement. This work between the artistic and the production would make it possible to save money, both on the budget and on the carbon footprint.
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The question is to limit the environmental impact of shoots as a whole. Broadcasters ignore the eco-responsibility of a film, and producers think only in terms of costs. There should be pre-impact studies for biodiversity, carbon labeling in credits, or training in these issues in film schools, as I do with the Wild Frame project and my students. However, let us be right. A film crew does less damage than an influx of tourists. »