San Francisco, CA
June 24 , 2008-
The Green Room was bursting with energy as the SAG/Northern California/SF branch celebrated 75 years of Union solidarity. We ate cake, and enjoyed fine wines served on the balcony overlooking Van Ness Avenue and the dome of San Francisco City Hall. Speeches were kept to a minimum and a good time was had by all.
Enjoy the snapshots! CLICK HERE FOR THE PHOTO SPREAD!
GOING GREEN ON SET by Hester Schell
April 22, 2008 EARTH DAY
If not us, who? If not now, when?
The pile of garbage bags grows as we’re about to wrap-out on another Bay Area “low budget feature for festivals.” Somewhere a PA waits for instructions on where to take it. I have to admit, I did ask for it: “I’ll do the recycling.” I sift through garbage removing water bottles and soda cans. I post signs: “This is Garbage,” and “This is Recycling.” It takes 7 days to break a habit. This two week feature gives me hope.
Most of us do it at home anyway: separating out bottles, cans, plastic and cardboard. Yeah, we’re busy making a movie and we’re on the run. With nine cast members, 15 to 20 crew coming and going, that’s a lot of cases of soda cans and water bottles. No more excuses. Here are a few simple things production managers can do to reduce the carbon footprint on set -
-BYOWB. Bring your own water bottle and re-fill them from 5 gallon portables, or better yet, use the tap. If it’s vitamin water you want, add instant vitamin powder. There’s an added benefit: cash savings. If you just can’t switch to BYOWB then put a permanent marker next to the water bottles and get everyone put their names on bottles they’ve opened so they can finish it.
-ELIMINATE SYTROFOAM. Just don’t buy it. Get it off the set, period. Instruct craft services and catering to purchase bio-degradable and high content post consumer recycled paper products. Apart from keeping this obnoxious and toxic material out of the landfill, your coffee flavor won’t be spoiled by melting styrene, which by the way is a known carcinogen. Or, add a crate of ceramic mugs to the craft list and have a PA take the cups home and run them through the dishwasher. Take it a step further by asking staff to bring a coffee mug. It’s not that hard to put a coffee mug in your back pack. By the way, if you’re going to shoot up in Portland, Oregon, anytime soon, you’ll have to - it’s the law. There’s no Styrofoam in Multnomah County, by voter approval quite awhile ago. Just for fun, do an Internet search for banned Styrofoam, and you’ll find a host of communities getting rid of it. Hip up, y’all.
- PRINT BACK TO BACK. Duh…Just do it, whenever possible, and use soy based inks. Make it high percentage post consumer recycled paper. Use those one sided drafts your friends marked up to print the shot logs, call sheets, strip boards and contact sheets whenever possible.
- POWER DOWN at meal breaks whenever possible.
- EAT LOWER ON THE FOOD CHAIN whenever possible.
- UTLILIZE businesses and suppliers that support energy savings, and hotels, that support sustainable laundry practices.
- REPLACE INCANDESCENT BULBS withhigh efficiency wherever you can.
-CARPOOL carpool carpool to location location location.
- Two simple words: RECHARGABLE BATTERIES. Get rid of the disposables. They’re not. And they’re toxic.
-RECYCLE OLD BATTERIES. Put a bag or a box next to the bottle and can bin and make a sign for battery recycling.
- GO DIGITAL. Many of us have already made the jump to HD, by-passing all those nasty polluting, chemicals from traditional filmmaking from the last century.
Sure, it’s asking a lot, but we really can make a difference with every choice we make: be part of the solution. Someone is going to be inconvenienced by it and complain, but these are the kinds of changes necessary if we’re going to save the planet.
By all means, add to this list. Start with cardboard, battery, bottle and can recycling and see where else you can go with it. It’s a start. Reducing our carbon footprint can easily translate into our working environment. Here are a few helpful websites with ordering and pricing information for bio-degradable food service products:
www.ecoproducts.com
www.mrtakeoutbags.com
www.container-recyling.org
www.treecycle.com
THE SCOOP ON RELEASE FROMS - WHY WE DON'T SIGN AT AUDITIONS
by Hester Schell
OK, this issue is really...reelly....burning me up... Please folks, the only way to stop inexperienced and unknowing filmmakers from insisting you sign a release at the audition is not to sign them. IF YOU GET THE PART, READ On....
