As this was another studio project, again at Black Island (the only place I'd shot all year at that point…), we had all the usuals I now request for every studio shoot: mugs for hot drinks, compostable Vegware bowls and spoons in the canteen (although I still wish these could be non-disposable!), a water cooler for bottle refill, and food waste bins on set. Up until now I’d also been providing compostable cups for hot drinks too, but this time, seeing the ones the studio had provided weren’t the right ones (they weren’t compostable), I removed them altogether meaning there were no disposable cups on set at all. Sometimes providing no alternative really is the best way to see a change in behaviour! In a similar way, we didn’t provide bottled water either, so crew used the cooler with their own bottle, or a mug. Witnessing the positive changes we were making on the job, Dark Energy's MD Matt Brown also got in touch with Black Island to let them know he wanted all of their future shoots there to be furnished with these greener alternatives. The customer is always right after all…
The early morning cycle commute from Hackney to the studio
Another now-usual thing was not having call sheets. After emailing it out along with the green notes, we only printed three A3 copies: one for our stills side, one for the film side, and one for our agency area. Having been warned in advance there wouldn’t be individual ones, I only got a couple of requests for additional crew list print outs. We stuck the A3 copies to drapes along with boards and schedules, avoiding the usual go-to half piece of poly. We’d actually spoken to Jake Scott, our DP and he’d agreed to go poly free anyway, so there wasn’t any on set (well, apart from one sheet which snuck on the van by mistake).
John's very own food waste bin
And as for the request to limit food waste, our food stylist John Bentham sorted the leftover edible items, most of which went to my food waste faves, City Harvest. Mark picked up from us late afternoon, and left with a bountiful supply of lemons, avocados, apricots and pears - much of which had been put to good use at a homeless shelter by that evening. We had so many leftover apricots that our make up artist Louise Constad took another box home and made apricot jam! Anything that wasn’t edible went into the studio food waste collection - about 8 bags in total by the time we’d added some leftover afternoon tea as well.
Mark picking up his haul helped by runner George
Overall, it was a really positive experience, with lots of collaboration from our heads of department, and lots of engagement from the crew and agency - the runners were great keeping everyone’s mugs washed up and topped up! There was a positive vibe about the place knowing that we had sent our leftover food to a good home, and that we’d massively reduced our waste by getting rid of bottles and paper cups. More Unilever jobs please!
To help you on your shoot, check out our resources section, with tips for production teams, agency staff and crew. If you're UK based and working directly in production or creative, you can also attend one of our training sessions. Our FAQ section covers various topics from waste reduction to offsetting. If you'd like to help inspire others by sharing your innovative sustainable production solutions, get in touch. Just 3 or 4 points and a few images is enough for us to put together a case study.
