Well, it's a new year... and we have a brand new case study! And this one isn't just about recycling bins and asking crew to bring their own water bottles, oh no... this one is BIG!
If you've taken our training, you will know that transport, particularly air travel, often makes up the largest part of a production's carbon footprint, followed by energy to power various spaces associated with a shoot (offices, studios and so on), and then waste. Since March 2020, many teams have adapted to not being able to send crews abroad which has helped with emissions relating to production air travel, but this innovation from MPC and Travlrr removes the need for air travel altogether for car shoots, Covid or no Covid.
Car shoots often involve breathtaking locations, but sending your team - and the product - out to those amazing chicanes and hairpins comes at an environmental cost in flights and accommodation (not to mention a financial one). To address this, MPC and Travlrr have united to launch Sustainable Automotive Production Solutions, utilising Travlrr’s highly curated global network of creatives and crew, and MPC’s award-winning global network of VFX talent. The partnership aims to break down industry silos by applying local talent to shoot bespoke live-action backgrounds and to utilise state of the art technology to put CGI rubber to tarmac, with absolute realism. Creating CG vehicles also allows for limitless customisation, meaning you can change or adapt any vehicle for another model, another colour or to any specification without the need to re-shoot. Along with this flexibility, taking away the need to shoot the car live on location takes away travel and crew costs (art dept, car prep teams, Russian Arm teams... we could go on), and reduces the days needed on set - again reducing emissions and cost!
Dafydd Upsdell, Executive Producer at MPC says: “Sustainable solutions in the world of automotive production are typically hard to come by but with MPC partnering with Travlrr we have created a viable sustainable offering for all our automotive clients that we hope everyone in the industry can use and adapt as a template in order to reduce our global carbon footprint all without creative compromise.”
Darren Khan, CEO and Founder of Travlrr adds: “This exciting exclusive partnership with MPC is truly a global first and very relevant in today’s new world. People, businesses and brands have become far more concerned about their local environment and the world we would like to live in. Sustainability is at the core to making those changes and this partnership offers a ground-breaking production solution to the automotive industry that helps reduce marketing carbon footprints, saves time and money. Expanding creativity for content and ads should really resonate with CMO’s, Investors, Shareholders and of course their customers.”
As an added bonus, MPC's offices are powered by renewable energy which eliminates the emissions associated with the post-production office space too! Many of you know that switching to renewable energy for your workspace is one of the easiest ways to reduce the impact of production - learn more here.
And in addition to reducing and eliminating emissions, MPC and Travlrr have partnered with Trees for Life to plant native Scottish Trees in the Caledonian Highlands. Whilst offsetting should always be the last thing you do - once everything else has been reduced as much as possible first - it is a way of compensating for any remaining and unavoidable emissions in your production process. For each brief commissioned to the platform MPC and Travlrr have both committed to planting a tree that will sequester the equivalent of 7.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each, capturing 15 tonnes total over their lifetimes. This should more than cover emissions expended from activities by Travlrr's local teams on the ground (local transport, generator as needed, shoot waste etc). There is more information on offsetting support here.
It's clear we need to operate very differently in order to support the industry's transition to net-zero by 2030, in line with the Advertising Association's Ad Net Zero strategy. The Sustainable Automotive Production Solution is exactly the kind of creative thinking our industry needs - and we all need to allow ourselves the time and space to come up with more innovations like this if we are to move forward at speed.
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.
