Hollywood's Green Moguls Take Home Top Awards

James Cameron and wife Suzy speak on EMA Red Carpet at Warner Bros. backlot for Saturday's Environmental Media Awards, for which Avatar took home top Feature Film Award. Photo courtesy Ann Murray.

 

 

Ed Begley Jr. was also honored with top prize at EMA Awards for Life With Ed Tv Series.                                    Photo courtesy Ann Photo Courtesy Ann Murray.

 

By: Ann Murray

The green carpet rolled out for The Environmental Media Association's EMA Awards this Saturday at the Warner Bros. movie lot, which was hosted by Olivia Munn and Jason Ritter. The event, which was completely plastic water bottle free, honored environmental films and television series, tackled topics such as alternative fuel sources and even featured a live Native American Dance troupe.

Celebrity guests included the brilliant James Cameron and his beautiful and green conscious wife, Suzy Amis Cameron (famous for her own green fashion choices). They were both on hand when Avatar snagged the night's award for Feature Film. On the green carpet, Cameron explained the significance of how his film was shot and its overall environmental impact.

"Let's look at the big picture," he said. "Avatar was a film that took place in an enormous rain forest. Can't shoot big battle scenes in a rain forest. It was 100 percent CGI. There were a few people playing multiple roles so the footprint compared to the visual impact was very tiny. But ultimately it's a multi-hundred million dollar movie, there are a lot of people working on computers, and those computers are absorbing energy. There's no way you can say this movie was made with one watt of power. But you have to weigh the value of the film with the environmental impact in the public consciousness." - James Cameron,  on making Avatar

 

 

Rosario Dawson is all for Greening Hollywood. At EMA Awards Oct. 16th, Warner Bros. lot. Photo courtesy Ann Murray.

 

 

Warner Bros. backlot just before EMA Awards Oct. 16, 2010. Photo courtesy Ann Murray.

 

 

 

EMA Awards Oct. 16, 2010. Warner Bros. Photo Courtesy Ann Murray.

 

Other stars gave us the scoop on how their television sets are enviro-friendly and waste-free. Sarah Drew from Grey's Anatomy took tips from a fellow star on the set: "I was very inspired by Sandra Oh, because she never uses paper products on set," she told us on the red carpet. "She uses her own mugs that say "Oh" on it, and she has her own plates. I went out and bought a reusable mug that looks like one of those coffee cups. I also bring my water bottle to set every day."

Katrina Bowden took us inside 30 Rock's very serious green policies;  "Our show is green, we have done away with all plastic bottles," she said. "At the beginning of the season we get our own mugs with our names on it, there's recycling bins everywhere, efficient light bulbs everywhere. The same thing I am doing at home too."

 

Native American dancing at EMA Awards, Oct. 16, 2010. Photo courtesy Ann Murray.

 

Mark Paul Gosselaar, on the other hand, told us it hasn't always been easy to keep a set's waste and energy consumption down, but that now being green on set is the norm. "So much so that when they gave my character a car, I asked that they made it a Prius" he told us about his time on 'Raising the Bar'. "They said "we'll get you a Prius!" but I don't think that would have happened years ago."

 

 

EMA Awards Silent Auction. Film Production and Eco Travel, a Natural Fit. Photo courtesy Ann Murray.

 

But if a film or TV series still finds it difficult to keep their carbon footprint in check, they might want to follow green guru Ed Begley Jr.'s guidance. "Contact EMA and get that green checklist for production," he told us. "It's simple things like recycling on the set, not printing scripts - if you have to print them, do so on recycled paper. Use pdf files. As an actor, I like to use pdfs. Shuttling people around, get a low mileage vehicle and more fuel efficient shuttles, buy green energy, have efficient lighting in the production office. Really it's as easy as checking out the EMA list."

In addition to "Avatar," "30 Rock," the documentary "Gasland" and Begley's "Living With Ed" took home top honors of the night.

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Hollywood's Green Moguls Take Home Top Awards

Greening Hollywood And Digital Media

  by John Gartner

Greening Hollywood: Digital Media Doesn't Get the Message

While Hollywood gets global attention this week for its self-congratulatory handing out of golden statues, the industry won't be winning any awards for being an environmental star. A new survey reveals that entertainment and digital media companies aren't following the script for being as green as celebrities would have us believe.

 

When it comes to pollution and energy consumption, Tinseltown is pretty brown. According to a 2006 study from the UCLA Institute of the Environment, the film and television and film industry is one of the major polluters in California, trailing only the petroleum industry in some categories.

And it's not just blowing up cars and building temporary sets that are contributing to the entertainment industry's footprint. Creating special effects and animations requires networks of power-hungry computers, while saving and streaming all of those images and sounds involves countless servers and storage devices.

Released on the day after the Oscars, the "IT Sustainability Imperatives in Digital Media & Entertainment Business" survey says that only 24 percent of industry IT professionals rated the industry's sustainability efforts thus far as worth of an "A" or "B." Less than half of the more than 100 information technology (IT) professionals in digital media who responded could verify that their organizations had corporate sustainability initiatives.

The survey, which was jointly produced by the Think Eco-logical initiative and the Global Renewable Energy and Environmental Network (GREEN), found that the industry's actions have not lived up to their understanding of the importance of managing an organization's environmental footprint.

Nearly 90 percent of people surveyed said that having network servers that consider the environment is important. However, more than three-quarters said their IT departments were spending 10 percent or less of their budget on green initiatives.

The report did cite media & entertainment companies NBC, Apple, Sony, and Warner Brothers as having the best reputations for "Eco-Logical" practices.

George Skaff, the vice president of Marketing at Rackable Systems, which hosts the Think Ecological website, said greening digital media should also benefit the bottom line. "At the end of the day, [greening your IT] should not cost you more money," he said. Skaff said that buying all new equipment isn't needed either. Companies can use their existing infrastructure more wisely, such as improving the ways hardware is stacked and cooled.

The digital media energy footprint is projected to grow faster than a blockbuster's production budget in the coming years. Between 2005 and 2012, the digital storage capacity for the film and television is expected to grow tenfold, according to a study by analyst firm Coughlin Associates. This is in part due to the conversion of Hollywood's archives from analog to digital, along with the creation of new online digital video streaming services.

The survey was created to spur conversation about the topic and to enable companies to share ideas and questions about how to become more energy efficient. Both GREEN, which is an interest group of the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum, and Think Eco-logical will work with their members and advisory boards to encourage the adoption of clean energy and sustainability solutions. "The next phase is to communicate directly with [participating] organizations and provide them with the means to push the agenda, including materials, content, and the means to communicate the message," said GREEN director Derek Kober.

Kober said GREEN will conduct webinars on subjects such as how to make the business case for greening IT and how to get started with a corporate sustainability initiative. He hopes that survey's findings will prompt discussion and a grass roots movement where people will blog about what they are doing to address their environmental impact.

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Greening Hollywood And Digital Media

Grammys Night Gets Some Organic Goods

By Sara Paul
Sara is Founder of www.CSAcalifornia.org

"World Peace through Sustainable Individualism"

There were so many events to choose from on this night, I decided to let the universe guide my path. At first I thought I would be meeting one of my “Be the Change” girls at either the Warner Brothers event or an Alanis Morissette party, but her phone died and I wasn’t sure where the events were or what the deal was.

So I looked in my emails at a list of Grammy parties and found myself drawn to the Jamie Foxx event at the Conga Room in downtown. So I spontaneously went, found $5 parking, and tried to schmooze my way in. After an unsuccessful attempt, I decided to email the contact person. I waited patiently for a response and decided to take off after about 30 minutes.

On with the adventure…..I love going out solo! My friend, who is a chef at the Farmers Kitchen in Hollywood called me and insisted that I pick him and a bunch of fabulous organic, vegan, farm fresh food up and head out somewhere. 

Needless to say, I was so thankful that life guided my path.

I did know that Louie Vega, house music producer, deejay, and Grammy winner was performing at Deep, an event that happens every Sunday at the Vanguard and is produced by Marques Wyatt, also an amazingly talented deejay, producer, and yogi. So I picked up my friend and the goods and we bounced over there.

Upon arriving, it was like a path was cleared for us. We slid in there, danced like crazy for hours, and provided happiness for all of the bartenders and talent with the delicious food that we brought. I realized that I had gone out that night in the hopes of influencing some big wigs with my visions of an organic world all the while searching for something that has been with me for years…..house music. And when I say house music, I mean deep, funky, soulful, spiritual, get down all night long kind-of music, in a place where dancers and free spirits drink more water than alcohol. There was only one thing missing, which my friend and I provided….the conscious food.

The next day I saw an email response about the Jamie Foxx event with a password to get in. Had I waited another 20 minutes, I would have been in. Needless to say, I was so thankful that life guided my path.

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Grammys Night Gets Some Organic Goods