Your Screenplay Has a Carbon Footprint – Here’s How You Can Lower It

Once, while holed up on a tiny island in the dead of a New England winter, I penned a short comedy and co-produced it with a friend. Though I’d previously turned a script into a film without much ado, this follow-up would mark the end of my beginner’s luck. To say production went badly is like saying the 30-year making of Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote could’ve gone a smidge better. By the time the final Martini Shot came around, the list of things damaged during our 3-day shoot included a moped, a living room floor, a camera lens, a front lawn, and more than one relationship.

As is often the case with creative catastrophes, people (ie. me) learned some important lessons. First, that tinted floor wax does wonders for scratched hardwoods. Second, and more importantly, that words on paper have real-world implications when a script goes to production. Beyond broken props and broken dreams, those implications include a “profound but silent” impact on the environment, to borrow a phrase from Hunter Vaughan, author of Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret: The Hidden Environmental Costs of the Movies.

According to reports by the Sustainable Production Alliance and British Film Institute, the average studio film generates somewhere between 2,840 and 3,370 metric tons of carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas responsible for 76% of emissions that contribute to global warming. To put that in perspective, the average American uses up to 20 metric tons per year, which is 5 times higher than the average global human, according to an MIT study. Staggering, right? Though organizations and initiatives exist to help filmmakers reduce these emissions, screenwriters have been left out of the process since sustainability efforts typically begin at pre-production.

But what if lowering emissions could start with the script?

If you’ve ever been lucky enough to get a green light, you’re familiar with the dreaded “budget pass,” the stage of a script’s life where creativity crashes headlong into capitalism. Having to rewrite your story with money in mind is a particular kind of heartache. Fortunately, as screenwriters, we’re skilled at writing within constraints and finding workarounds. If we can handle a budget pass to reduce financial impact before production, we can certainly handle a “climate pass” to reduce our environmental impact, too.

Here are a few of the heavy hitters that raise the carbon footprint of your script:

Nearly 50% of production emissions comes from fuel. Eliminating unnecessary vehicles from your scenes will make them that much more climate friendly. Driving scenes are particularly carbon heavy as they often require cars to be towed on truck beds or trailers. Consider writing scenes in parked cars or outside of stopped vehicles to further lower fuel use.

Even when filming locally or regionally, the more locations a script has, the farther cast and crew must travel to get there. Travel mileage increases fuel use. Avoiding far-flung global locations, lowering the total number of locations in your script, setting scenes in multi-use locations (schools, office complexes, malls, etc.) or locations that are potentially adjacent one another (like, say, a swimming hole and a lake house), and describing locations in broad terms to allow greater leeway on where to shoot, will all help reduce the number of “company moves” a production makes while bringing your story to life.

Unless a cinematographer uses entirely natural lighting, scenes require lighting. In the United States, 60% of electrical power is generated by fossil fuels. As you go through your script, check if any night scenes, particularly those taking place outdoors, can be swapped for day or indoor scenes. Get creative, too, about writing locations with built-in or pre-existing sources of light so production doesn’t need to supplement with too much additional lighting.

From literal and moral standpoints, food waste is icky. In landfills, it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. While most food waste during film and TV production is attributed to craft services and catering, screenwriters can further help the cause by minimizing food-heavy scenes at dinner parties, restaurants, feasts, and gatherings. Writing conscientiously about when, where, and what characters are eating or interacting with food is good practice.

Of course, there are other aspects to our scripts that have an impact - scenes with scores of background actors comes to mind - but starting with the points above will have a notable impact on both the environment and your sense of satisfaction.

Remember, the climate pass should not stifle our creativity, further eliminate whatever “darlings” weren’t killed in the editing process, or cause undue stress and guilt. Instead, it’s meant to give screenwriters a seat at the sustainability table, to empower us to be part of climate solutions, and intentional about the effect our words have on the real world. We’re far more powerful than we realize! And, as Spider-man’s Uncle Ben (R.I.P.) once said, "with great power comes great responsibility." 

What project of yours will you do a climate pass on? Let me know by tagging #ClimateScreenwriting and #ScriptMag on socials.

Read all The Climate Screenwriter columns here. And don’t forget to share them with your writer friends!