Filmmaking and Sustainability

Films and Sustainability 

Films and sustainability are two of my passions, which is why I decided to set up an independent production company where I’d combine the two.

Let me introduce myself first. My name is Laura Torenbeek and I’m a Dutch filmmaker, based in the UK. After finishing my BA in Audiovisual Media at the Utrecht School of the Arts, I continued to do my MA in Filmmaking at the Northern Film School in Leeds, where I graduated in 2015. I currently work at the Northern Film School as a production coordinator as well as a freelancer directing / producing promotional film content. I also make short films and my latest one is currently in post-production.

Storytelling is my greatest love and it is the thing that keeps exciting and challenging me. However, I hadn’t realised the impact filmmaking had on the environment and how polluting of an industry it is. You build up sets, break them down, fly a whole crew to the other side of the country, cook for a hundred people, travel from location to location and at the end of a shoot you have to get rid of everything you’ve just spent so much time searching for.

To be honest, up until a few years ago I didn’t really know much about environmental issues at all. Yes, I loved nature and animals and I was a Greenpeace supporter and would sign petitions, but I didn’t realise that many plastics can’t be recycled or that there was something called microplastics or that we were warming up the earth in such a rapid pace.

When I started to get more knowledgeable about it, I was quite terrified. And I started thinking, why do people knowingly make such bad decisions? I’m talking mainly about big companies and not individuals, but I also can never wrap my head around people who just throw stuff on the street.

So I decided to educate myself a bit further and make small changes such as becoming vegetarian and getting more stuff from package free shops. Personal changes are great and you keep learning new things, but I still wanted to make the practice of filmmaking more sustainable. At least for my own films and hopefully for some of the films of my students.

Then I went into pre-production for my latest short film Candy Floss, which was the first film where I tried to make the production as sustainable as possible. It was a lot of trial and error, but overall I am very happy with how we managed. I now want sustainability to be at the forefront of my film productions. And it doesn’t have to “get in the way” of production or make it harder. It is all about planning and knowing what ethical choices to make. Which is why I not only set up this production company, but also want to keep a blog on my own experiences with green filmmaking and give tips.

There is already a lot of information out there and sustainable filmmaking is becoming more and more the norm with organisations such as Bafta’s ALBERT in the UK. It is all about collaboration and sharing knowledge. There is no competition involved when it comes to being green. It is so important that we all have to try our best. And for that I think the following quote by Maya Angelou is the most fitting:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”