“The Hollywood film business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.”

-Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. likely wasn't trying to be funny, and it’s only mostly true. In 2022, I worked some of my all-time favorite Hollywood gigs. I met ‘Animal’, ‘Dr. Teeth,’ and the entire muppets band. I became part of a show-family, the cast & crew for a TV show with an unheard of 10 year run. I walked on Mars, attended a 1980’s Madonna concert, and watched Larry Bird play for the Boston Celtics, court-side.

None of this was real, of course (aside from the muppet puppeteers, who are insanely talented performers and are very much real!). It was all a fabrication, a story, a production. Sets, costumes, scripts, lighting and camera angles; meticulously planned to capture a story, and provide us all with the opportunity to escape reality for a short time. Crews are self-described ‘production carnies’, often corporate outcasts who ran away to the film circus, creative thinkers & doers, who couldn’t imagine having another career. We love it. But we also hate it. If you’ve spent any time with someone in the film industry, you know that the ‘dream job’ comes with trade offs. It leaves many of us feeling conflicted between our personal values and our careers. This article explores the sustainability of the industry that inspired Roboro.

Simply put, ‘sustainable’ refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. In a business or corporate setting, like Hollywood, sustainability typically refers to three categories; economic, environmental and social. Or, as it’s more popularly known, the triple bottom line; profits, planet and people. Let’s go in for a closeup to learn more about where Hollywood struggles, and where there is hope for the future.

Planet

The Sustainable Production Alliance put out a carbon emissions report in 2022. They found that big budget productions, averaging $70 million, produce 33 metric tons of CO2 each shooting day. That is the equivalent to driving nearly 85,000 miles in a gas powered vehicle, every day. Studios would need to plant 546 trees a day to counteract their daily emissions. Suffice to say, the film industry knows there is significant room for improvement.

Despite all the resources, studios, equipment and infrastructure that Los Angeles has, specifically for the film industry, the majority of projects are now filmed elsewhere. Georgia, Louisiana, Canada- new studios are popping up across the nation, and more productions are filming on location, outside of Los Angeles County. There are several reasons for this; sometimes a production needs to shoot at a specific location, or states and countries offer tax incentives to entice production companies. This means film crews and heavy equipment are constantly flown around the world. When shooting on a location without easy access to power, gas-powered generators run all day to keep the set charged up, and trucks sit idling for hours at a time. The point being, Hollywood’s dependance on and consumption of fossil fuels, is significant.

The cost to the Planet does not stop at gas and travel. An issue near and dear to Roboro’s heart is costume usage. Thought is rarely given to the ‘end of life’ of the custom-built costumes and sets. All too often, these are typically broken down and thrown away, or placed in storage for future seasons. Once a production wraps, studios will sometimes keep costumes to rent out to other productions, or store them in warehouses in case of reshoots. Large quantities of costumes are donated to secondhand clothing stores like LA-based ‘That's a Wrap’, which collects clothing and props from productions and resells to the public.

Western Costume is the largest costume rental house in the US, and Angels Costumiers is the largest in the UK. It’s not uncommon to see costumes rented from these kinds of companies, being used in multiple films over the years.

Alternatively, it’s also very common to see Fast Fashion brands featured on TV shows -

Thankfully, big studios are working with companies like Good Planet and Eco Sets, to help adhere to local ESG regulations, lower their carbon footprint, and improve individual and industry-wide habits. Both LA-based organizations, Good Planet and Eco Sets, work with productions to support their sustainability goals. Things such as monitoring on-set recycling and composting, ensure refillable water stations are plentiful, and sort and clean reusable dishes and cutlery after crew meals. They will also collect and rent out used sets and costumes, that would have otherwise been discarded. The Producers Guild of America’s Green Report found that a 60-day shoot required approximately 39,000 disposable, plastic water bottles. Diverting that waste alone has a significant impact!

In other parts of the industry, The NRDC ‘Rewrite the Future’ campaign is working with Hollywood screenwriters to more accurately and effectively communicate the importance of the climate crisis. Market research shows that viewers are craving positive and uplifting content. While movies like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ and ‘Don’t Look Up’ have been huge successes (and are personal favorites), it's crucial to not solely rely on global disaster for storytelling. As the importance of representation and diversity is better understood, some would argue it's similarly important to see more normalized conversations and experiences about the climate crisis. A principal character who lost their home to a wildfire, or an protagonist struggling with life-long trauma after losing a parent in a flash flood. These are real life experiences for too many people around the world, and those stories deserve to be told.

Profits

Economic Sustainability is the practice of conserving both the natural and physical resources that make long-term financial growth possible, without negatively impacting the planet or people. Is Hollywood considered economically sustainable? You be the judge.

Movie-making is a profit-oriented business, after all, and some studio executives make tens of millions of dollars a year. These enormous profits come at the expense of environmental and human impacts that are painfully obvious on every film set. The engrained and systemic exploitation of labor and resources are being resolved in many cases, but examples of the economic unsustainability of Hollywood are regularly on display in the form of strikes, on-set accidents caused by inexperienced cheap labor, insufficient oversight, and cut corners.

That said, production companies are taking steps in the right direction to change all that. A more economically sustainable Hollywood spends a little extra money to make sure the set is safe, spends a little extra time to utilize resources appropriately, and allows room for extra days on set so crews can work reasonable hours. It is encouraging to see more and more projects adopt this sustainable model. Most studios now have their own sustainability programs, like Netflix’s ‘Net-Zero + Nature’ or Sony’s ‘Road to Zero’, which track their carbon emissions, and highlight their long term sustainability goals. On their website, Netflix interviews their own crew members regarding the green technology being utilized on their productions in the UK and Canada. “Using this technology has made our lives a lot simpler. We’re able to work a lot quicker,” says David Sinfield, Gaffer on the UK-based TV show ‘The Union’. It's not just the money saved on efficient time use, but our reliance on natural resources as well. ‘Virgin River ', filmed on location in British Columbia, utilizes electric vehicles and vans. According to Transportation Coordinator Rob Fairbridge, “EV will pay for themselves'’. Any filmmakers who are interested in making their sets more green, should check out The Sustainable Production Alliance. The SPA is a powerful resource made up of the world’s leading television, film & streaming companies, providing tools, education, and support to make productions as green as possible, even if it’s at a little extra cost.

People

To most of the world, film and television is a glamorous scene of celebrities, million-dollar salaries, careers of playing ‘make believe,’ and living in sunny Southern California. While that isn’t necessarily wrong, it also isn’t entirely accurate. The celebrity images created by marketing teams and strategists are meant to sell movies, and it works! Behind the scenes, Hollywood’s worst offense is arguably the negative impact on its own community. Designers, electricians, drivers, carpenters, caterers, and writers all have had to place work over life in this dramatically unbalanced industry.

There is a herculean effort behind the scenes of every commercial, television show and movie. Some of the more difficult aspects of the work are long hours, physical & emotional strain, and lack of job security. There are countless stories of sacrifice behind every person you meet on set. Missed major life events like weddings, funerals, and graduations. Family vacations rescheduled or canceled altogether because a production changes. Relationships lost to the inflexible and unpredictable needs on set. Production professionals are passionate about their craft, and for most, the early days of sacrifice are paying dues for the later days of being able to call the shots. The cruel reality of the industry is that the promotions and key positions often go to the leaders who can minimize a budget while maximizing how much can be extracted from the crew. The passion that drives so many into the industry leaves them burned out, and often without transferable skills to make a move into another profession.

Current industry standards make it difficult to make changes that would improve the quality of life for its community. Hollywood is a unionized industry, and positive change happens slowly and collectively. There are also simple solutions that could be implemented at a corporate level that would have positive ripple effects throughout the industry. Something like childcare, for example. Nearly all crew members, both above and below the line, understand that choosing to start a family means either being away from home for 12+ hours a day, or changing careers. All below the line female crew members with children have faced the difficult decision of whether or not to return to the demanding lifestyle of an industry job. In the fashion industry, we have seen successful examples of how this difficult reality is addressed. Patagonia has a Fair Trade manufacturing facility in Sri Lanka with 1,400 workers, and 78% are women. Patagonia credits their free day care facility as the most additive program to come out of their fair trade employee fund. Now, I’m not suggesting Hollywood should be fair trade. But currently women only account for 24% of the film industry. If we truly want to elevate women’s voices, balance the gender gap, and support our own community, there are provable, replicable and easily-implemented solutions available.

So, is Hollywood sustainable? It's very much still in its ‘working title’ phase. Why then, do I keep going back? Why can’t I seem to quit Hollywood? Because I have hope and I see the change happening. In a post-Covid world, there have been noticeable shifts in the work culture. Taking sick days is more acceptable. The stress of accepting a job, knowing you’ll have to miss a family member's wedding, has subsided (did you know you could do both!?). In the same way the entire world took a deep collective breath, slowed down, and remembered there is more to life than work, Hollywood has begun to adopt a healthier approach. I feel comfortable speaking for both myself and my fellow production carnies in saying: “Please, and thank you! We are so here for it!!”

Any true Tarantino fan knows that he rallies his crew when calling for another take with a question and answer call back -

“Why? Because we love making movies!”

and it's true, we do. We want to keep doing it for years to come. The 130 year old system we’ve been operating under needs a sustainability overhaul, and I’m proud to be a small part of an industry-wide change.