The Environmental Impact of Filmmaking: Using Star Wars to Improve Sector Sustainability Practices

电影制作对环境的影响：利用星球大战改善行业可持续发展实践

• 批准号: AH/W011115/1
• 负责人: Rebecca Harrison
• 金额: $ 25.61万
• 依托单位: The Open University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FW011115%2F1
• 关键词: Environmental; Impact; Filmmaking; Using; Star

Responding to the urgency of activist movements and governmental talks to prevent climate change, screen sector practitioners are, at present, seeking solutions to the environmental harms caused by film production. For example, events run by the British Film Institute and Creative Scotland have discussed how the sector can become greener. However, as attested by Albert, BAFTA's industry-leading sustainability consultancy, industry initiatives to date have focused on carbon-offsetting on film shoots. While many filmmakers hope to achieve carbon neutrality, researchers and activists argue that 'net-zero' masks the effects of prolonged carbon use and fails to prevent climate change. This project, then, will turn attention to the hidden environmental impacts of prop and costume making, and provide practitioners with tools to help them reduce carbon emissions. In doing so, the project will collaborate with Albert to provide four sustainability calculators, each of which will estimate the carbon emissions produced by an object made for the Star Wars franchise. The calculators will also enable practitioners to input data to determine the sustainability of their past or future productions. The four case studies underpinning the calculators are: 1. Analogue (1980) and digital (2005) iterations of the droid Artoo Detoo 2. Queen Amidala's 'throne room' costume in The Phantom Menace (1999) 3. Stormtrooper helmets appearing across multiple films 4. An animatronic porg from The Last Jedi (2017).Star Wars is a useful point of departure in discussions about sustainability. For, from its inception to the present day, it has told stories about environmental change. In A New Hope (1977), a human-made weapon obliterates the planet Alderaan. The Phantom Menace addresses the effects of colonisation. And in Solo (2018), characters recognise the effects of war on different eco-systems. Emerging in the 1970s alongside the first mainstream public debates about climate change and other environmental issues, the Star Wars franchise has provided fascinating commentary on how humans change the natural world. Of course, planetary exploitation is not limited to its onscreen narratives. It can also be evidenced in the production and commoditising of Star Wars properties, which are all made from raw materials: stormtrooper helmets rely on thermoplastics derived from oil; silicon computer chips store digital characters. Through its extractive, manufacturing, and waste processes, the franchise harms ecosystems and contributes to global climate change by emitting carbon, among other pollutants. Yet many of the franchise's innovations in prop and costume making, which have emerged from English studios, have set standards across the sector for over four decades. Visually iconic Star Wars properties appear in fashion magazines (Vogue, 1977, 2002), are referenced by other media such as television shows (Ru Paul's Drag Race UK, 2021), and are crucial to Star Wars merchandising. Thus, the franchise will offer valuable insights into the environmental impact of prop and costume making that are relevant to the film industry and other design-oriented sectors. The project's findings and resources will be shared on a website, which will include written histories, short videos, and visual material. Furthermore, through a research network, industry focus group, and events (such as a lecture at the National Science and Media Museum's 'Widescreen Weekend' Film Festival), the project will prompt discussions about sustainability among academics, practitioners, and the public. The Environmental Impact of Filmmaking project, then, will demonstrate how props and costume making are vital to industry efforts to make filmmaking more sustainable. By equipping practitioners with tools to adopt greener processes and inspiring public conversations about industry practices, the project will have a lasting and positive impact on film production.

为了应对防止气候变化的激进运动和政府会谈的紧迫性，电影行业从业者目前正在寻求解决电影制作造成的环境危害的方法。例如，英国电影学院和创意苏格兰举办的活动讨论了该行业如何变得更加环保。然而，正如英国电影和电视艺术学院 (BAFTA) 行业领先的可持续发展咨询公司艾伯特 (Albert) 所证明的那样，迄今为止，行业举措的重点是电影拍摄中的碳抵消。尽管许多电影制片人希望实现碳中和，但研究人员和活动人士认为，“净零”掩盖了长期碳使用的影响，并且无法阻止气候变化。那么，这个项目将把注意力转向道具和服装制作对环境的隐性影响，并为从业者提供工具来帮助他们减少碳排放。为此，该项目将与阿尔伯特合作提供四个可持续发展计算器，每个计算器都将估算为星球大战系列制作的物体产生的碳排放量。计算器还将使从业者能够输入数据来确定他们过去或未来生产的可持续性。支持计算器的四个案例研究是： 1. 机器人 Artoo Detoo 的模拟（1980）和数字（2005）迭代 2. 《幽灵的威胁》（1999）中阿米达拉女王的“王座室”服装 3. 多部电影中出现的冲锋队头盔4.《最后的绝地武士》(2017) 中的电子波格。《星球大战》是讨论的一个有用的出发点关于可持续性。因为，从诞生至今，它一直在讲述有关环境变化的故事。在《新希望》（1977）中，一种人造武器毁灭了奥德兰星球。 《幽灵的威胁》解决了殖民化的影响。在《游侠索罗》（Solo，2018）中，人物认识到战争对不同生态系统的影响。 《星球大战》系列电影诞生于 20 世纪 70 年代，伴随着有关气候变化和其他环境问题的首次主流公开辩论，它对人类如何改变自然世界提供了精彩的评论。当然，行星开发并不仅限于屏幕上的叙述。这也可以在星球大战财产的生产和商品化中得到证明，这些财产都是由原材料制成的：冲锋队头盔依赖于从石油中提取的热塑性塑料；硅计算机芯片存储数字字符。通过其采掘、制造和废物处理过程，该特许经营权损害了生态系统，并通过排放碳和其他污染物而加剧了全球气候变化。然而，该系列在道具和服装制作方面的许多创新都来自英国工作室，四十多年来已经为整个行业树立了标准。具有视觉标志性的《星球大战》属性出现在时尚杂志中（《Vogue》，1977 年、2002 年），并被电视节目等其他媒体引用（《Ru Paul's Drag Race UK》，2021 年），并且对《星球大战》的商品推销至关重要。因此，该系列将为电影行业和其他设计导向行业相关的道具和服装制作对环境的影响提供有价值的见解。该项目的研究结果和资源将在网站上共享，其中包括书面历史、短片和视觉材料。此外，通过研究网络、行业焦点小组和活动（例如在国家科学和媒体博物馆的“宽屏周末”电影节上的演讲），该项目将促进学者、从业者和公众之间关于可持续发展的讨论。那么，电影制作对环境的影响项目将展示道具和服装制作对于行业努力使电影制作更具可持续性至关重要。通过为从业者提供采用更绿色流程的工具并激发有关行业实践的公众对话，该项目将对电影制作产生持久和积极的影响。