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ANNA KAPLAN & SARAH HORN ARE CO-CHAIRS
Anna Kaplan and Sara Horn are Co-Chairs
ANNA KAPLAN AND Sara Horn were eating, drinking and sleeping sustainability before they became co-chairs of SSA.
Kaplan, head of impact production at Regen Studios, moved to Australia from London in 2000 to have a life that was closer to nature, but it was producing 2040 that provided a wakeup call.
The 2019 feature documentary examined what the year 2040 would look like if humanity treated the planet well by using the solutions already available to it. She and writer/ director Damon Gameau decided to practise what they were intending to preach by measuring the film’s impact on the environment.
“Seeing the data from our own efforts made us go ‘Holy shit! We can’t keep going like this. We have to change,’” Kaplan said.
She saw first-hand how difficult it was to make filmmaking practices more sustainable without tailored resources. She also realised that she had many of the skills necessary to get an initiative like SSA going because of her background as an impact producer in storytelling, gathering groups of partners, running training and changing behaviours.
Kaplan was the recipient of the 2019 Natalie Miller Fellowship. She was somewhat stymied by COVID-19 but it gave her the time, headspace and resources to do extensive research on sustainability in film and television worldwide. It was at this time that she and colleagues ascertained that the albert carbon calculator model, developed in the UK and adopted by then by screen industries in such countries as Norway and the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, seemed like a good fit for Australia.
It’s really important that we leave where we’ve been the same as it was or even better.
The other SSA co-chair, Horn, had a personal interest in how to run productions as sustainably as possible when she was managing director of production and operations at Endemol Shine Australia – now she is chief operating officer at Dreamchaser. While at the local office of Endemol Shine she held a concurrent role as global chair of Endemol Shine Giving, leading a plastic-free pledge and a sustainable production drive across the international business.
“At Endemol Shine we introduced the role of sustainability manager on MasterChef Australia and Tanzy Owen took it on. When Tanzy, Jen McAuliffe and Anna convened an event in October 2020, I spoke there on behalf of ES. After that it seemed natural to become involved with SSA on a personal level and on an ongoing basis.” [SSA’s founders are these four women plus Kate Pappas.]
“I believe companies have a responsibility to run their businesses as sustainably as possible. Productions have a big footprint. When we go out and film, we’ve got a lot of transient crew that come in and out. It’s really important that we leave where we’ve been the same as it was or even better.”
Sustainable Screens Australia has achieved an enormous amount, principally on the basis of volunteer labour. You would have needed some cold hard cash though. Where did it come from?
SARA HORN: We had an initial starting budget and sourced funds from several areas. The Australian Cultural Fund campaign was one of the streams of funding as it allowed the donations to be tax deductible. [The target was $50,000 and $45,820 was raised using the fundraising platform.] The remainder of our start-up budget was raised by grants and donations from screen agencies, production companies, networks, streamers, and studios. The seed funders were all party to raising the capital. The ongoing costs of the organisation will be met by the membership fees. We have a tiered membership model that encompasses the following levels: consortium, associate member, and affiliate member. We then have partner relationships such as industry, education, commercial and philanthropic partner. The membership fees will enable the tools, resources and training to be free for the whole industry.
What exactly is the relationship between Sustainable Screens Australia and albert?
ANNA KAPLAN: We are not albert or Australian albert. We are Sustainable Screens Australia. We have an anchor partnership with albert and we are standing on their shoulders and utilising their 10 years of developing best practice and expertise but we’re not being prescriptive. We have taken a phased approach. We are starting with the fundamentals of building capacity, educating people on why we need to do this, skilling up people and deploying necessary, standard, effective tools and resources. albert as a very large suite of programs and initiatives. We will cherry pick the best of what’s available and what we think will work here and develop our own initiatives and resources to create what else we need. FEAT is a beautiful example of initiatives we might do on our own. We have the structure to do what they have done. I’ve also been inspired by Green Music Australia.
Who will get access to the albert calculator and who won’t once it becomes available in Australia?
AK: Everyone will get access. To use the albert calculator up to now to measure a production’s estimated footprint, you needed to request an account on the albert toolkit website and register the production. When Australian producers have tried to do this, the notification has gone to the UK and access has only been granted if it is a UK production or UK co-production.
In many interviews done for this publication, there was a strong sense that people are hanging out for the albert calculator. When will it be accessible?
AK: As soon as possible after July 1. That will be when we will have Australian admin rights, and can receive the registration request and grant access. We don’t want to give a date and then have to change it. Two learning designers started doing the localisation work and planning the sustainable production training on May 31. This included liaising with foundational members on their training needs and upskilling all of us as ‘super users’ so we can support everyone ongoing. We want people to have a good experience from the getgo and to be properly supported. albert is the only calculator in the world that, by our assessment, we would roll out here. People use workarounds, other calculators and bespoke spreadsheets – I did on 2040 – but albert is a holistic tool just for film and television. It guides you through the process so you know everything you should be looking for, where the bulk of your footprint is going to be, and where you need to focus your attention to reduce emissions and adhere to circular economy principles. The Green Production Guide in the US uses a spreadsheet and lays out a clear process to go through, but it’s not a sophisticated online digital tool like albert.
Can you spell out what is being tweaked so that albert suits Australia. I gather that transport is a big one.
AK: Everyone in the world who uses albert uses the same calculator and it’s not going to change. It’s been used for 10 years in the UK and there is a lot of awareness and comfort around it. It and the associated resources have evolved as people’s understanding of and engagement with the tool has evolved. If necessary, we will provide additional [supporting] resources. We may have to go back to some rudimentary this-is-how-you-do-it content for example. Also, there are references in the training that aren’t relevant to Australia: references to particular legislation, for example, and to matters such as using the high-speed rail that connects major cities. It is not possible to obtain albert certification in the UK for certain domestic flights, but Australia is a much bigger country, doesn’t have [enough of] this kind of infrastructure and we won’t be penalising people for shooting remotely. All the references given in the training materials have to be relevant to Australian practitioners and the Australian context. Some terminology and tone of voice needs tweaking as well.
Anna, you’ve said that because Australians have witnessed fires and floods firsthand, they are more aware than their UK contemporaries of how necessary it is to take action on climate change. Given how far we are behind, are there other reasons that might help us activate things quickly?
AK: Being a laggard is a real motivator. We’d say to the powers that be that [Australia] is 10 years behind [the US and the UK] and they’d say “Oh shit!”. People care about how we compare to our international counterparts. And yes, we’ve experienced an onslaught of one-in-100-years natural disasters and seen our city skies full of smoke and the impact of that on production. We’ve had such a lack of action and ambition for such a long time and now that we have a little bit of ambition and some targets, that’s been the galvaniser that everyone has needed. There can’t be any sitting on the fence, we all have to act, and act quickly.
SH: What is great about the Sustainable Screens Australia model is that it is driven by the industry. We are all coming together to drive this collective approach. We’re all singing from the same hymn book. We have quite a few international production companies in Australia, which are already using albert overseas, so it’s not as if the industry is unaware of albert. The more people that use it, the more of a massive snowball effect it will have. We’re seeing that already. It’s very encouraging that all these natural competitors in the industry are working together.
You have said to me previously Sara that reducing environmental impact is happening from the bottom up, rather than top down. Is that still the case?
SH: I know from working with many freelance crew over the years that a lot of them want companies to do more, but we are getting more studios and production companies involved and that’s a top-down approach. It will meet in the middle at some point, but we are still pushing from the bottom a bit.
AK: It’s the perfect storm now in that we’ve got pressure from the top and the bottom, and that’s where you get traction. Also, the university sector is all over this. They have to get serious because students expect them to. We’ve come along at just the right time for them. We’re having high-level discussions with AFTRS (Australian Film, Television and Radio School), VCA (Victorian College of the Arts) and NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts).
Screen Australia figures highly in the industry. You went there early on. What was the response?
AK: They’ve been engaged and in the conversation the whole way through the process; in the working groups and the roundtable we had in 2020. We were hoping they might take a leading role and be the first in to support us but, actually, it was the smallest screen agency in the country that was first in: Screen Tasmania gave us $1,000 – we all nearly fell off our chairs with excitement when we got that email. No-one had given us anything and we didn’t even ask; they offered it. Screen NSW was the next agency to come in. Supporting us didn’t quite fit into any of Screen Australia’s programs. It had to be massaged in. But now they’ve come in, in a significant way, and it’s great they’re at the table. There are structural levers that would accelerate change. We have a large percentage of content produced here that has government money in the mix and that is a lever.
There is wariness about what all this is going to add to the budgets of productions and companies. What would you say to that?
AK: It’s like putting solar on your house: it pays for itself in the longer term. There has been cost benefit analysis done in other countries, but we haven’t been able to do that here yet and we don’t want to throw out data that we can’t substantiate locally.
SH: From personal experience it doesn’t necessarily cost you more money. Depending on what you do, there are beneficial savings to be made. It’s a big fallacy that it’s going to cost more all the time. You will find your own solutions just by starting and that’s incredibly rewarding. It’s not an extra thing to do; it just becomes part of the process and a way of thinking. If it’s effectively planned for as part of the process or if it’s in the culture of the organisation already, it becomes seamless.
