We love film shootings in the sun. It’s the perfect setting for a beach vacation with your feet outstretched. So we went to Montpellier, to see what was going on there in terms of eco-production. A quick weekly reminder: Nausicä is a project we launched to highlight best practices and innovations in the environmental transition of audiovisual productions. Over the course of five months, we’re going to meet the players who are moving the lines, in France and Europe. And this week, it was Montpellier.
Structure of the sustainable filming system in the Occitanie Region
The region is very dynamic, with almost 3,000 days of filming every year, thanks in particular to three daily series: Un si grand soleil, Demain nous appartient and Ici tout commence. It shoots every day, non-stop, come rain or shine. We met with Occitanie Films, the regional film commission, which is responsible for hosting film shoots and promoting technicians and sets, while the Occitanie Region manages project financing via its film and audiovisual aid fund. Montpellier and Toulouse also have their own funds.
In terms of eco-production, Occitanie Films defines itself, above all, as a relay for eco-production initiatives and information. For example, it was keen to circulate the joint commission’s call for proposals to become an eco-production training organization. Today, two organizations are certified: Travelling, a film school, and Illusion & macadam, a training center.
If they obtain external funding, they can also take charge of organizing meetings or training courses, as demonstrated by the setting up of a 6-month practice analysis group aimed at training local technicians, always with a view to promoting the region.
Here are the different actions implemented by the commission. But Occitan eco-production doesn’t stop there! Stay tuned until the end, when we’ll tell you all about the dynamics at work.
From the technik to the dynamik
We met many inspiring technical solutions, at different scales.
Antoine Brochu presented us with his home-made solution for powering his sound recording equipment on location, Le SolAC. Using solar panels, he powers a battery that supplies electricity to his sound recording equipment. The system charges as it is used. The 110W from the panels power all the equipment on the sound trailer (which consumes around 60W), simultaneously recharging a battery that takes over in case of clouds. What’s more, his equipment could also be used to supply power to certain cameras and control tables… Don’t hesitate to contact him to talk about his great project! Generally speaking, Antoine’s philosophy is to return to simpler things in the face of technical overkill. Constant innovation is often synonymous with speed rather than progress and artistic improvement. For him, directors like the Dardennes brothers, for example, have an ecological approach, as there is little or no post-sync on their projects. All sound is recorded on set.
An expert in electrical engineering, Vincent Theven specializes in renewable energies and autonomous solar systems. Based in Perpignan, he designs innovative, high-performance alternatives to generator sets. His eco-responsible solution, Ecologène, consists of a compact, mobile system designed for continuous production of electrical energy, capable of supplying single- or three-phase current with a capacity of 48 kwH, equivalent to almost 4 days’ electricity consumption for a dwelling. No more fuel, no more continuous, deafening noise. Ecologène combines converters with a set of recycled Tesla battery modules, is silent, and emits no odors or greenhouse gases. The system can be recharged from the grid or photovoltaic panels. The best of the best. In Sète, by the sea, we met the Innport team, who import equipment (mainly lights and batteries) for the French market. Aware of the limitations of importing technical equipment from Asia, they took an innovative approach: turning to European sourcing, valorizing emerging local know-how, such as their Marseille-based supplier Pess Énergie, pooling technical equipment with other rental companies, and making suppliers responsible by demanding repairable equipment. Today, they can repair most equipment without changing the entire product. Their entire business model is constantly evolving. To top it all off, the company’s organization is in line with its business model: the setting is magical, the team is very pleasant (two rugby players are at the helm of the ship, so that must play a role), employee well-being is a priority, and aperitifs with family and friends in Innport’s seaside premises are a common occurrence. We almost never came back…
Occitania is the new Hollywood
The region is very dynamic thanks to its hosting of daily series. This format, which presupposes a certain « industrialization » of filming, enables us to set up long-term initiatives. Real research laboratories! The studios of France Télévision Studios, a pilot project for the Ecoprod label, in Vendargues store and reuse certain sets, which are assembled with as little glue as possible to facilitate disassembly, produce fertilizer from the canteen’s bio-waste thanks to a desiccator, and recycle wood waste from the studio joinery thanks to the Papier Soleil company. A rainwater recovery system to supply the toilets is currently in the test phase, they’re just waiting for the rain, which has unfortunately been too timid of late. But there are certain difficulties, not least due to the constant rotation of crews, which makes communication difficult. It’s easy to imagine how this model of filming could perpetuate certain practices and be useful for experimenting with others.
Then there’s a large-scale project in the pipeline… If we tell you that Montpellier will soon be the new Hollywood, do you believe us? The PICS Studios project, spearheaded by two real estate groups, GGL and Spag, involves hosting local and international audiovisual productions from start to finish. They are offering an all-inclusive package: from crew and new talent training, to post-production offices, set construction workshops, VFX studios, crew housing, pre-production offices and a host of other facilities. And, of course, studios to put it all in the can. The idea was born in 2019, and the site should be operational by 2025. The project was born out of a real need, and aims to make up for the shortage of studios in France: 50,000 m2 compared to 700,000 m2 in the UK. The studios were designed with the help of Benoît Ruiz, who contributed all his technical and scientific knowledge of eco-design. On average, for every 1m2 of new build, the carbon incorporated (materials, energy, construction site) is equivalent to 1.5t TC02e. Their goal is to reduce this figure to 590 kg CO2e per m2 built. In addition, PICS studio would like to provide productions with an automatic CO2 reporting system that calculates the carbon footprint of each emission item. The PICS Studios project also invites us to rethink our relationship with studio shooting, which has been neglected since the 50s with the Nouvelle Vague in France. For Benoît Ruiz, we need to think of the studio as the « base camp » for shooting on location in an area of 20 to 30 km2. Well-designed studios can also save money on travel and accommodation, and reduce a production’s carbon footprint. We can’t wait to see Spielberg shoot his entire next film in Montpellier City.
Sylvère goes green
In the category of encounters that leave an indelible mark on you, turning your perception of the world upside down, we pull out the Sylvère Petit card. This director is currently working on a feature film project: La Baleine. It tells the story of a winemaker who recovers the skeleton of a whale washed up on a beach and cleans it using micro-organisms found in a pond: an inter-species tale about man, death, life and transmission. It’s a nice change from the animal documentary about the toxic masculinity of lions. Alongside this project, Sylvère, who wears many hats, shared his vision as a filmmaker. In his view, it’s important to get away from our anthropocentric vision of animals, whether in documentary or fiction, and take the point of view of the living. Our films are essentially about humans, and copy human behavior from animated films for children or animal documentaries. Through dynamic narratives, such as The Whale, an « ecological western », it’s possible to create new narratives and question our representations of the world.
What do you think ?
Over a meal, we discussed with Sylvère the idea of incorporating eco-responsibility into a points system. Production could be initiated on certain criteria, and offset its impacts on certain positions by doubling efforts on others. For example, a production requiring the manufacturing of important sets for artistic purposes could make other efforts, such as taking only the train, to achieve a sufficient score to obtain subsidies which would then be proportional. This system would be beneficial because it would put production in a dynamic of action and would not impose the transition through constraint. For Sylvère, constraint is a danger because it can lead to a standardization of imagination and install a Manichean logic constraining the content of audiovisual productions. Sylvère, always, showed us the importance of bringing cinema to life beyond cinemas. In parallel with his La Baleine project, in 2016 he created the Whale Labs. The goal ? Convoke imaginations around cinema and ecological issues to engage audiences of all ages, such as, for example, making whale models, collecting and analyzing plankton, going on a catamaran to observe cetaceans, creating a participatory theater piece around professions cinema, adapting a script into a children’s album… Sylvère awakens the vocations of filmmakers, raises awareness among the youngest, and uses cinema as a vector of action.
So. Summary of this week spent in Montpellier: let’s rethink our ways of making films. Let’s think about new stories, look for solutions to source differently, explore the different levers to produce more responsibly! All the projects we have talked about in this article are part of this dynamic, let’s follow them, there is reason to be optimistic about the future of cinema!
The Links below are in French
Contacts
Occitanie Films : https://www.occitanie-films.fr/
Antoine Brochu et sa solution de prise de son solaire : antoinebrochu@gmail.com
Vincent Theven, Ecologène :
Portable: 06.28.05.94.23
vincent.enr@gmail.com
France TV Studios : https://francetvstudio.fr/
Pics Studios : Sébastien Giraud, contact@pics-studio.com
Thanks to our sponsors !
Nausicä 
Laisser un commentaire