Green Filmmaking: Tools for More Sustainable Production at Every Budget
The damaging effects that production can have on the environment are very real. However, with the right knowledge and tools, every production can take steps towards minimizing environmental impact. So, what does sustainable filmmaking look like? Our experts will discuss how their organizations are implementing changes to reduce their carbon footprint and what some of the best practices and tools are that independent producers can start implementing on-set today without breaking their budget.
Moderator
Jill Goldsmith, Co-Business Editor, Deadline
Panelists
Allison Begalman, CEO, YEA! Impact
Heidi Kindberg, Vice President, Sustainability at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)
Samata Pattinson, CEO, Black Pearl
Stephanie Dawson, Producer
Steve Vitolo, Founder and CEO, Scriptation
presented in partnership with Green Production Guide and Hollywood Climate Summit
Speakers
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Jill GoldsmithCo-Business Editor, DeadlineJill joined Deadline in 2019 after working as a New York-based contributor. She follows corporate finance, deals and publicly traded companies in media and entertainment, film financing, and New York film and TV production.
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Allison BegalmanCEO, YEA! ImpactAllison Begalmanis an entrepreneur, writer, and activist working at the intersection of entertainment and social justice. She’s the CEO of YEA! Impact and the co-founder/EP of the Hollywood Climate Summit, as well as recipient of the Roddenberry Impact Award and the Walking Softer Young Leaders Award. Outside of social impact, Allison writes for television and film and speaks for companies and organizations all over the world, including Paramount Global, NYU, USC, Edinburgh TV Festival, Harvard, and many more.
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Stephanie DawsonProducerStephanie Dawson is a producer, line producer, and production manager for narrative, unscripted, and branded content with over 15 years of experience. She is a founding member of the non-profit Women Independent Producers, former co-chair of the Producers Guild of America Green Committee and a Climate Reality Leader. She is currently a Producer for the PBS Series Great Performances with WNET Group/Thirteen.
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Steve VitoloFounder and CEO, ScriptationSteve Vitolo is the founder and CEO of Scriptation, the Emmy® Award winning script reading and annotation app for film and television production. He has over 15 years of experience working in the entertainment industry, having written for shows like “Hot in Cleveland” and “Black-ish,” and the romantic comedy, “The List.” Steve developed Scriptation after seeing first-hand the staggering amount of paper that gets consumed on set, and is dedicated to promoting sustainable practices that inspire productions to go paperless. His work has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline, and many more publications.
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Heidi KindbergVice President, Sustainability at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)Heidi Kindberg is Vice President, Sustainability at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), responsible for overseeing the sustainable production program on all scripted HBO- and Max-led originals, with the dual end goal of reducing environmental impacts behind the scenes while increasing sustainability awareness on screen. She began this role in March 2020.
Dubbed HBOGreen, the program’s efforts include carbon emissions tracking, best practices education, clean energy implementation, waste reduction practices, value chain opportunities and identifying on-screen opportunities. Additionally, Kindberg has continuously and successfully collaborated with industry partners through the Sustainable Production Alliance (SPA) and with the Producers Guild of America’s Green arm, for more than a decade. These efforts, which include spearheading university research projects, co-crafting industry-standard resources, chairing various committee work, launching the Sustainable Entertainment Education Series and co-founding the Green Film School Alliance, can be found on the Green Production Guide site.
Prior to joining WBD, Kindberg served as Director, Environmental Sustainability at Sony Pictures Entertainment and has freelance producing experience. She serves on SPA’s executive committee and is a trained Climate Reality leader since 2018. Previously, she served as an advisor to the Culver City Unified School District Environmental Sustainability Committee. Coming full circle, she met her husband while working on a show at Warner Bros. years ago and together they have two children, Jackson and Megan, and two dogs, Bones and Buffy. Kindberg holds a B.S. in Telecommunications & Film and an M.A. in Urban Sustainability.
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Samata PattinsonCEO, Black PearlSamata Pattinson is a British-born Ghanaian entrepreneur from Cambridge, working across fashion, film, and media. As CEO of Black Pearl, she is passionate about cultural sustainability, and connecting the dots between people, communities and the planet.
For 13 years, Samata grew and developed a women-founded organization promoting sustainability within the entertainment and design worlds. Overseeing design, educational and commercial initiatives alongside delivering Red Carpet Green Dress at the Oscars, she led collaborations with creatives, brands and organizations from Ghana and Nigeria, across to Italy and New Zealand, working with established brands such as Louis Vuitton, Armani, and Vivienne Westwood, alongside small independent designers such as Laura Basci. Most recently, Samata wrote and delivered the Sustainable Style Guide for the 95th Annual Academy Awards, known as The Oscars.
She developed the Billie Eilish Climate and Fashion focus at the singers’ London Overheated Festival, and joined COP26 as part of the SHE Changes Climate initiative, later delivering a keynote during COP27 in Egypt on Designing for Sustainability.
Samata holds advisory and mentor roles at Cambridge University’s Institute of Sustainability Leadership alongside having spoken at Yale School of the Environment, COP26, COP27 and SXSW, and has been invited to Number 10 Downing Street to address two British Prime Ministers on the subject of sustainability, business and entrepreneurism. In 2020, Samata was selected by Cambridge University to champion their new series for the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership entitled ‘Future we Want initiative’, in addition to sharing insight for the inaugural IPBES, Global Biodiversity Podcast – Nature
Insight.She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and sits on the sustainability council for Rothys with a focus on the relationship between biodiversity, climate and apparel production. A producer, published author (THE TRIBE™ Empowerment Journal, The Fashion Designer’s Resource Book – Bloomsbury Publishing), Samata delivered her first TED talk in June.
