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

为了应对激进主义运动和防止气候变化的政府谈判的紧迫性，银幕行业从业者目前正在寻找解决电影制作造成的环境损害的办法。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绿色。然而，正如BAFTA的行业领先的可持续发展咨询公司Albert所证明的那样，到目前为止，行业倡议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，未能阻止气候变化。因此，这个项目将把注意力转向道具和服装制作所隐藏的环境影响，并为从业者提供帮助他们减少碳排放的工具。在这样做的过程中，该项目将与阿尔伯特合作，提供四个可持续发展计算器，每个计算器将估计为星球大战系列制造的物品产生的碳排放。计算器还将使从业者能够输入数据，以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是：1.机器人R2 Detoo的模拟(1980)和数字(2005)迭代2.阿米达拉女王在《幽灵的威胁》(1999)中的‘王座房间’服装3.冲锋队头盔出现在多部电影中4.《最后的绝地》(2017)中的动画色情片.《星球大战》是讨论可持续发展的有用起点。因为，从它的诞生到现在，它一直在讲述关于环境变化的故事。在《新希望》(1977)中，一种人造武器毁灭了奥德朗星球。《幽灵的威胁》讲述了殖民主义的影响。在《独行侠》(2018)中，角色认识到了战争对不同生态系统的影响。20世纪70年代，随着关于气候变化和其他环境问题的第一次主流公开辩论的出现，《星球大战》系列电影就人类如何改变自然世界提供了引人入胜的评论。当然，行星开发并不局限于银幕上的叙述。这也可以从星球大战的生产和商品化中得到证明，这些特性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。通过其开采、制造和废物处理，该特许经营权损害了生态系统，并通过排放碳等污染物促进了全球气候变化。然而，40多年来，该系列在道具和服装制作方面的许多创新都来自英语制片厂，为整个行业设定了标准。视觉上标志性的星球大战资产出现在时尚杂志上(Vogue，1977,2002)，被电视节目等其他媒体引用(Ru Paul‘s Drag Race UK，2021)，对星球大战的销售至关重要。因此，该特许经营权将为与电影业和其他以设计为导向的部门相关的道具和服装制作的环境影响提供有价值的见解。该项目的发现和资源将在一个网站上共享，网站将包括书面历史、短视频和可视材料。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)，该项目将在学者、从业者和公众之间引发关于可持续发展的讨论。那么，电影制作的环境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可持续至关重要。通过为从业者提供采用更环保流程的工具，并激发公众对行业实践的讨论，该项目将对电影制作产生持久和积极的影响。

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.