Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504681
1 0 P E R S P E C T I V E | J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 2 3 N E W S Sustainability Symposium B Y D AW N S N Y D E R , A D G D I R E C T O R O F E D U C AT I O N , C L A I R E B E N N E T T, P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R , A N D J A K E T R E M B L AY, A R T D I R E C T O R A. A PANEL DISCUSSION ON BEST PRACTICES AMONG THE DIFFERENT ART DEPARTMENT-RELATED CRAFTS WAS MODERATED BY KAREN STEWARD (FAR LEFT). PANELISTS INCLUDED (FROM LEFT) SONDRA GARCIA, JEFF SHEWBERT, MIKE DAIGLE, CLAIRE BENNETT, AMELIA BROOKE, VICTORIA FORAKER AND ELANA ESQUIVEL (NÉE FARLEY). When we start talking about environmentalism, green practices, and why it's so important to implement the vast resources and economy of the Hollywood film and advertising industry in the effort to reverse climate change, it's easy to get bogged down in the scary, negative and overwhelming feelings of helplessness because… what can one person do? We adjust our habits, learn to recycle, compost, use a refillable water bottle, maybe drive an eco-friendly car, and other individual actions that make small but perceivable differences in our personal lives. But how much difference is that making in the grand scheme of things? Honestly, not a whole damn lot, especially with corporations and politicians who are taking every opportunity to lay new pipelines, dig new oil wells, transport more cheaply made products around the globe, and dump the trash from all these consumptive behaviors on artificial mountains or into the ocean where it chokes out the biodiversity that is critical to maintaining this singular habitat that has allowed humans to evolve into the intelligent and creative organisms that we are today. So, we need to go bigger. In our daily lives, erecting a castle or a museum or a storefront, or any other grand storytelling location is impractical, overwhelming and wildly beyond our own personal budget. But, we're designers. We're artists. We are creative collaborators, and we don't make these kinds of worlds on our own. We are given massive budgets, sometimes hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars to realize these worlds, for directors and producers to then tell their stories within. And afterward, these creations have to disappear to make way for the next production to come in and tell their stories. This is a huge opportunity to influence environmental action, with budgets, resources, and a creative hive mind that literally makes the impossible and unthinkable every single day. We are the creative and executive helm of the industry, and we need to take that responsibility seriously. Change is possible. We do have the power, when part of a group, to affect change. It can start with one email, as this Sustainability Symposium, hosted by the ADG Education Department and the newly formed ADG Green Committee, did on June 28, 2022. ADG member and Graphic Designer Juliane Crump reached out about potentially providing a class that shows the Art Department how to: -Save money by getting perfectly good used stuff for free. -Get rid of sets in greener, more sustainable ways. -Help studios meet green goals by partnering with entities that can help wrap out without throwing out. A