emmy®extra September 2007 • more emmy®extra features
TV Gets the
Green Light
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Under the new Green with Emmy campaign, the 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards and all related events will be eco-friendly, the Television Academy and broadcast partner Fox announced.
The effort, which began with July 19 nominations, includes the Creative Arts Awards ceremony on September 8 and the red-carpet arrivals, telecast and Governors Ball on September 16. But TV is turning green all over.
Chris Mann reports on the efforts of program producers and studio executives to make the industry—and viewers—more eco-smart.
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| Craftsman Carter Oosterhouse of HGTV's Red, Hot & Green says going green can be fun and easy: "It can be environmentally friendly, look good, feel right — and it can be a better design solution than not going green." |
As a solar-overpowered Mrs. Ed Begley, Jr., will tell you, it's not easy going green.
But thanks to industry initiatives and earthy hits such as Living with Ed, a sprouting of new series and specials are designed to show how building, decorating and even dressing eco-consciously can help you turn over a new carbon-neutralizing leaf.
Broadcast and cable networks are offering a slew of environmentally sound programming this summer and fall, including how-tos, docu-reality and scripted shows.
With a planet-friendly awards show (even the red carpet’s recycled) to a near–“power-neutral” season of 24 and an array of green-themed cable design shows, TV execs and creatives are eager to make eco a way of life on Hollywood soundstages and the American home front.
Handsome handyman and eco-enthusiast Carter Oosterhouse aims to prove that sustainable is attainable and attractive.
The craftsman, formerly of Trading Spaces and Today, will head his own series, Carter Can, starting on HGTV October 4. One segment per week will feature a green home makeover project, putting natural and biodegradable materials to functional, aesthetic and energy-saving home use.
“Going green can be scary, especially when you put the word design in the mix,” says Oosterhouse. “There are so many [scientific] facts about why we should be doing this or that — it tends to scare the public away. My goal is to show people that green can be fun and easy. It can be environmentally friendly, look good, feel right — and it can be a better design solution than not going green.”
Carter Can viewers will learn eco design from the ground up, covering elements such as nontoxic wood, non-polluting paints and stains, recycled glass, thermal-insulating corkboard floors, triple-pane windows, seagrass wallpaper, hemp countertops and other plantation-grown and renewable resources.
“Using sustainable forestry material may be a little more expensive, but you know you’re not chopping down the Amazon when you build furniture,” says Oosterhouse. Researching and understanding green building and design “does take a little bit of time,” he adds, “but being able to introduce it on TV is big, and it will definitely get the word out there.”
On the broadcast side, Howard Gordon, Emmy-winning executive producer of 24, says his Fox series is mounting “a concerted effort to monitor our carbon footprint and be almost power-neutral next season.”
Series star Kiefer Sutherland is filming Earth-friendly PSAs, while crew members are being encouraged to drive hybrid vehicles and the production will use biodiesel-powered generators and energy-efficient bulbs to light the show. None of these measures will compromise the series’ high-tech look and feel, Gordon promises.
The action series is the “guinea pig” in implementing green technologies in Fox TV productions, says Mike Posey, production coordinator for 20th Century Fox. The studio already recycles lumber and sets and intends to increase its eco-friendly efforts.
But going green is challenging because, to some extent, the studio is “at the mercy of its vendors,” Posey allows. “We realize the need to reach out to our vendors and come up with creative ways to achieve our [energy-efficient] goals. We hope to start a ripple effect. By going carbon-neutral on 24, and with other studios and networks joining in, we hope to force vendors to start thinking and ultimately going green.”
Gordon also sees the show as a catalyst. “If we can do it on 24—where we blow up a lot of things and have car chases—it’ll make it a little easier on less production-intensive shows,” adds the producer, whose wife, Cambria, is doing her own part for the planet. With Laurie David, climate-change activist and a producer of the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, she cowrote the children’s book The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, due out in September.
Fox also has designs on greening teens in its eco-friendly production of the 2007 Teen Choice Awards, airing August 26. Executive producer, Bob Bain, who produced Bravo’s feed of the recent international Live Earth concerts, says the production is using biodegradable fuels and recyclable set materials. Additionally, everything from press credentials to signage was printed on recycled paper.
“We used to use recyclable materials just because they look cool or are less expensive,” he says. “When you attach the fact that it’s an environmentally responsible decision, it puts a whole new emphasis on searching for stuff that already exists and is recyclable.”
Bain has a committed colleague in Steve Bass, the Emmy-winning production designer for Teen Choice and many other live specials, including the Emmy, Tonys and Grammys. He is assembling what he calls “a cohesive green program” for scenic design that he intends to use for Teen Choice and other shows and to offer as well to other productions.
“There has not been a green scenic-design package that you could buy into for a TV show,” Bain says.
To that end, he contracted with trucking company Scenic Expressions, which agreed to use biofuels to deliver scenery for Teen Choice. He also collaborated with scene shop Scenic Express on a multi-tiered program for green scenery.
That includes using construction products from manufacturers who comply with clean building standards and dealing with scenery rental and salvage companies that recycle set components such as steel and lumber.
Bass hopes his sustainable initiatives will help set an industry standard that makes comprehensive green design easily accessible and financially smart. “It’s about shifting the dollar to environmentally responsible companies,” he says, “and away from corporations that are polluting and destroying the environment.”
Over at ABC Studios, where twenty-three series are in production for various networks, a “Green Team” is incorporating a broad spectrum of eco initiatives. The studio’s first concern, says executive vice-president of production Barry Jossen, was, “How can we make be immediately impactful?” The answer: Reduce waste.
“Our biggest short-term initiative is to eliminate waste,” Jossen says, explaining that each show has an environmental coordinator and participates in a water bottle–reuse program. On other fronts, the studio—through the sourcing division of parent company Disney—is seeking vendors of recycled lumber and other green materials and is considering the use of solar panels on soundstages.
Meanwhile, some of the studio’s new shows—such as ABC’s Carpooling and CBS’s Cane (about a family empire, led by Jimmy Smits, that promotes sugar as an alternative fuel)—will bring eco messages home to viewers “in subtle and organic ways,” Jossen notes.
Returning hits such as Lost (the epitome of scripted sustainable living) and Ugly Betty (which spins recycled fashions into haute couture) are expected to retain their inherent greenness.
At NBC Universal, the recently formed Green Council is using the carbon-neutral production of its summer feature Evan Almighty—which helped the Conservation Fund plant 2,000 trees and then donated lumber and other reusable goods to Habitat for Humanity—as a green production template for the conglom’s TV networks and other content-generating properties.
Operating as part of parent company GE’s Ecomagination campaign, the council will oversee, among other eco measures, the use of extensive recycling programs and renewable source materials in interior designs, including low-emission paints and wallpaper adhesives.
NBC Uni’s efforts “are about renewability and sustainability, as well as really good business,” says Bravo president Lauren Zalaznick, who heads the committee and is overseeing its “Green Is Universal” initiative.
“We want to make going green a natural response.” The company hopes to stimulate that response with a week’s worth of environmentally themed programming: green storylines will be woven through all prime-time series airing November 4–10, as well as news, sports, cable and online offerings.
Not surprisingly, CBS-Paramount Television is also greening up. “Our productions are taking the first step to reduce our carbon footprint and change the way we communicate and operate,” says Kevin Berg, executive vice-president of production for CBS-Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group.
“One of the simplest things we have done is cut back on paper use. Documents are now almost entirely distributed electronically, reducing the amount of paper waste that ends up in landfills.
“All materials in set construction and striking are evaluated,” Berg adds. “We start by purchasing environment-friendly construction materials and end by reusing and recycling many materials that may have been disposed of in the past. We cannot simply count on the waste management company to recycle. We need to take charge at the source.”
But the company is taking its campaign a step further. It eliminated the DVD screeners sent annually to members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for Emmy Award consideration. Instead, voters are invited to watch episodes online, at www.thegreencampaign.com. Still, the cable networks remain the best positioned to drive eco lifestyle messages home, and HGTV aims to be prominent among them.
“A lot of people have green on their to-do lists,” says Melissa Sykes, HGTV’s senior vice-president of original programming. The network hopes to help motivate them with a 2008 series based on its summer special Red Hot and Green and a new special pegged to Earth Day, 20 Ways Your Home Can Save the Planet.
The network works with a panel of experts, dubbed the TrendSmart Advisory Board, who meet semi-monthly to consult on green efforts, among other issues.
Board member Sergio Palleroni has strong eco credentials: a professor of architecture and sustainable living at the University of Texas in Austin, he has helped launch green building projects in economically disadvantaged regions ranging from Katrina-ravaged New Orleans to South Africa.
He reports that HGTV “is looking to sponsor projects all over the U.S.,” some of which will be green, and it also plans to launch a green education program both on air and online.
The network is already building a home in South Carolina, near Hilton Head, with eco-friendly materials, energy-saving appliances and natural textiles. It will be awarded to a viewer next June in the HGTV Green Home Giveaway, a green version of its successful Dream Home sweepstakes.
In the meantime, longtime activist Ed Begley, Jr., continues his eco quest on HGTV’s Living with Ed. In season two, starting August 26, he and his wife, Rachelle Carson, explore sustainable designs in the homes of their friends.
The green theme continues on several other HGTV series with eco-styled episodes: an installment of 24-Hour Design features a green bedroom makeover by designer Angelo Surmelis — complete with a dog bed made of recycled plastic soda bottles.
Sister network DIY also airs various how-to series with green themes. Its dedicated eco hosts include Steve Piacenza and Cathie Filian of Creative Juice, who teamed on the recent book Creative Juice: 45 Re-Crafting Projects to Make with Recycled Stuff.
Piacenza says his show recycles its sets — a welcome change from his set designing days when “flats were torn down and put in landfills. If studios get together and have a [scenery] warehouse,” he suggests, “it’s almost like a recycling center where set designers can pull what they need.”
And don’t forget garage sales, thrift stores, alleys and junkyards. They are full of low- and no-cost goodies ready for “recycling, repurposing and reusing,” says Samantha Gleisten, host of DIY’s From Junky to Funky. Green opportunities are “all around you,” she adds.
“It just takes looking at things with a new perspective. If a chair is no longer working for you, hang it on the wall and use it as a shelf. My kitchen curtains are made of aprons.”
At Discovery, an entire network is being recycled: the Home Channel will relaunch as Planet Green in early 2008 with a variety of eco programming and a board of advisors that includes Leonardo DiCaprio. The activist-actor is an executive producer on the new channel’s first series, Eco-Town.
The thirteen-part program will chronicle the rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas. Devastated by a May 4 tornado, the town will be reconstructed as a “sustainable model of eco-living,” says Discovery Communications president David Zaslav.
“It’s not just about entertainment,” he told TV critics gathered earlier this summer in L.A. for the semi-annual press tour. “We’re going to put our resources into Greensburg and Planet Green and try to make a difference.”
Discovery will also be giving an unprecedented second window to the CNN documentary on environmental damage, Planet in Peril. The four-hour film, airing October 23 on CNN, will have a limited run one month later on Discovery. Peril features Discovery’s Jeff Corwin with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta reporting from environmental hotspots in thirteen countries.
Meanwhile, at Sundance Channel, a slate of eco programming branded “The Green” offers docu-reality looks at living the eco-conscious way. One highlight: the eight-part It’s Not Easy Being Green follows a British family’s struggles in renovating an all-green farmhouse.
But green design isn’t just for buildings. As seen on Sundance’s recent series Big Ideas for a Small Planet, viewers can now wear their green on their sleeves — be they bamboo, milk fiber or organic cotton. Earth-friendly designer Linda Loudermilk is introducing her Luxury Eco line and other green lifestyle products in her new West Hollywood store this fall.
A “green concierge” will be available in the store to advise TV personnel, such as wardrobe and set designers. While costumers peruse her clothing line, production designers and set decorators can examine products including reclaimed wood, eco-friendly paint and energy-efficient LED lighting.
“My goal has been to show people what can be done with the new products available to us,” Loudermilk says. “It’s a whole new culture.” •
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