{"id":202414,"date":"2026-03-03T17:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202414\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T17:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:02:16","slug":"csulb-leads-nationwide-movement-in-green-filmmaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202414\/","title":{"rendered":"CSULB leads nationwide movement in green filmmaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kent Hayward, an associate film professor in Cinematic Arts<\/a>, remembers working on a big franchise film in which the company spent months building beautiful miniature sets, several enormous fake caverns and a life-sized restaurant set.<\/p>\n

Movie magic was made, and at the end of the shoot, everything was piled sky-high into the dumpsters, including recyclable materials. Hayward remembers feeling it was all very wasteful. As he started teaching, he began saving stuff for future use \u2014 possibly by students.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the green filmmaking movement on campus started.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to talk to students about incorporating sustainable practices as a way to save money and resources \u2014 something that independent and low-budget filmmakers are pretty familiar with already,\u201d Hayward said.<\/p>\n

Cal State Long Beach and its students have become national leaders in the green filmmaking<\/a> space. CSULB is one of the two founding members of the Green Film School Alliance<\/a>, which is now 50-plus collegiate members strong, in 10 countries. Professor Hayward wrote \u201cGreen Filmmaking: A Guide to Sustainable Movie Production,\u201d published by Routledge in 2025. This spring, he is teaching CSULB\u2019s first \u201cSustainability in Film\u201d class.<\/p>\n

And for a few years running, students have been making green films by putting sustainability principles into practice, recycling materials and conserving resources like energy, water, compost and paper. Their efforts have been recognized with green seals of approval and in the annual Green Generation Showcase<\/a>, which takes place in April at the Earl B. Miller Japanese Garden<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery department in a film can contribute to sustainable practices, from catering and food to the camera department, lighting, makeup and wardrobe, props, construction, sound, actors and post-production, too,\u201d said Hayward, who co-created the Green Film School Alliance in 2020. \u201cWith a little planning, we can build things to be reused, recycled, or broken apart to component bits again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayward noted that film and TV productions are significant employers in California, with great potential for waste or sustainability. Recent reports indicate that the film and TV industry make up more than 50% of the broader entertainment industry in Los Angeles County. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFilm and TV are responsible for a big chunk of our economy; like many other industries, there is a footprint that it leaves behind,\u201d Hayward said. While they\u2019re not as impactful as the agriculture or fossil fuel industries, they can be wasteful, he said, with so much getting thrown away after one-time use. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of room to inspire good behavior, responsible actions, and other things too,\u201d Hayward said. He cited the shift from physical to digital film as an example. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s savings of toxic chemicals, processing, developing, physical prints, plastic, celluloid \u2014 there\u2019s far less of that now, which is great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feeling PEACHy<\/p>\n

The Beach was an early adopter of PEACH and PEACHy, the Production Environmental Action Checklist, and the same list for young filmmakers. The checklist is a free tool created by the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance that Hayward helped adapt for film students. It breaks down all the different ways that filmmakers can bring green practices into their projects, from using rechargeable batteries in sound and camera gear, to using e-tablets instead of printing out scripts.<\/p>\n

Claudia Villalta-Mejia \u201919 implemented the PEACHy checklist when she worked as a sustainability coordinator on a short student film called \u201cDon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe diverted 15 pounds of trash to compost \u2026 and used 18 water bottles instead of 180,\u201d she said in a video CSULB students made<\/a> about sustainability in film. \u201cThere was support from the whole crew and cast, which put a lot of wind in my sails \u2026. We want to make our movies environmentally friendly, so future generations still have a planet to make films on.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating with a major in film and electronic arts and a minor in environmental science<\/a>, she worked at Sony Pictures Entertainment as a sustainability specialist for 2 \u00bd years. Now, she works as a bilingual sustainability consultant for a corporation that advises companies and government agencies in Santa Cruz County on how they can be greener. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Hayward says CSULB is uniquely positioned to keep the green filmmaking movement alive and thriving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a state school; we have great resources, but we don\u2019t have the deep pockets that bigger schools have, so we are scrappy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know how to make things and work with less and thinking outside the box is a really valuable skill.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kent Hayward, an associate film professor in Cinematic Arts, remembers working on a big franchise film in which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1818,1820,7,1815,1823,1821,1822,1819,131,133,132,1817,1816],"class_list":["post-202414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-49ers","tag-cal-state","tag-california","tag-college","tag-conoley","tag-csu","tag-csulb","tag-dirtbags","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-state","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}