Once it was time to wrap, Lily’s colleague, Maya Wallis (Sustainability Coordinator) helped the crew achieve wins in materials and waste. Through helping the crew inventory props and costumes for reuse and donation, to finding organisations to send deconstructed sets to, Lily and Maya made sure as little went to landfill as possible.
Three entire set builds (roughly 15 tonnes of scenery) were sent to Punchdrunk Enrichment, a charity which creates immersive theatre experiences for schools, families and local communities. Costumes were sold to another production which takes place in the same era (Joy is a historical drama taking place over 10 years from 1968 to 1978), and leftover camera consumables were given to a local film school. Carpet and flooring were sent to No Floor No More.
As production manager on Joy, Giovanna Midgely notes, the benefits of a sustainable production went beyond a carbon emissions reduction, and left the crew feeling more engaged with the local community:
“It’s really amazing what you can achieve when you have a sustainability team in place. It goes so far beyond recycling and switching to batteries and HVO. We provided food for a women’s refuge and donated our sets to a theatre company. Not a stitch went to waste, and it suddenly felt like we were a part of the community we were filming in, connecting with charities, local businesses and youth initiatives. The crew and our producers loved it. And from my perspective as a PM, it didn’t increase my workload or put any undue pressure on the budget.” – Giovanna Midgley, Production Manager