Tordenfilm awarded Gullruten for Green Production of the Year

In May 2023, the Golden Screen Awards (Gullruten) took place, which is the annual award show for the Norwegian TV industry. One of the prestigious awards handed out this evening is the Green Production of the Year. And this year, it was given to Tordenfilm for their production of the series Kuppel 16 (Dome 16) for NRK.?

The award is given to: "A production where the production company has made conscious and demonstrable green choices to reduce the production's carbon footprint, and/or contributed to green innovation and new thinking in production to achieve the goals of a more sustainable development within the climate and environment in the industry.” (Gullruten)

We had a chat with the winners and producers of "Kuppel 16", Eric Vogel and Ingunn Sundelin about their green measures and tips for other producers who want to create more sustainable productions.

- Congratulations! How does it feel to be awarded the Green Production of the Year??

Exciting! It is the culmination of work that has gone on for several years, involving the whole company and beginning with the sustainability work on our previous drama series “Made in Oslo”, which was also nominated for the award, and later expanded upon for “Kuppel 16 / Dome 16”. Work which will continue with our upcoming projects too, not least inspired by getting this award!

- Can you give us some examples of green measures you implemented in the production of Kuppel 16??

The most impactful measure we took was that we decided early on to film the entire series locally, in Oslo and surrounding areas, to minimize cast and crew travel. Since the series is set in a future where climate change has already had a huge impact, the scripts called for many locations that are hard to find in the Oslo area - dilapidated cityscapes, wastelands, abandoned buildings etc. Locations that are more readily available elsewhere in the world, and which we could have chosen to travel to, also to access financing through incentives.? But we felt that making a series that reflected the effects of global climate change should not itself contribute to it. So we decided to travel nowhere and rely on a mix of the locations we could find here and on extensive VFX set extensions and CGI environments.?

As Kuppel 16 was an international co-production with the Dutch company Big Blue, we built our cross-border cooperation not on filming in the Netherlands but on doing a substantial amount of the VFX work there. Our strategy to do an international co-production without travelling anywhere was thankfully also recognized and supported by the Netherlands Film Fund as well as by the Creative Europe MEDIA program. Our commitment to filming locally was also key in attaining an investment from the regional Oslo Film Fund.?

Another important aspect was empowering a single person, Tordenfilm coordinator Yeva Paley, to take the overall responsibility for following up on the sustainability work during prep, production, and post-production. Her main task was to involve and keep in touch with all department heads from early on. She created a reporting system (online forms) to track measures taken and goals achieved/not achieved in every department, and she then collected the input and wrote the final report.?

We wanted to create a “green culture” among our cast and crew, where thinking about and implementing sustainable options, then documenting our efforts, was a natural part of the project work. It really is key to allow people time to contribute and apply their specific skills to the work. Then it becomes a collective process, and not top-down. We feel we were able to achieve this on Kuppel 16, not least because climate issues were right there in the actual scripts as well, so a lot of the people working on the project were motivated to contribute from the outset.

- What are your tips for others who want to create more climate-friendly productions?

If you are approaching this for the first time: one piece of advice is to start modestly, with simple and realistic measures for the project you are doing. Find a place to start. Then build experience and expand your efforts as you go along, with the next project and the next after that.

Also, it’s a cliché to say “start early” to map out your sustainability strategy and goals, but it really is the best thing to do, also to create the foundations for the “green culture” mentioned above. You can have an initial conversation about sustainability practices already early in the idea stage. Then keep that conversation going throughout. But even if it’s late in the game, and the project is about to start filming, for example, it’s never too late to do something.?

Lastly, sustainability work is about a lot more than green production, and you can find inspiration by reading about the UN’s 17 goals for sustainable development. Perhaps the story you are telling can inspire someone in the audience to think about, for example, gender equality or preserving life underwater, for example? Those are two of the UN goals. What our industry does which is unique is that we tell stories in sound and moving images. And our stories can be powerful tools in themselves to inspire, provoke, and move ourselves and others into taking climate action.

- What were the biggest challenges you faced in order to produce more sustainably??

The pandemic created the most direct challenges to our sustainability work. Kuppel 16 was in principal photography through the delta and omicron surges during the fall and winter of 2021/2022, and we saw a lot of disruption as a consequence. Distancing rules made it imperative to hire more production vehicles for cast and crew transport than we had planned, and the availability of rental EVs was limited. Losing locations on short notice due to infections/quarantines also meant we had to find alternatives fast, and working fast means less thought-out measures and sustainability. Vehicles and locations are also linked in another way: to minimize the rental period of production vehicles, we wanted to finish all location work in one shooting block, and then head to the studio for the rest and return a lot of the production vehicles. But the location disruptions meant we had to hang on to the vehicles longer because we had to intersperse location work with studio work in the end.

We in Green Producers Club congratulate Tordenfilm on the award, are inspired by their green methods and mindset and proud to have them in the Club!

All Norwegian viewers can watch Kuppel 16 on NRK TV here.