There's a lot of talk in Hollywood about being sustainable, but sometimes it's hard to know whether or not the entertainment industry is really walking the talk. For many productions, being carbon neutral simply means purchasing credits to offset a film's massive carbon footprint. But there's hope: The Off Hours, an independent production from Seattle, Washington, is setting a new standard in green filmmaking through initiatives aimed to reduce waste and promote sustainability at all levels of production.

The Off Hours tells the story of a group of characters working the night shift at a 24-hour diner. The production team is still working on raising the final funding for the film but hope to begin filming sometime this year. Schedules permitting, Aidan Quinn, Alicia Silverstone, and Billy Baldwin are lined up to star.

Writer/director Megan Griffiths and producers Lacey Leavitt, Mischa Jakupcak, and Joy Saez aim to significantly reduce the film's carbon footprint through a mix of simple and groundbreaking initiatives. Basic measures include using biodiesel and eco-friendly paints and cleaning supplies, running a paper-free office whenever possible, and buying organic and locally grown food.

To further reduce waste, The Off Hours will use secondhand construction, set, and wardrobe materials instead of creating new pieces. Production staff spent a day at a local community building salvaging discarded building materials that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill. In addition, the team has established innovative partnerships with Second Use Building Materials and Goodwill Industries, which will loan production items from their stores, to be returned after the completion of filming.

"There are not a lot of films that I've seen that are doing this from the ground up and making a smaller footprint to begin with," says Griffiths.

Another initiative is Shoot It Green, a joint venture between Griffiths and Alison Kelly that provides on-location recycling services to film productions. "The nature of location shooting doesn't really enable an already tapped production to provide the infrastructure to recycle," says Kelly.

"We have all experienced how a production normally runs, and the amount of waste that is generated," adds Griffiths. "Even though most of us are responsible and recycle at home, when you get in an on-set environment, it's more difficult." Shoot It Green will remedy this through the daily delivery and removal of recycling bins for aluminum cans, plastic bottles, glass, paper, and compostable waste.

According to Griffiths' calculations, The Off Hours will reduce its carbon footprint by 80 percent compared to standard industry practices.

"The Off Hours is really groundbreaking because they are an independent film with an independent film budget, and they are still making the effort to go green and they're doing it in a cost-effective way," says Lindsey Johnson, interim manager of the Washington State Film Office (WSFO), which plans to create a resource guide to promote green filming using The Off Hours as an example. "I hope they can show other productions that it can be done and that it can be done at any budget level."

In addition to demonstrating that you don't need a big budget to significantly reduce a film's carbon footprint, the Off Hours team hopes to have an impact beyond the movie industry. "Film works with so many industries," says Griffiths. "If we can help people start to be more sustainable in their own industries, that will create a big impact."

Leavitt adds, "This is a way of making the world a better place and a way of applying it to the industry in which we're going to be working our entire lives."

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