I'm back at work for a few weeks.

Ugh.

I just want to keep the momentum going with Film Biz, but I took the whole month of May off and it's time to do a tiny job.

Anyway, I heard Feature Systems is using Bio Diesel. I'll have to check in with Jay - see what the story is.

There's going to be a Film Biz Awards...a "Greenie" is given to the Greenest Producer, Production Manager, PA, Producer, Stage - once a year. It's genuis, we all get dressed up and drink and people will want to win it.

Brooklyn Flea!

What a great day. Not only did all this stuff get saved from certain doom, we raised some money and some awareness too. The general public is mostly interested in the inexpensive, nice things and knowing what they are buying came off a L'Oreal or WalMart commercial. Personally, the best thing was many people who frequent the Flea are in film business. Many stopped to talk about what we're doing, take a handful of cards and discuss how much they have thrown away. Again, everybody wants to do the right thing, but can't.

Other great news is Arash Moktar sold a bunch of his paintings under the Film Biz Tent and made great contacts. He was there all day with me and was a total rock star. His work is incredible.

Speaking of Rock Stars, HUGE thanks to Akeo Ihara for use of his hand truck, EZ up tent, table, early morning load-in, end-of-day load out, and all the STUFF!!!!

 He was so there and all over it and with a smile. I'm so grateful. And of course, a big thank you to Danielle Webb, for her fabulous schlepping, encouragement and double parking efforts.

High fives to Brianne Zulauf for representing my peeps and stepping in and helping us sell and have fun and being her usual sunshiny self. 

Mark Newell (and co-director) for loading in and out of the storage space - no small feat. Daniel Kenney for bringing some awesome stuff (one teapot that sold the second I put it down on the table) and making me laugh when the heat was really getting to me. Kate Yatsko dropped by to say hello. Thanks for all the support!

Now the nitty gritty - the money - drum roll, please. We made 777 dollars. (If we were only playing slots or into numerology). Not bad for a side table, one super nice floor lamp, knick-knacks and all the professional hagglers. It almost covers the 900+ I paid out of my own pocket for start up fees: website, business cards, storage unit, flea fee, rental of 3 tables, cargo van rental, parking, gas and a few zip cars to pick up donations. The good news is, NEXT Flea (June 15th) will all go towards the Diesel Cargo Van. The big start-up fees are done more and more will just go to paying me back. Note: I have been turning down work and NONE of this goes to me as a salary.

I am keeping meticulously accounting for all expenses any donors of time or materials are always welcome to see receipts. Always. It's important to me you know this is not for personal gain, but to make this big idea a reality.

Anyway, a great day, except for my goofy-looking farmer's burn.

BioDiesel

Earthmark and the Production Alliance hosted a fantastic event today, "BioDiesel, Why it Matters, Why it Works." I was really impressed with who was there and the energy in the room. I didn't talk to everyone and wish I had been able to.

I'm going to skip to what I thought was the best result of the whole event and then recap the presentation the best I can.

As you might have guessed, it was about BioDiesel - NOT BIO FUEL (which is different - corn ethanol) TriState BioDiesel collects used cooking oil from restaurants and processes it into BioDiesel. The ins and outs in a moment because here's what happened. I'm not sure who these guys were, but I know one for sure an Arri rep, a guy from (Caterpillar?) a guy from Haddad's (?), 817 (?) and another who has had a family business forever- I will ask Earthmark who they were and update the blog later.....BUT THEY TALKED. Maybe I'm making a big deal about it, but just having those genny and motorhome rental houses in the same room asking questions and talking to each other is fantastic. A real accomplishment. Kudos!

Here's my notes I scribbled in the dark:

EarthMark is a non-profit Carbon Neutral Consultant. Katie Carpenter, of EarthMark explained quite clearly the effects of Carbon Dioxide, methane, heat and pressure on our atmosphere and the egregious after effects. For example Kilamangaro has mud and no ice. (See pic above) and other scary, awful things. (I know this is terribly simplistic, but I wanted to LISTEN - I was rivited and excited.)

Dana explained the show "24" in 2006 created 1600 metric tons of ....crap, my notes kinds blow I could not keep up...CO2? At any rate, the same as 369 cars.

The hottest 10 years have been within the last 12. Too many too recently.

Greenland ice is melting - you should have seen the graphic.

How does ice melting effect the US? Lower Manhattan and Florida could be under water in the next 2-3 decades.

Then Meredith of EarthMark - a NYU grad with an Urban Planning Degree.

The Academy Awards was green, Sony, Warner Brothers and Universal are making great strides. The movie Syrianna went green with off-sets (buying and planting trees and the like I presume?) As did The Day After Tomorrow.

Then Brent Barker of TriStateDiesel spoke. This was good.

Red Hook will be seeing a processing plant of BioDiesel in 2009. Ha-hoo. The oil is separated into glycerin and .......well, there was just so much information. Click on this link and see the basics for yourself. BioDiesel Basics. The biggest deal to me is you don't have to convert you diesel engine and it cleans it out and you run through filters in the beginning of using it as BioDiesel loosens sediment.

Soy creates the least amount of pounds per acre.
Palm does not perform well in cold climates.
ALGAE (wait for the sky to open and angels sing) can manufacture 10,000 pounds of BioDiesel per acre. It actually uses pollution (co2) to create clean energy. Go algae go. I am now such a fan and feel foolish for not knowing this sooner! I heart algae t-shirts have been ordered.

It's gaining in poopularity - in 2007 450 million gallons of BioDiesel were sold to:

The Military - the biggest buyer of BioDiesel - I never would have guessed.
Parks Department
and many others I could not jot down....

It can be used instead of Heating Oil #2.

Minnesota is leading the way state legislation-wise. Oregon and Missouri, too!

B100 is 100% BioDiesel
B20 is 20% - you get it.

B100 performs better than electric or hybrid cars by far.

BioDiesel is a homegrown fuel source. No War Required.

BTU's used to produce is 1 (to manufacture) to 5.3 (energy created)

That's all - then the folks mentioned above talked about tier 1,2,3 engines and they lost me. BUT they knew what they were talking about and it was a pleasure to listen in on it.

I heart algae.

It's been an incredible week! Some bummers.

Monday was fantastic. I had a meeting with the folks that helped Build it Green get it's first grant and they were excited and eager to help. I've been on cloud nine, but anxious because I have sooo much to do! T

uesday I wrote, made phone calls, wrote emails and had lunch with a friend. No more social calls. I don't have the time. I'm in a hurry. 

Wednesday I met with the Mayor's Office of Film and Television. Great meeting. 

Basically, I learned that lots of folks are out there trying to make it a more sustainable business. The generators are being taken care of. Thank goodness. I can concentrate on sets and materials. 

 All I have spoken to are excited and want to help: LeNoble Lumber, Expendables Plus, Konduit, Artificial Reality, and every crew member is totally behind this. I just have to get the proposal written. I just have to get the proposal written. Bummers: I had to cancel/postpone the fundraiser. Wrong place, wrong time. I was looking forward to a good party. Wah. 

 Silver Cup is sort of blowing me off. (?) I'm starting to get a green-wash vibe and find it rather confusing. I've been working on commercials there for 15 years, Alan Suna knows me by name as does his staff. I'm not asking him for space or money........it's just weird to me. 

I'll just keep on keeping on and try later when maybe he realizes Film Biz Recycling is for real and not Little Miss Blondie's pipe dream.

Thoughts for Craft Service

Caterers and craft service folk have enough on their plate, so asking them to wash dishes for 50 or more would never happen. Although, I seem to remember a caterer when I was a PA having real plates and utensils, but I have not seen that in 10 years.

Anyway, what's out there that's disposable and biodegradable?

Bagasse plates, cups and bowls are made from a sugarcane refining process and can be recycled with other paper or put in with your other compost. They are unbleached and FDA approved for food use. Believe it or not they can also survive runs in the microwave and freezer. You can buy bagasse utensils too. Find them at www.branchhome.com.

Not that I trust the Wall Street Journal...

...this article sent to me was pretty interesting. Let's plug in our cars and hope opportunist utility companies don't gouge us. I'd love to see production vehicles - cargo vans, cube trucks, genny's (that idle all day), motorhomes (that idle all day - grrrrr) - start to move in this direction. The amount of fuel we burn through and emissions not to mention noise pollution. Can the film business reduce it's dependence on oil? Maybe. If the technology and utility starts align and if people aren't afraid of change. That's the big thing . Change. Doing something differently. Thoughtfully. Responsibly.

You can't do just one thing. All you do has a string of actions before and aft.



Utilities, Plug-In Cars: Near Collision?
Electric Firms Say Daytime Charges May Raise Costs
By REBECCA SMITH
May 2, 2008; Page B1

Car makers are preparing to introduce plug-in electric cars in 2010, but their success will depend on players beyond their control: the electric utilities.

The plug-ins are a new generation of hybrid cars that can run 10 to 40 miles on electric batteries before they have to tap their gasoline engines. This gives them, on a tank of gas, a driving range of as much as 600 miles without recharges to potentially thousands of miles with recharges.
The Edison SmartConnect meter, above, knows when an electric car's battery is charged. Utilities would prefer charging at night.

To recharge the battery, drivers will plug it into a standard electric wall outlet at a cost of a dollar or two. As a result, the car companies are betting that the plug-ins will succeed where previous electric cars have failed, lifting their industry from the doldrums and slashing oil consumption.

But the cars will need ready access to inexpensive, plentiful electricity. That means the new vehicles "will make utilities more important than the oil companies" to many drivers, says General Motors Corp. spokesman Robert Peterson. If utilities discourage the cars' proliferation by charging more for their electricity, the push toward plug-in cars could falter.

So far, most utilities view the cars with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. If drivers charge their batteries at night, when demand is low and the utilities have generating capacity to spare, utilities will increase their electricity sales and make more efficient use of their existing power plants. But if most drivers recharge their cars during the day, when demand is twice as high, utilities could have to make or buy extra electricity when it is most costly. They could even be forced to build new power plants.

A study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory agreed that the number of plug-in vehicles in use and when they recharge could profoundly influence power-generating costs. Under some scenarios, electricity costs would drop, but under others, they could more than double.

Worries about capacity aren't the only source of anxiety and friction. Congress is considering greenhouse-gas legislation that would effectively tax carbon-dioxide emissions. Utilities worry that their power-plant emissions could rise if they have to produce a lot more electricity to power plug-in cars. They argue that if they help cut oil use by furnishing electricity to cars, they should get credit for it. Currently, though, there is no mechanism in the major bills to reward the utilities.

Nonetheless, in some states, utilities have already begun investing in technology that will leverage the benefits of plug-in vehicles: "smart" utility meters that will allow both utilities and customers to track power use by purpose and time of day. The meters will permit utilities to move toward variable rates for electricity, charging more during peak demand in the daytime, and less at night. The plan is to steer plug-in owners toward charging their cars at night. Done right, the meters could be important enabling technology, as important to the plug-in vehicle as the elevator was to the skyscraper or the shopping cart to the supermarket.

"The plug-in hybrid has a tremendous future," says Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission. "Off-peak rates are a key component."

Hoping to influence consumer behavior, some utilities are already creating special rates for plug-in cars. Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric Co., for example, has created a nighttime rate for plug-in cars that is half that of its daytime rate.

Edison International, the parent of Southern California Edison, believes the next couple of years will be pivotal. "We're on the cusp of a commercial breakthrough that could reshape both industries," says Chairman John Bryson. "But it has to be done right."

So far, California is shaping up as the market that is best prepared for plug-in vehicles. With 17 million light vehicles in use today, it is both the biggest U.S. auto market and the biggest gasoline market. It has also adopted aggressive targets for carbon-dioxide reduction, and it is spending more money than any other state on advanced utility meters.

The state's three big investor-owned utilities -- PG&E Corp's Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Diego G&E and Southern California Edison -- are installing $5 billion worth of advanced utility meters, and they expect to have blanketed the state by 2012. One meter vendor, Cellnet + Hunt, estimates 30 million smart meters will be installed in U.S. homes in the next three or four years, about one-quarter of the potential market.

In Michigan, state officials are encouraging utilities and car makers to coordinate their efforts as they roll out new technologies. Detroit's utility, a unit of DTE Energy Co., plans to start testing smart meters soon, and it is considering equipping all customers with the meters by 2013.
Views of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in concept car from General Motors.

Later this year, Southern California Edison will see how smart meters work in conjunction with actual plug-in cars. The utility is partnering with Ford Motor Co. to get prototypes of the Ford Escape plug-in in field tests in Southern California. The cars will be paired with drivers who have access to smart utility meters.

"We want to know how the whole story works, how things fit together," says Mike Tamor, executive technical leader for Ford's plug-in vehicle team in Detroit. "We want to know how much fuel is saved and how people feel about plugging into the grid."

The plug-in car's potential to slash fuel use is dramatic. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that existing U.S. power plants could meet the electricity needs of 73% of the nation's light vehicles if the vehicles were replaced by plug-ins that recharged at night. Such a huge shift could cut oil consumption by 6.2 million barrels a day, eliminating 52% of current imports.

Another study, by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that electricity consumption would rise only about 8% if 60% of light vehicles in the U.S. were replaced by plug-in vehicles by 2050. That would also cut U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions by 450 million metric tons annually, equivalent to scrapping 82 million cars.

Carbon-dioxide emissions would probably fall even if coal-fired plants made the electricity, some studies have found, because they burn coal more efficiently than automobiles burn gasoline. What we're learning, says Ed Kjaer, director of electric transportation at Southern California Edison, is that "the grid is a mighty powerful tool."

Tony Posawatz, vehicle line director for the Chevy Volt, the plug-in car that General Motors Corp. is developing, says great changes are needed. Globally, there are 800 million vehicles in use today and the number is expected to grow by 300 million vehicles to 1.1 billion by 2020. "They can't all be petroleum-based," he says. "We believe in electricity. It's everywhere, and you can make it from a variety of fuels."

Donations now Accepted!

Hi friends: Many of you have been hearing me talk about the recycling project I want to start and I'm taking all of May off to do it!

I'm collecting donations from productions starting today! YIPEE. I have a storage space at Citi Wide Storage off Pearson Street in Long Island City - just call me and I'll meet the guys at the dock. Email me for my cell number. 

We're starting small, but if my instincts are correct, it won't stay that way! Among other things, I am trying to raise funds to: 

build a decent website (you are welcome to visit the crappy one I've built and see why), 

buy some software, 

get business cards, 

letterhead, 

donation receipts, 

 hire a grant writer, etc. I figure this will be about 5,000- 6,000 and I bet with a summer of Flea Marketing I can make it...all on stuff you would have tossed or donated to heavens know where.

 Thanks to Aaron Canto for being the first donor!

For more information and info click here: http://www.brownstoner.com/brooklynflea I will be there Sunday May, 25th! 

 Come see me and maybe buy something...OH THE IRONY! I need to get legit and quick. My plan is to meet with City Officials, and Solicit celebrities who claim to be green, get corporate funding for serious dollars, and the list goes on. It's like it to look polished and professional - in other words - 

FUNDED. I am asking the City for 10,000 square feet that they already own. (Brooklyn Army Terminal perhaps?) It's just really important I'm buttoned up and fast. In addition, I'm excited to get the inertia going and getting people to think about how this industry can improve with just a simple little" transfer station" described on our crappy website: filmbizrecycling.com. (still a work in progress - it's hard and I'm not good at it) When Film Biz opens we will accept everything: dead batteries, set paper, flats, flooring, paint, set dressing furniture etc. We'll either: 1) Find appropriate places to donate it to 2) recycle it properly 3)add it to our online prop house that eventually will wholly or in part sustain the operation.

 NOW HOWEVER, for the flea market I just need stuff that sells and people gobble up....in other words, set dressing - candles, frames, curtains, throws, pillows, bedding, plants, rugs, kitchen smalls, bathroom smalls, hardware, art supplies, small furniture, vases, lighting - you get the idea. I can not currently provide a tax-deductible receipt. According to the Non-Profit Kit for Dummies, once we get a non-profit status 501(c)(3) and an EIN I can provide tax deductions after the fact. If you received this, It's because I know you'll believe me when I say I am not going to keep a DIME for myself. I'll repay myself any expenses, but I will NOT profit and I hope you believe me. I will post earnings/expenses on the blog and any donor will always be allowed access to my receipts and balance sheets. This is a super long letter and I'm sorry, but I feel so strongly and my head is spinning with things I need to do. NOT TO BE MISSED::::::::>>>>>>>>>>>>>> SAVE THE DATE AUGUST 23RD for the most bad ass fund raiser you've EVER been to.........

The Allen Oldies Band from Houston, Texas and Celebrity BINGO for exciting prizes and dancing and drinking all night long. THIS will be great! This fundraiser will put towards a hybrid cargo van. Aw yeah! Thanks! I'm open to suggestions, constructive ideas, questions and if you know any celebrities please let me know! 

 I'd call Brad Pitt and Ed Norton right now if I had a decent website to show what an amazing and necessary idea this is! Volunteers needed!