Celebrating Green Crew Heroes! Eduardo Vieitez, Director at Cortez Brothers
Green The Bid Crew Heroes is a series that highlights individuals who bring sustainable practices to any area of the production process, and seek to inspire others to do the same. Production can’t happen without all crew-members (both on set and off), and the same is true of their support of Green The Bid.
Green The Bid’s Jessie Nagel spoke with Eduardo Vieitez, Director, about his own journey advocating for sustainable productions.
J.N. Where did you grow up and how did it inform how you do your job today?
E.V. I grew up in Madrid, Spain and I moved 10 years ago to London, UK. I’ve always loved drawing, I remember always being scolded for drawing in schoolbooks, and I’ve always loved nature, I was specially obsessed with Africa.
I originally jumped into commercials from music videos. Where I was used to tiny budgets, so the jump to advertising was an interesting change as it gave me a lot more resources to work with. I have been shooting commercials for 20 years and I was lucky to direct campaigns in more than 20 countries. From the very beginning I was impacted by how things were handled worldwide in advertising. It is not matter of just one market, as I got involved in bigger and bigger campaigns. I started digging into sustainability the waste in the industry bewildered me.
J.N. What are some things you do to be more sustainable at work, and what things would you love more post companies and individuals to adopt?
E.V. Since I work abroad 95% of the time.. The first thing I started to do was shoot with local crew, as easy as that. There is always a push to bring with me my trusted DOP, Art director, 1st AD… I thought: Aren’t there good crews in Germany, France, Belgium or Czech Republic nowadays?
While there was a learning curve in the long run this method had worked out very well for me. In addition to reducing my carbon footprint by not traveling traveling as much crew (first rule), you learn a lot from very skilled and passionate people with extremely different artistic backgrounds.
More sophisticated options are thinking of the location not just in artistic terms, but logistic terms, ie: let’s make it easier to get there, to light it, etc. It eventually turned out that being more efficient choosing the location (second rule to become more sustainable), meant having more time and resources to shoot the story as you envision it. Then I started trying to being more efficient with materials, suggesting re-using materials from past shoots for set constructions, trying to dig around in costume designers’ and production companies’ wardrobe for non-specific costumes, looking for more natural lighting, etc. You end up discovering being more environmentally efficient means having more time and resources for what really matters and focussing a lot of your energy in the key points.
Realizing how creatively enriching it is trying to do things sustainably was very exciting for me. It motivated me to develop my own carbon footprint calculator -CREAST- and start checking all the facts. Through this I found out that I was right about the colossal impact on the environment that our industry has, while also being less economically efficient.
It’s really easy to multiply by 100% the carbon footprint of a production, make no environmentally conscientious decisions, and actually have no better outcome in the quality of the job.
One very simple thing that most producers don’t consider is that most clients wont blink an eye if they see sustainability in a bid as a line item.
J.N. What are the things you have changed in your own life to be more environmentally conscious?
E.V. Once you get into sustainability, you can’t stop. It’s hard to keep eating meat or fish as I used to. I like meat and fish though, but I measure a lot its consumption once I’m aware of the impact it has. I’m almost vegetarian. Then you realize how easy it is to choose renewable energy nowadays. I loved to drive, but in London it’s a pain having a car, finally I decided traveling on public transport and renting a car whenever I need it to go out with my family. You can’t imagine how happy I feel now with this decision.
It’s very easy to take small steps to become more sustainable. I think we all just need to be aware of the impact our daily decisions have on the planet.
J.N. Who most influences you and inspires you when it comes to being socially and environmentally responsible in your work life and your personal life?
E.V. I shot a short-film about Syria a few years ago. It’s not directly linked to sustainability, but it somehow changed my life. I was shooting at the Syrian border, with real refugees and the pre-production and post-production happened in Istanbul during the coup. Everything was so out of the ‘comfort zone’ that it made me connect a lot with Syrian refugees and people who lost everything but their lives. I began to deeply understand that we really need only a few things to be happy. Watching refugee children barely dressed playing football with a balls made of trash, laughing and enjoying the moment after losing a comfortable upper middle class life and most of their relatives just a few weeks or months ago.
After that I came back to London and the contrast was so big that made me start thinking daily about what we really need to live. I started working on sustainability and, after building my own carbon footprint calculator, I got to an easy answer: All the things we have, that we don’t really need for living, are likely to be what is destroying the planet. All the things we don’t really need to make a commercial are what is destroying the planet, plain and simple. So the most unnecessary things are usually the most wasteful things.
J.N. If you could do any other job - in the industry or otherwise - what would it be and why?
E.V. I always had two dreams, the first was painting, more specifically being a concept artist, because I love the feeling of being 100% fulfilled artistically with so few tools, resources and people involved, it was you and your pencil, and that was all that was needed to have fun and create whatever you wished.
The second was directing nature documentaries, especially in Africa. I really miss being in contact with nature, it makes me feel that time passes much slower. I enjoy much more and for longer, the days that I am in nature. Living in a big city I feel like tomorrow I’m going to be 90 years old, everything happens really fast.
In my next life, I would certainly choose one of those jobs.
Eventually I ended up directing commercials, heavy VFX commercials, which I enjoy a lot though. Luckily, I usually shoot nature inspired commercials, I don’t know why, maybe destiny, and I have the chance of art directing CGI, which is pretty close to being concept artist.
So far, so good.
----- Are you a crew hero or do you know one? We want to hear from you!
