GTB Spring 2024 Member Meeting Recap
Green The Bid’s Spring 2024 Meeting featured a presentation from guest speakers from King Kong Production Vehicles and #setlife: David Rovsek (Founder/President), Tyler Barton (Manager Fleet and Sustainable Production), and Robert LeRoy (Producer/Sustainable Production Influencer). Their topic was powering production entirely through electricity and renewable energy. King Kong Production Vehicles is a premiere provider of production trailers and motorhomes for feature films, television, commercials, photography, shoots, and events. #setlife, its sister company, offers Sustainable Power Solutions, production supplies and trucking. The speakers walked us through how solar energy and battery technology can allow the industry to move towards green production with a reduced carbon footprint while providing cost and efficiency benefits.
David began by explaining the ways that King Kong and #setlife have been at the forefront of battery energy storage systems and how these batteries can take the place of generators on set. “We are currently providing battery power for approximately 10 studio shows, and produced a proof of concept where we shot a beautiful film over two days. We never turned on a generator or plugged into the grid. Robert continues, “Our idea was that we could create a completely off the grid production. In the end, we had 73 lighting instruments of various sizes...The fact is, this couldn't have been done effectively a few years ago (but can be with) the technology that we have today – the parallel growth of LED technology combined with the level of battery power that can be supplied now.” David went on to explain the huge achievement it was, stating, “We can power an entire commercial, an entire set, without plugging into the grid or running a generator, which we proved here… Everything across the board was running on large and small batteries. The large Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), have 600 kilowatts battery-power energy, which replaced a good size diesel generator. (We also) have these NUE batteries, which are small battery energy systems that are very portable and pack a lot of power. These small BESS’s can easily replace a small honda generator.
Tyler then shared an image of the Moxion Power battery system, which ran the entire base camp which included all trailers, catering, set lighting++. “On the day of shoot, we actually even rolled in a catering truck for lunchtime and plugged into that as well,” says Tyler. Another benefit he stated about these systems is that they are 100% trackable and churn our invaluable data. The production can monitor usage and storage reserves remotely, and can quantify how much carbon and fuel was offset and saved. Beyond that, one can study the activity of the electricity, which provides data to help plan the next shoot. These batteries also have an impressive lifespan. Tyler explained, “We shot for two 14-hour days. It started at 100%, and by the time we finished after two days, we had only taken up 12% of the total battery capacity. The big takeaway, at least for me, was that not only is it doable, but we can do it faster and safer for the performers, and it doesn't limit creativity in any way, shape, or form. It allows you greater flexibility…and because there's no destructive element of the application wherever we're shooting, you can leave it as clean as when you showed up.” Another benefit is that these green technologies fix the issue of noise pollution. David added, “I've been on set many times earlier or late in the day in a residential area and had residents complaining. With these batteries being silent, you have much happier residents in your locations…This is an alternative. It's a true, absolutely workable alternative.”
Tyler demonstrated the accessibility of the batteries, explaining, “Not only can we put this (battery) on set, but we can put this in someone's backyard. This happened two weeks ago out on this television show that we're working with. They had to do one shot where they picked up on a street. With the diesel generator, they would have been two and a half blocks away. They’d set up around a corner and cable all the way in, pulling permits, FSO – everything you can think of. They were able to stick the Moxion Power system in somebody's backyard in the middle of the street, cable out. When it was all said and done, there was savings well into the thousands of dollars in labor and permits. The other thing I love to point out about these battery systems: they don't have any moving parts. Unlike traditional generators, they don’t go down, they don’t break. I'm sure we've all been on set and a motor home generator or trailer generator has gone down. With the fact that these don't have moving parts, they don't break. The worst they do is begin to run out of energy, and as long as there's been some forward thinking and folding it into the pre-production process, there's absolutely no reason in the world we couldn't use them every day on every set.”
All in all, our guest speakers from King Kong and #setlife shared an inspiring depiction of the amount of time, money, and emissions which can be saved by using green electricity on sets. We so appreciate David, Tyler, and Robert for joining our members to talk about advancements in sustainable technology for production.
