A three-inch D-ring binder costs about fifteen smackaroos these days. Ten years ago they cost even more; about $30 each, if I recall. In 2001 I wrapped an MTV production after 5 seasons and 170 episodes. It was a scripted daily show, and over the years we had accumulated a giant storage unit full of electronics, office supplies, random props, countless tapes and about 350 D-ring binders of various sizes. That’s a lot of binders.
When it came time to clean out storage it was pretty easy to find homes for the electronics. But even though those binders were worth about $10,000 retail, I couldn’t find a home for them. Not even for free.
It’s 2010. Enter the brain trust behind the PGAgreen.org and a little something we call Fredslist. Yes, it’s a lot like the popular city-based other ‘list’ named after that Craig guy, but with a crucial difference. Our list is entertainment-centric. Which means that you won’t have to wade through ads for free mattresses, missed connections or apartments for rent. You can get straight to the good stuff. Stuff you can probably use on your next production. And best of all, that once precious stuff won’t go into a dumpster just because no one wants to pay to store it…
Our first Fredslist ad came in just last Sunday (August 22, 2010) from Brendan Turrill, an Art Director who had built a cool cave/archeological dig set that needed to wrap out the next day! Brendan says, “I can't tell you how frustrating it is to build a set from scratch, have it used for a couple days, then have to trash it all because there is no way to get it to someone who can use it. All that wood totally gone to waste.” Too true, but yikes! Not a lot of time to get the word out.
The ad went up Sunday evening, PGA Green co-chair Amanda Scarano-Carter did a quick blast to committee members, and I posted the info on our Facebook page. By 7:30 Monday morning, the cave set was gone. Somewhere, a line producer is very happy.
More ads have started trickling in over the past few days. Storage places are emptying out. Dumpsters are starting to go hungry.
And Brendan says it best. “I've been talking about how there should be something like Fredslist for years and how embarrassing it is for the entertainment capital of the world not to have found a way to reuse sets--after how many decades? So... for me, knowing about Fredslist is HUGE. It's about time.”
If the Emmy’s did give out awards for entertainment recycling initiatives, I’m pretty confident we’d have won.
Dale Roy Robinson is a producer and director of both reality and scripted television. He’s been a showrunner for MTV’s "Undressed, " created "Hurl" for G4 and produced "Dog Park Superstars" for GSN.
Photo by Patrick Hoesly via Flickr (Creative Commons)
PGA Green - Winner of 2011 EMA Green Production Award, recognizing the PGA's strategic leadership role in promoting sustainability within the entertainment industry.
