“I started in the TV industry when Channel 4 first launched,” he recalls. “I was one of three people commissioned to make one of its first youth programmes.” Throughout the course of his exciting career in entertainment, Smith emphasises that his concern about climate change was always simmering in the background. “That concern really crystallised when I moved out of London to Wiltshire in 2001. Being closer to nature made me see how strange things were beginning to happen – rivers drying up and all the timings of nature being off balance.” His concern soon found an outlet through Bafta’s Albert. He reached out when it launched in 2011 to offer his assistance and production expertise. This ultimately led to him becoming an Albert trainer, delivering climate literacy and sustainable production workshops to thousands of industry professionals. But even that, he says, didn’t feel like quite enough: “In 2019, I thought, rather than just talking about it, I want to do something about it.” Picture Zero started as a production company, and one of its first projects, The People vs Climate Change , set the tone for its ethos. “We got exclusive access to the UK’s first-ever citizens’ assembly on climate change,” Smith explains. “It was shown on BBC Two around the time of COP26, and that was great.” But making climate-focused content, while crucial, turned out to be commercially unsustainable in itself. “While commissioning editors say they want more climate stories, they don’t really want to commission special programmes about climate change,” says Smith. The real opportunity, they ended up discovering, was in helping embed
WORKING CLEAN Mandy Cayford, Steve Smith and Sakhile Shann (above left to right) at Sky Studios Elstree
sustainability across existing popular British genres, such as soaps and cookery shows. “We were increasingly being approached for consultancy around sustainable production and, in the end, that’s what we morphed into.” Picture Zero now works across the entire production life cycle, not only reducing environmental impacts, but also helping storytellers reflect our changing world more authentically One of Picture Zero’s main methods is passing scripts for sustainability. “We’re not trying to change the narrative that a writer has created,” Smith clarifies, “but you can still make subtle, yet powerful changes.” Picture Zero comprises creatives and professionals with deep industry on screens at the same time. Changing the narrative without changing the story
WATCH ME! Picture Zero’s Alex Cheesman advises on green power
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