A Proposal for a 45-minutes Documentary Film on
The Future of Plastic
Plastic is a miracle invention. The importance of this lightweight and virtually indestructible material cannot be underestimated—whether in terms of reducing food spoilage and food waste—or in terms of reducing the spread of terrible, infective diseases through everything from disposable syringes to hygienic packaging. Arguably, the miracle material has made modern life possible. However, there is a drawback. More than 40 percent of it is used just once and plastic waste is now a rising global threat. Our failure to manage the daunting worldwide mountains of disposed plastic waste has turned a miracle material into nature’s worst nightmare.
With this film treatment, we wish to present our objective to produce a documentary film about how to solve a growing societal and environmental challenge plastic causes.
1. Logline
By presenting in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, this film will paint a nuanced and comprehensive picture of the future of plastic and provide a fruitful indication of how a collaboration across sectors is imperative to solving a major environmental crisis.
2. The Objective
The objective of the film: (1) to establish a new reasonable debate on plastic, based on validated facts and reasoned arguments. (2) Through in-depth interviews, to give a voice to stakeholders that play an important role solving the plastic crisis. In this way, we wish to give an insight into the anatomy of the problem and present ideas for solutions. (3) To counteract the demonization of plastic, which stands in the way of a development towards a culture where plastic is used wisely. (4) To shed light on the creative and innovative achievements in the field of recycling and the development of new products designed with recyclability in mind.
3. Synopsis
The Future of Plastic is a story about plastic. It’s about how plastic has become a valuable and integral part of our culture and life. Despite growing mistrust, plastics are critical to modern life. Plastics made possible the development of computers, cell phones, and most of the lifesaving advances of modern medicine. Lightweight and good for insulation, plastics help save fossil fuels used in heating and in transportation. Perhaps most important, inexpensive plastics raised the standard of living. Replacing natural materials with plastic has made many of our possessions cheaper, lighter, safer, and stronger.
However, it is also a film about the impact plastic is having on our world. The price of producing plastic has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. In little more than a century, plastic has gone from being hailed as a scientific wonder to being reviled as a serious environmental threat.
This film presents the reflection of top scientists on how to turn a sad development, it also tells stories of passionate and innovative people working on solutions on how to reduce plastic pollution. In addition, the film presents high profile brands carrying out corporate social innovations contributing to solving our plastic problem.
While the environmental movement has faced its fair share of setbacks recently, we trust the scientists, researchers, and engineers creating technologies for a more sustainable future. With this film, we wish to focus on the importance of science and innovation to combat this growing societal and environmental challenge. The Future of Plastic is a documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and wishes to combat the misinformation that unfortunately often characterizes this issue. In this way, we wish to create a debate on the importance of a cultural change and innovation to solve the major societal and environmental challenge we face today.
4. Stakeholders
Rethinking the culture associated with the use of plastic requires a cross-sector collaboration and innovative ideas from all stakeholders. With this film, we wish to give a voice to the various sectors and stakeholders playing an important role in the culture and the solutions to problems associated with plastic. Here is a list of possible participants involved in the film. We believe that five participants will be suitable within the time frame of approximately 45 minutes.
Grønt Punkt Norge
Grønt Punkt Norge AS ("Green Dot Norway plc") is a privately owned non-profit company responsible for financing the recovery and recycling of used packaging on behalf of the industrial sector.
Handelens Miljøfond (Norway)
Handelens Miljøfond (The Norwegian Retailers Environment Fund) (a) support initiatives that aims to reduce consumers consumption of plastic bags, (b) support initiatives that strengthens the efforts towards marine- and land based plastic littering, primarily nationally, but also internationally, and (c) support initiatives that strengthens the efforts towards increased resource efficiency of plastic, including recycling.
Coop (Norway)
Coop Norge SA is the Norwegian consumer cooperative. It is owned by 67 local cooperatives with more than 1.8 million members. The company has its headquarters in Oslo. Coop has recently launched a new packaging strategy with six sustainable packaging goals.
De Pauuw/RODEPA (The Netherlands)
De Pauuw/RODEPA is a major European player in recycling plastic waste into high-quality materials enabling manufacturers throughout Europe to produce a wide range of plastic products.
Plastic Change (Denmark)
Plastic Change is an environmental organization on a mission fighting plastic pollution and to break the exponential growth of plastic pollution.
Political Actors
Political initiatives and regulations play a major role in this area. It is therefore crucial to hear different political considerations regarding the future of plastic.
5. Possible Featured Cases
Grøn Punkt Norge
25 years of producer responsibility: Introduction to the cycle of recycling with emphasis on the waste amount leaving the cycle without consumer participation. Explanation of the plastic packaging sorted, but not recycled and how industry can reduce this amount by design for recycling.
If the test results is promising: Improvements in chemical recycling technologies are creating new opportunities for recovering resources from plastic packaging waste. Grønt Punkt Norge is among the first
in Europe to chemically recycle plastic packaging material. The end result is hopefully a high quality plastic that can be used in e.g. food packaging, avoiding the limitations in ordinary mechanical material recycling. Quantafuel is a Norwegian company with its first plant located in Skive, Denmark, in a green industrial park.
Suggested interviewees: Svein Erik Rødvik, Head of the Recycling Department
Johannes Daae, Development Manager
Suggested language: Norwegian
de Pauuw/Rodepa
Mechanical Recycling Mechanical recycling of plastics refers to the processing of plastics waste into secondary raw material or products without significantly changing the chemical structure of the material. In principle, all types of thermoplastics can be mechanically recycled with little or no quality impairment. De Pauuw/Rodepa strive for a world in which all plastic is re-used. De Pauuw/Rodepa is the European market leader in plastics resources. With over 60 years of experience in finding new use for old plastics, De Pauuw/Rodep makes a significant contribution to the ‘ circular economy ‘. De Pauuw/Rodepa converterts plastic residuals of all kinds into high-value solutions for a wide range of industrial and manufacturing applications worldwide.
Suggested interviewee Jan-Bert Jonker, Technical Director at De Paauw Plasticrecycling B.V.
Suggested language English
Coop, Norge
A 25 percent reduction by 2025. For a sustainable future, Coop Norge is now embarking on a systematic and paramount transformation of packaging for all the group's own products. The new plan means that approximately 4,000 products will be reviewed and their packaging will be replaced with packaging that can be recycled and produced from recyclable materials which can help reduce food waste.At the same time, the consumption of plastic will be greatly reduced and replaced by plant-based materials. Coop is in the process of realizing the strategy, and you can therefore already find the first items packed in the optimized packaging.
Retail and consumers are a vital part of reducing disposable plastics and increasing recycling of plastics in all its forms. Coop Norge is owned by 117 local cooperatives with more than 1.3 million members. It can be said, Coop's environmental initiatives are a collaboration between trade, members and consumers. Coop has launched a new strategy to reduce the consumption of disposable plastic. It is an ambitious plan. Coop will reduce use of oil-based plastics by 25 percent by 2025. This will be achieved by phasing out disposable products based on plastics, cutting unnecessary packaging and by using renewable and recycled materials. In addition, Coop cuts disposable items where these can be replaced with cardboard, paper and wood.
Suggested interviewee Knut Lutnæs, Miljøsjef
Suggested language Norwegian
The Voice of Science
Science: Since it’s clear that plastics have a valuable place in our lives, scientists are attempting to make plastics safer and more sustainable. Some innovators are developing bioplastics, which are made from plant crops instead of fossil fuels, to create substances that are more environmentally friendly than conventional plastics. Others are working to make plastics that are truly biodegradable. Some innovators are searching for ways to make recycling more efficient, and they even hope to perfect a process that converts plastics back into the fossil fuels from which they were derived. All of these innovators recognize that plastics are not perfect but that they are an important and necessary part of our future.
Recently, scientists have created a mutant bacterial enzyme that not only breaks down plastic bottles in hours, but the leftover material is good enough to be recycled into high-quality new bottles.The enzyme, originally discovered in a compost heap of leaves, reduced the bottles to chemical building blocks that were then used to make high-quality new bottles. Existing recycling technologies usually produce plastic only good enough for clothing and carpets. Plastic water and soft drink bottles are made from a petroleum product called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which requires giant amounts of fossil fuels to make and transport. The production of bottled water uses 17 million barrels of oil a year. That’s slightly more than it would take to fill one million cars a year with fuel.The company behind the breakthrough, Carbios, said it was aiming for industrial-scale recycling within five years. It has partnered with major companies including Pepsi and L’Oréal to accelerate development. Independent experts called the new enzyme a major advance.
Suggested interviewee Alain Marty, PHD, Chief Scientific Officer, Carbios
Suggested language English
6. Target Audience
Who needs to see this film? Finding our audience is the first step on the long road of our distribution and dissemination campaign. Who—exactly—is our audience? It is a deceptively simple question that has a major impact on the trajectory of this project. The key to direct distribution success is to have an effective way to think about and identify our audience.
Primary Audience To influence the culture surrounding the use, misuse, and reuse of plastic in our societies, this film is aimed at the general population. Dealing in particular with northern European conditions, this film appeals mostly to audiences in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and The Netherlands.
Secondary Audience To kickstart a collaboration across sectors, the film is secondarily aimed very specifically at our stakeholders. Please, see Section 6.
7. Distribution & Dissemination
We challenge traditional distribution to creatively involve as many relevant outlets as possible. Using a variety of distribution channels we operate from site-specific screenings, SoMe, documentary film festivals, pop up cinema to Streaming TV platforms and Flow TV. The film will be divided into chapters that will be boiled down to short cut-downs between 1 and 3 minutes suitable for social media and educational purposes. These teasers/cut-downs will aim to spread specific messages as well as promoting the full-length version (45 min.).
Paid, owned, earned Media:
Owned Media
Social Media (cut-downs)
Via partners
Voicesof.eu
The Voices App
Payed Media
Social Media (e.g. Facebook)
Online Advertising
Eaerned Media (full length version)
International Film Festivals
Streaming Services
Touring Exhibitions
Broadcast Television
8. Time Schedule
The following time schedule reflects our ambition to start production as soon as possible and to be ready with the film late fall of 2021.
9. Estimated Cost & Outlined Donor Plan
Total Cost
We estimate the total cost of producing a 45-minute documentary at EUR 196,000 distributed between pre-production (23%), production, (45%), and post-production (32%).
Total Cost
Pre-production: EUR 46,200
Production: EUR 88,800
Post-production: EUR 61,000
Total Cost: EUR 196,000
Outlined Donor Plan:
Handelens Miljøfond: EUR 148,000
Move Copenhagen: EUR 12,000
Voices of Europe: EUR 6,000
Other Donations (pending): EUR 30,000
Distribution of Expenditure: Pre-production
We estimate the total cost of pre-production at around EUR 46,200.
Distribution of Expenditure: Production
We estimate the total cost of producing this documentary film at around EUR 88,800.
Distribution of Expenditure: Post-production
We estimate the total cost of post-producing this documentary film at around EUR 61,000.
10. Creative Storytelling
We use documentary films to raise awareness of environmental and social issues, actively involve citizens and strengthen common values and prospects across Europe. We want to exam shared reference points as a means of moving beyond the past and building the future. We provide real people with real stories to existing statistics in documentary films. We portray and showcase complexities, challenges, strengths and weaknesses. We tell stories that carry hope and show a sense of optimism. We believe that innovation, science, talent and goodness has a power to inspire.
Through creative storytelling, documentary techniques, and innovative artistic approaches we provide cinematic value with strong characters and lasting quality, giving the audience a unique and insightful experience. Combining interviews with evocative footage from everyday life in a captivating and original form, we bring individual and inspiring stories forward. We provide a strong visual expression with the film team’s experienced and internationally acclaimed cinematographer, Benjamin Kirk Nielsen. Producer Jacob Levin Krogh ensures a high production value, a smooth process, and makes sure that all competencies and resources come into play in the best possible way. With more than fifteen years of experience in using film for beneficial behavior change, award-winning director Simon de Tusch-Lec aims for excellence, engagement and human essence. The film team strives for personal stories about being human in this world, told through talent, passion, dreams and experience. Interviews emphasizes decisive moments and critical breakthroughs in research and life. It’s about who they are and how their story will inspire others. Here are relevant examples of products produced by us. See movecph.com/ourwork for additional examples.
Sustainable Recycled Plastic Glass: This year, Roskilde Festival took an important step in the fight against plastic waste and for a more circular business model at festivals. From this year’s festivals, a completely new and sustainable recycled plastic glass, developed by Carlsberg in collaboration with NorthSide, Tinderbox, Roskilde festival and GREEN, was introduced.
A Change in Fashion
Sustainable Fashion: Emerging fashion designers and entrepreneurs are the future of sustainable apparel. Students at the Fashion Institute at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts are encouraged to engage in critical, innovative approaches to the practice of fashion, clothing and textile design both as a creative practice and a global industry.
Voices of Europe
What is Home: “Do I miss my family? Yes. You miss everything. You miss birthdays, anniversaries and
Christmas. All those occasions. You’re not there. That is really hard.” Cassandra Lemoine is paying a price for pursuing her dreams.
Planetree
Health Care: Documentary film (16 min) on the importance of patient involvement for both staff and patients at Rigshospitalet. What is the significance of light and environment for patients’ healing? How can patient involvement contribute to more effective treatment?
10. Contact Information
Jacob Levin Krogh
Producer & Partner
+45 27281952
jacob@movecph.com
movecph.com
voicesof.eu
Move Copenhagen
Birkegade 25
2200 København N