NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center was awarded a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council at a ceremony on March 25. The center, which opened in September 2024, is the university’s 19th LEED-certified project, a continuation of their pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. The MSVPC is the fourth of all projects, and the first commercial interior project, to receive Platinum certification — the highest designation possible.
“I’m very proud that we are now amongst that select group at Tisch,” Tisch Dean Allyson Green said at the ceremony. “We are committed to positioning Tisch at the forefront of innovative filmmaking technologies while upholding our responsibility to sustainable practices that protect our planet.”
The LEED rating system is designed to encourage sustainable design, construction and renovation. For each of the program requirements that a building satisfies, it receives LEED points. The MSVPC received 80 points, according to the USGBC.
Virtual production offers a more sustainable filmmaking process through the use of technology to create realistic environments and visual effects in real-time instead of in post-production. This reduces costs per project and doesn’t require crews to film on location. LED panels on the center’s two 3,500 square-foot stages are connected to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine software in order to project these virtual environments, allowing actors to react naturally to their surroundings.
Each studio in the center relies on rented sets and prop donations, further promoting sustainability. The television studios, which are used in the undergraduate Film & Television program’s Sight and Sound courses, allow filmmakers to swap set pieces and capture different perspectives around the set, reducing the need for additional filming locations.
Other strategies employed by NYU to achieve this score include its location in Industry City in Brooklyn — which is walkable and encourages the use of public transportation — and its compliance with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ standards for indoor air quality to promote the health and wellness of those occupying the space.
“If we want to see ourselves as a leading sustainability institution, LEED is an external validation,” Cecil Scheib, NYU’s Chief Sustainability Officer, said at the ceremony. “I have never seen another tool in the green building industry that brings so many different parts of the building project together.”
NYU received environmental consulting from CodeGreen throughout the design and construction process for the MSVPC. This resulted in a 29% reduction in total energy costs, 30.96% reduction in water usage and 60.61% reduction in construction waste sent to landfills compared to the LEED baseline, according to NYU.
Tisch joined the Green Film School Alliance in 2021, an organization of over 30 film schools and programs committed to incorporating sustainable measures into student productions.
“We hope to show that attaining LEED status is very much an achievable goal and we hope to inspire other programs to pursue LEED certification,” MSVPC Director Sang-Jin Bae said in an interview with WSN.
Contact Dani Biondi at [email protected].
