Festival of tiny movies throws spotlight on climate impacts of video streaming

A screen shot of an online workshop by the Small File Media Festival shows a low-resolution film image. (Supplied/Small File Media Festival)

Vancouver -

A film festival featuring tiny movies is putting a spotlight on the massive climate impacts of video streaming.

The online Small File Media Festival will showcase pieces by artists from around the world who’ve created five-minute long films that are a mere 5 megabytes in size – about 100 times smaller than the average five-minute film.

“These artists have figured out ways to get their movies down to very, very small sizes,” said festival director and Simon Fraser University professor Laura Marks.

Online media streaming is responsible for one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to data reviewed by Marks.

“Information and communication technologies, data centres, networks and devices are responsible for almost four per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and a huge chunk of that, about one per cent is streaming media,” she said.

Marks said many people are under the impression that streaming media online has no material impact because there aren't any extra physical objects associated with it, such as a DVD or VHS tape.

"When you're watching streaming, you know, it seems like it comes out of the air, but if people just put their mind to it for a moment they realize that it's costing electricity somewhere else." 

The artists responsible for the Small File films circumvent the need for large file sizes by getting creative.

“When you watch them, you don't think about how small they are, because they're just beautiful. They're immersive, they're great stories,” said Marks, who teaches at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts.

“You've got gorgeous sound design. They're funny and smart, and show that you can do a whole lot with a tiny, tiny amount of bandwidth.”

Film genres include cat videos, ASMR, reality TV, nü media formalism, sexual emancipation, animism and more.

Marks and her fellow organizers also have a proposition for viewers at home: when you stream your favourite Netflix or YouTube shows, stream them in lower definition.

“You could just lower the resolution, and still probably have a good viewing experience,” she said.

They’re also hoping that artists and filmmakers will consider putting out different versions of their work – a small version for streaming and viewing at home and a large version for the theatre. And that large telecom companies and data centres reduce their consumption of electricity.

The Small File Media Festival runs from Aug. 10 through Aug. 21, and full passes range from $0 to $25.