The Grass is Greener
New Mexico launches a green filmmaking program to curb a pollution problem already familiar to L.A.'
By Alfred Lee
New Mexico, like a lot of other states, has been running a "For Your Consideration" campaign of its own of late, aggressively wooing film and TV production to leave Los Angeles for more friendly (read: cheap) environs. Tax incentives, grants, and low-interest loans have already drawn enough new and runaway production to create $900 million in economic impact in New Mexico over the last four years, but now the Southwestern frontier state is taking the lead on a new issue: environmentally sustainable production.
New Mexico's recent announcement of its "Green Filmmaking Program" has it poised ahead of a curve in the world of film and TV production. The state's involvement, while still in its begining stages, might smooth a transition to new technologies that can reform high-pollution practices and create a sustainable filmmaking culture.
Researchers are saying L.A.'s entertainment industry already has a problem - a big one. New Mexico's announcement came less than a week after a report by the UCLA Institute of the Environment, which found that the film and television industry in Los Angeles emits 140,000 tons of ozone and diesel particulate emissions a year, and ranks second in traditional air pollutant emissions only to petroleum manufacturing.
New Mexico's State Film Office plans to educate productions about environmentally sensitive practices - from waste reduction to using low-toxin paints - as well as increase access to environmentally-friendly vendors and possibly even offer financial incentives to those who participate, says Eric Witt, Governor Bill Richardson's director of Media Arts and Entertainment Development. "Why wait until there's a problem? These are just what we consider to be good practices."
Witt says that the particulate emissions singled out by the UCLA study are among the pollutants New Mexico will be targeting.
"That's one of the things we're going after," Witt adds. "So we're looking at the use of alternative fuel vehicles and generators, like electric vehicles, like using biodiesel or ethanol to run the liquid fuel generators, for exactly that reason."
California, which has hustled to provide incentives that keep it competitive with such production centers as Vancouver and Toronto, currently does not have such a program, despite the flurry of media attention that followed the UCLA report. It was picked up by joke-loving newspaper editors everywhere, including the L.A. Times ("Another Hollywood production: smog") and the Chicago Sun-Times ("Lights, camera ... pollution!"). According to Amy Lemisch, director of the California Film Commission, Hollywood studios already use environmentally sound practices.
"I do find that the companies, certainly the bigger companies, are absolutely willing to do whatever it takes to comply with existing regulations and then some. So I think there really hasn't been a need for this. The state [of California] is involved because they have the Air Resources Board and the various institutions that oversee environmental impact," Lemisch says. "Between the various state entities that oversee this, plus the fact that the industry is proactive in implementing their own programs ... they're doing a good job."
Examples she cited in an additional statement to CityBeat included an industry-wide recycling rate of more than 60 percent last year, and the adoption by several studios of green-building guidelines and energy efficiency programs.
The UCLA report lauded such efforts, noting the production teams of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, for instance, recycled 97.5 percent of their set materials. Overall, however, the report gave the industry a C grade.
"Nevertheless, our overall impression is that these practices are the exception and not the rule, and that more could be done within the industry to foster environmentally-friendly approaches," the report stated.
Because New Mexico's film industry is so young, some of the Green Filmmaking Program's immediate goals are to build up practices already in use at many Hollywood studios, says Witt.
Still, some believe that state involvement in the promotion of green production is a step in the right direction - a step California has yet to take. Mary Nichols, head of the UCLA Institute of the Environment, says a program similar to New Mexico's would be more important to California than what Lemisch has indicated.
"It's clear from the UCLA report that there is room for improvement in this particular industry. Since that report came out, I've heard all kinds of excuses about why we can't find alternatives to diesel to transport trailers around, or why we can't find this or why we can't do that," she says. "I'm not saying that those statements are inaccurate, but let's work on coming up with a solution. The state has a role to play there - it doesn't have to be heavy-handed regulation; it doesn't have to be a handout either. But the state can play a role in helping to make everybody aware of what the cutting-edge technologies are, providing a forum for people who have new ideas to come forward and let people know about them." V
Published: 12/07/2006
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