Mischa Hedges

What inspired you to do this documentary?

When I started living and working in LA, I began to notice my driving habits. How much I was driving put me in a bad mood. I started getting into the bike community and going to the Critical Mass rides—I realized the devotion and loyalty towards advocacy and activism that surrounds that community. I realized it was cheaper and a lot easier in some ways to get rid of the car and see what it was like to live without one. And that's when the documentary idea started to take shape.

When did you become an eco-centric person?

When I was young, I wasn't aware of the fact that I was aware. I lived in a small coastal community in Mendocino, California, a historic district, and there was always some environmental issue at stake. When you live in a rural area, if they are logging a section of the forest and it happens to be behind your house, you're not likely to accept the decimation of your community without a fight. In high school, I created a video to go alongside a professional documentary about the intent of lumber companies to clear-cut 4,000 acres around the big river estuary in my home town. I interviewed old timers about the old growth forests. It became this cool little movie that they took around to fundraisers in hopes of raising money to buy up the land. They ended up raising 26 million bucks and bought 4,000 acres. I got to go to some of the fundraisers and witness the impact that this little film had. That's when I decided that media could make a difference.

Your last documentary was Sustainable Table. It focuses on the food we eat, where it comes from and how it affects our world and ourselves. How did that documentary come about?

I saw this short film that was animated that was talking about food and how it's produced. It was seven minutes long and it had some great information, some of which I knew and some of which I didn't. It didn't seem very real or hard-hitting. I wanted to make a live-action version that was a feature documentary rather than a short animation.

Compared to a city like New York, very few people use the public transportation in Los Angeles. How's that going for you?

New York is built up because it's confined to an island. L.A. has grown out instead of up, and because of that sprawl, public transit isn’t economical. It has a huge spread to cover and it's almost impossible to make it available and frequent enough to make people want to take it. In Los Angeles, you get in your car at your apartment or the garage just outside your apartment and you drive to work, and then you get in your car and drive to lunch, then you drive back to work, and then you drive home, and then you drive to whatever you're doing that night. And when you're driving down the freeway, unless it's in the carpool lane, if there is one, you look around and there's no more than one person in any car sitting on the freeway. I mean, no one thinks to take the bus, unless there are people that I know that are in the transit or environmental community. I tell people that I am taking the bus and they look at me like I'm crazy, like they've never even thought about it.

So, that makes two environmentally focused films. Would you call yourself an eco-documentary filmmaker?

I think I get a little wary around labels. I eat mostly vegetarian, but I don't call myself a vegetarian because I think that labels are confining. I like to say that I like to create non-fiction media that educates and promotes awareness of current issues and a lot of prevalent current issues are environmental. There are a lot of things that we need to fix if we want to pass on a healthy earth to our kids and grandkids.

In 2005, a study said that there were about 250 million registered cars in the U.S., and it's estimated that about 90% of the population drives to work. What steps can the regular person take to help their city or town think about non-auto transportation?

It's a hard thing to do and it requires a time commitment if you're taking the bus, but it's going to be cheaper. I would say to people that are not necessarily L.A. dwellers, it will simplify your life a lot. There's also this awesome thing called car sharing, like Zipcar and Flexcar. They have them on USC and UCLA campuses right now, and if you live in San Francisco or New York, you can walk downstairs and go to the local parking garage or wherever they keep the cars and you can have a car for a few hours or a few days. You don't have the constant costs of gas, parking, or maintenance that comes with a car. Not having a car freed me up so much, I could, on the way home, read a book or listen to my iPod. It makes you feel like you're part of the community. You talk to people and see what's going on, instead of looking through your windshield at the taillights ahead of you. In traffic, you're constantly pissed off. We get used to living in our little metal bubbles.

Do you think that cities in general are warming up to the idea of non-car transport?

Take a look at European cities: People use their car once or twice a week. For everyday activities, there should be an alternative. To go visit your family across the state, or to go to the mountains, you could drive your car or rent one. The problem comes when in their daily routines, people are constantly driving, spewing out CO2 and it’s not a conscious decision. They've got to go somewhere, so they've got to get in their car. It's not till more alternatives are available that we can start breaking that mindset.

Would you describe your lifestyle as eco-conscious?

I do. I try to eat local, I shop at farmers markets, I compost, recycle, ride my bike to work, but that's how I was raised. I don't know anything different. I do more things as I learn about them. I always knew that driving a car wasn’t the best thing, but I didn't think I could get rid of it until recently. That's the natural progression with any change. Buy a recycling bin or go veggie for a while or convert to biodeisel or give up your car. Find out what you're comfortable with and what you can do financially or what you can do that doesn't cost money. It's just a change in lifestyle that you get used to.

On the other end of the spectrum is there any environmentally friendly thing you do in your life that sometimes feels absurd?

I used to think that washing out plastic bags and drying them was kind of weird. But now it's kind of commonplace for me. Absurd, well, I went to the grocery store recently and got a whole bunch of stuff. I had one grocery bag on each side of the back of my bike and my backpack full of groceries and a grocery bag on each handle bar. It must have been 100 pounds of food. I could barely even peddle. At that point, I thought I should have just rented a car to go on my big shopping trip.

If you could give people one reason to give up their car and take public transit, what would it be?

Saving money. The AAA estimates that it costs about $700 a month to own a car, once you figure in depreciation. That's gas, insurance, maintenance, oil changes, parking, tolls. I didn't use my car too much last year and when I did my taxes, I realized it cost me about $6,000 before depreciation; $500 a month. It's amazing what you could do with that. You could rent another apartment. That's pretty crazy.