Camera operator Lane Luper looks into a monitor to check his shot Thursday between takes on the set of the indie supernatural thriller Sweetwater while filming in cabin in Sedillo.
A wall featuring posters from the many productions that Southwest Costume Rentals helped outfit in their last 5 years of operation, including Dark Winds, Stranger Things, Oppenheimer, Poker Face, The Cleaning Lady and more.
Jonas Huerta, second camera assistant, uses a slate to mark the beginning of a new take Thursday while filming for the upcoming movie Sweetwater in Sedillo.
Christen Hart with Southwest Costume Rentals pulls a vintage feathered Japanese hat from its box Tuesday while working among the shop’s extensive collection in Albuquerque.
Camera operator Lane Luper looks into a monitor to check his shot Thursday between takes on the set of the indie supernatural thriller Sweetwater while filming in cabin in Sedillo.
A wall featuring posters from the many productions that Southwest Costume Rentals helped outfit in their last 5 years of operation, including Dark Winds, Stranger Things, Oppenheimer, Poker Face, The Cleaning Lady and more.
Jonas Huerta, second camera assistant, uses a slate to mark the beginning of a new take Thursday while filming for the upcoming movie Sweetwater in Sedillo.
Christen Hart with Southwest Costume Rentals pulls a vintage feathered Japanese hat from its box Tuesday while working among the shop’s extensive collection in Albuquerque.
Camera operator Lane Luper looks into a monitor to check his shot Thursday between takes on the set of the indie supernatural thriller Sweetwater while filming in cabin in Sedillo.
If you’ve noticed a tapering off of film and television productions lately, that’s because the industry is experiencing an ebb across the board.
The phenomenon is widespread right now in the U.S., driven by the coronavirus pandemic, recent industry strikes and the economics of increased competition in courting Hollywood productions from overseas. Industry insiders in New Mexico are pointing to how the state is still faring better than some other industry hot spots in output and economic impact.
But all in all, the sense is strong that few productions are underway and working in the region, as some local movie ranches sit vacant and members of the state’s crew base hurt for work. That reality is borne out in data coming out of the last two fiscal years in the state, with about 50 films shot so far in the current fiscal year, which will end June 30, compared to the 109 filmed in 2022, a period often referred to as “peak TV.”
“The industry is struggling nationally and internationally coming out of the pandemic,” said Rob Black, the state’s Economic Development Department secretary.
“We do think New Mexico continues to be a very attractive place,” Black said. “So we’re not losing out proportionally. There’s just not as much out there. I think we’ve held our own, if not done slightly better than a lot of other places.”
A wall featuring posters from the many productions that Southwest Costume Rentals helped outfit in their last 5 years of operation, including Dark Winds, Stranger Things, Oppenheimer, Poker Face, The Cleaning Lady and more.
This follows a concerted push for the last two decades from state government to woo productions from Hollywood and establish a strong industry presence in New Mexico, which was among the first states to establish a film incentive program in the early 2000s. But other states, and countries, have taken note of that economic model and sought to replicate it.
From Breaking Bad becoming an instant classic in contemporary television to Dark Windsascending to a top 10 spot on Netflix last year, the state’s now-billion-dollar industry has benefited from abundant infrastructure — soundstages and movie ranches — as well as a substantial crew base and a state government that has a long record of investing heavily in the film industry through tax credits.
New Mexico has a long and rich cinematic history, beginning with Indian Day School in 1898, a film shot by Thomas Edison. Supporters have faith the industry will pick back up in a land known for its sweeping vistas and mesas that carry an iconic Western appeal. Indeed, some of the biggest companies in the industry have invested deeply in New Mexico, a sure sign the industry’s major players see major opportunity in the Land of Enchantment.
In 2018, for instance, Netflix purchased for $30 million what was formerly Albuquerque Studios, which sat on 28 acres and included about eight soundstages. In the years since, the company has created a massive complex consisting of a dozen soundstages, three mills, a production office, two stage support buildings and two dedicated back lot areas.
Jonas Huerta, second camera assistant, uses a slate to mark the beginning of a new take Thursday while filming for the upcoming movie Sweetwater in Sedillo.
Global financial markets play a significant role in the decisions and planning of productions and the companies that invest in the industry, said Stephen Mullen, who heads the state’s IATSE Local 480, a union representing film technicians.
“The industry, overall, has been on a lull — it’s been months now. This has been a longer period of a slower flow of work,” Mullen said.
A writer’s strike, a walkout that began in May 2023 and lasted 148 days, and an actors’ strike, which ran from July to November of the same year, set production back in the movie business about a year. Noting it has been pretty dry for members of the union since last summer, Mullen stressed the movie industry has always gone through cycles and has a tendency to be unpredictable.
Mullen still feels New Mexico is well positioned to continue to be one of the top five production centers in the country — with film programs and production schools, coupled with a Legislature that has shown a willingness to invest in the industry.
In one statistic illustrative of this lull at the national level, film and television production levels declined by 20% globally in the second quarter of 2024, while the U.S. saw a sharper 40% decline from prestrike levels, according to Entertainment Partners, a production management and finance company.
“I think we have seen an uptick in the last month or so. I will say it looks to me like things are picking up,” said Steve Graham, director of the New Mexico Film Office. “There are several large series that are looking at New Mexico and several large features as well, so I would expect that we are rebounding.”
“Maybe not as strongly as everyone would like, but it is coming back,” Graham said.
Christen Hart with Southwest Costume Rentals pulls 1950s to 1970s outfits Tuesday for the crew of Dark Winds to choose from.
According to data from the New Mexico Film Office, the smallest number of productions in the state since 2017 was in fiscal year 2024, when 62 productions were filmed. That was down from 82 in the 2023 fiscal year, 109 productions in 2022 and 92 in 2019. The state’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
Production tallies have not exactly soared in the current fiscal year. According to the New Mexico Film Office, the state is looking at 54 productions currently, though that number could increase before June 30.
But by another performance measure, things don’t appear so dour. Tracking direct spend in the New Mexico economy from filmmaking, the state film office data shows:
$296 million in fiscal year 2020.
$626 million in fiscal year 2021.
$855 million in fiscal year 2022.
$794 million in fiscal year 2023.
$740 million in fiscal year 2024.
Actress Kimberly Pember gets her hair and makeup adjusted Thursday between takes of the new film Sweetwater in Sedillo.
The state government has made a point of backing the film industry, considering it an economic driver that also does well to bolster the state’s cultural pride by putting New Mexico on the map for a global audience.
The state expects to pay out $118 million in tax credits in the current fiscal year, while $117 million was paid out last year and $73 million the year before that. Many state lawmakers continue to feel investment in the industry is important, according to comments from State Rep. Pamelya Herndon, D-Albuquerque, during Film and Media Day at the Legislature earlier this month.
“It is a win-win for our state, I want you to know, creating jobs and stimulating New Mexico,” Herndon said, of the industry and the tax incentives long credited with boosting it.
People tend to see the dry spell for the industry in New Mexico as a symptom of national trends. Asked about whether he believes the fatal shooting on the set of the Western film Rust in 2021 played a role, Kirk Ellis, a Santa Fe-based Emmy-winning producer and writer known for his work on the HBO miniseries John Adams, said he doesn’t think so.
“That was an unfortunate and tragic event that was easily preventable,” Ellis said. “But in terms of cooling down people’s appetite for filming in New Mexico, I don’t see any evidence on the ground of that.”
Ellis said the state’s attempts to court Hollywood productions and members of the industry have been successful, though he feels it is largely still people coming into New Mexico for productions calling the shots, rather than people who live here.
“I don’t think that, after nearly a century and a half of filmmaking in New Mexico, that situation has changed,” Ellis said. “It’s still outsiders coming in and making use of local talent, both behind and in front of the camera.”
Still, “I know people personally who were in L.A. or were in Louisiana around the time of Katrina who found work in New Mexico and found enough work to sustain them to the point where they could become full-time New Mexico residents,” said Ellis. “So it’s had an impact on the state economy, all of it positive.”
Currently, the state offers a 25% film production tax credit with an additional 10% offered to productions more than 60 miles from Santa Fe and Albuquerque, Graham said. There is an overall $140 million cap for incentives in the current fiscal year, with planned increases to that cap to $150 million and $160 million in the next two years, according to Graham.
Film and television has had about a $5 billion impact in New Mexico over the last five years in direct and ancillary spending, Black said, noting wages in the industry are much higher than the state average.
“I wouldn’t want to compare it to oil and gas, because the revenue there is very large,” Black said. “But it’s a really important sector, and it amplifies a lot of other things, if you think about tourism. The success of Breaking Bad drives a lot of film tourism to New Mexico.”
Stacks of cowboy hats at Southwest Costume Rentals in Albuquerque on Tuesday.
What’s more, the appearance of some of New Mexico’s iconic landscapes — Shiprock, for example — in films increase the state’s cultural presence in the world, benefiting tourism as well as generate a sense of state pride for those that live in the Land of Enchantment, members of the industry say.
“The museum [on the Manhattan Project] in Los Alamos’ attendance went up after Oppenheimer,” Graham noted.
Speaking from a podium staged in the Rotunda for film day in the Roundhouse, Deanna Allison, a Farmington native who stars in the AMC noir thriller Dark Winds, based on New Mexico author Tony Hillerman’s series of police thrillers, recalled meeting a Navajo student who was enrolled in a university on the East Coast and watched Dark Winds when feeling homesick.
“As New Mexicans, we’re resilient,” Allison said. “We go through this darkness to find our light.”
Competition with other states
Where does New Mexico fit in in the context of the wider film industry landscape?
Mullen, who leads Local 480 and its just under 2,000 members, said the union has members who are third-generation filmmakers in New Mexico, adding one of the strengths of the film industry in the state is its depth of experience, manpower and reputation.
Andrew Sanchez, with the production of Him, helps unload gear, racks and costumes at Southwest Costume Rentals in Albuquerque.
“During the 1990s, we saw a growth in productions in this area as productions were moving out of the centralized Los Angeles, New York [markets],” Mullen said. “… We had a history [of films] here and a proximity to L.A.”
But a number of states have strengthened their film incentive programs in recent years.
New Jersey enacted measures recently to enhance its incentive program with legislation increasing the annual tax credit allocation. Louisiana and Georgia are also highly competitive and boast large film industries.
Canada’s film and television industry continues to flourish, strengthened by a combination of federal and provincial tax incentives designed to attract both domestic and international productions. Other countries such as Australia and Hungary are also working to lure moviemakers.
“While [New Mexico] had a great, in many cases best-in-nation or comparable to best-in-nation incentives and support for the industry, a lot of other states essentially copied what we’re doing and are trying to get some of our business,” said Jim Gollin, who chairs the Governor’s Council on Film and Media Industries.
Christen Hart with Southwest Costume Rentals pulls a vintage feathered Japanese hat from its box Tuesday while working among the shop’s extensive collection in Albuquerque.
While industry strikes and cycles have played a role in the current slowdown, Gollin believes competition from other states has also picked up.
“Arizona, Nevada, Texas — a lot of states that weren’t incentivizing their film industries now are, or in the process of doing so,” Gollin said. “So there’s a lot of competition.”
“For New Mexico, the key question is: Will we be able to hold onto our industry as other states, including neighboring states, are joining in the competition, often with very large budgets?” he said.
