Last month, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that film, television, and digital media production spending in New Mexico surpassed $2.2 billion over the past three fiscal years and that industry wages are at a record high. The New Mexico Film Office shows that the industry spent more than $794 million in New Mexico from July 1st, 2022 to June 30th of this year. New Mexico state senator Jeff Steinborn, who is also the co-founder and board president of Film Las Cruces, discusses the film industry’s impact on the state.
“The film industry has become a billion-dollar industry in the state of New Mexico, contributing almost a billion dollars a year (of) economic impact to the state as a whole. In Las Cruces, we have made impressive gains, and several years ago had about a $20 million impact in what we saw in film. It definitely produces a lot of jobs, and has been a good industry for the state.”
The tax credit New Mexico offers to filmmakers is a base credit of 25% and additional credits including 10% for qualified expenditures in New Mexico areas at least sixty miles outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque City Halls. Senator Steinborn explains what the tax credits offer.
“Basically, it’s a rebate on the cost of production. And now that rebate can go as high as 40% on services that are procured here in the state that go back to the film production, so obviously a big financial incentive and a reason to film here, and we’ve created one of the most competitive ones in the world here in New Mexico.”
While New Mexico is invested in tax rebates to attract the film and television industries, there are those concerned that the recent writers' and actors' strikes may impact the industry in the state. Cyndy McCrossen is a film liaison based in Albuquerque, and she talked about how her vendors have been affected.
“It’s affected our vendors a lot. They have capital investments in property and materials and goods that they still have to pay the bills on. And they still have to have insurance, and with no incoming work or income, it’s really difficult.”
McCrossen says the strike may also impact other industries in the state.
“A lot of the vendors that we work with are everything from on-site trash collection; our hotel rooms and hospitality partners are way down in their room numbers. They get a lot of film nights from film workers. Solar generators, barricading companies, traffic control, security—everything from dog walkers to snake wranglers to prop warehouses, wardrobe warehouses—are at a grinding halt.”
Mark Vasconcellos is a film actor and director based in Las Cruces, and he talked about the trickle-down effect the strikes have had on other industries tied to film.
“Film, when it comes to your town, it disseminates money throughout the community like no other business. It hits hotels, it hits eateries, clothing, shopping, you name it. Gas, umbrellas, rentals, car rentals, truck rentals, everything. So the track record for New Mexico in the last ten years has been very pro-film, and hundreds of millions of dollars have come into this state because of that. Local businesses have benefited because of that. So now with the strike on, all those unions are dead in the water. No one can do anything, so the local businesses lose out on that income.”
Film liason Cyndy McCrossen points out that even if the strikes are resolved soon, it won’t be easy to get things back up and running right away.
“Even if we’re back, even if the unions have negotiated and everyone’s back to the playing field as early as September, it’s like you’re turning a battleship around. It takes months of prep to get to that first filming day, and then you’re up against the holidays. And so there are very few films that are, like, ready to spring and just start filming immediately that the contracts are signed. It’s probably the first of the year before we actually see cameras and set.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, on Friday representatives for major studios and streamers met with the Writers Guild of America for the first time since their stalled negotiations led to a strike on May 2nd—a meeting that the WGA negotiation committee says produced “no agreement” on the issues.
