Film Las Cruces hired Scott Murray as the new Film Liaison, a Las Cruces resident with over 35 years experience in the media and entertainment industries. Murray says he sees a great potential to grow the film industry in Southern New Mexico.
“We have a lot to build on,” Murray said. “There’s been a lot of production that has happened here. There are phenomenal film workers here, directors, writers. We are currently working on trying to build the infrastructure that the film industry is looking for, what we really have right now are just an incredible wealth of locations in a short distance from Las Cruces, which is what film companies need.”
Murray says in addition to building infrastructure, they also need to build the workforce.
“The thing that we’re really focused on right now,” Murray said. “Is working on growing our base of grip, electric, art department, hair and makeup, wardrobe, all of those people that are union certified that can work on union jobs.”
Murray says as Interim Film Liaison he went to California to talk to with producers about which locations are available in Southern New Mexico, and they need to continue to let people know Las Cruces is ready for the film business.
“We’ll have our website fully up and running,” Murray said. “We’ll have a fairly large locations database available online for producers to look at. I have about 60 contacts to follow up with, and I’ll probably follow up with them on a monthly basis, that I met in Burbank. It’s going to be marketing to the industry. It’s going to be looking at what can we do to maybe fast- track getting a back lot space lined up either with the city or with a private individual.”
Murray says the studios in Albuquerque and Santa Fe are full and Las Cruces needs to get a piece of the production.
“There is so much film going on here,” Murray said. “So much TV, everybody wants so much content for all of the cable channels, Netflix, all of those venues. They just need more space to shoot, they need more options to shoot, and here we are.”
