By Nancy Everist Former Director, N.M. Film Office
It's too bad they don't give out Oscars for creating film incentives and building infrastructure, because our Legislature, ex-Gov. Gary Johnson and the film production community would each surely receive one.
For all the areas in which the Legislature differed with Johnson, there was at least one where they achieved outstanding success: film.
Recognizing the devastating effects of competition from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others by way of financial incentives, the Legislature and governor faced this challenge squarely and accomplished something that was truly groundbreaking.
With strong support from all sectors of New Mexico's film industry, the New Mexico Federation of Labor and others, the Legislature passed and the governor signed at least five significant bills aimed at increasing film and commercial production during the last eight years.
The programs put together as a result of these laws now allow New Mexico to offer the combination of guaranteed loans and tax credits. These new programs have made global news in the film production marketplace.
We are now enjoying some of the first fruits of the considerable labor that went into making these programs a reality. Our New Mexico commercial production companies (and others) have had a competitive advantage in bidding for commercials by deducting gross receipts tax for some of their direct production costs.
Several feature film projects have been the direct recipients of guaranteed loans and tax credit incentives — "Suspect Zero," "Off the Map" and "Blind Horizon" — and more are in the wings.
The fiscal-year-to-date (July through December 2002) total from the economic impact of filming in New Mexico has more than tripled since last fiscal year. That's more than $30 million into the New Mexico economy — from many rural and tribal communities to our larger cities. The significant benefits derived from increased tourism traffic and activity resulting from these films will yet be determined in the coming years.
Hundreds of New Mexicans have been employed on "Suspect Zero," "Off the Map" and now "Blind Horizon." This spring we will see the effects of a Ron Howard project gearing up for a 2003 start. And it is critically important to note that the New Mexico taxpayer has also been served in these investments as the risk of those loans has been offset to the guarantor, thereby protecting the permanent funds the state uses to benefit its educational institutions and citizens.
This employment and activity will serve to build our crew base and services that are the key components in increasing the number of projects coming into New Mexico as well as those being created from within our own talented community — the true goal of any economic development film initiative.
With all the exposure New Mexico receives when it lands on the low end on various comparison lists, it is now also the case that we are the recognized U.S. leader in countering the runaway film production problem.
During December's Santa Fe Film Festival panel on filmmaker's resources, New Mexico's progress was hailed at length by many of the attendees, including a producer who has been forced to take his projects to Canada. He acknowledged that New Mexico was "actually doing something about the runaway production problem, rather than just engaging in political banter."
As director of the New Mexico Film Office for most of the last four years, I am truly proud of the progress that our production community has made collectively. Key support from labor, from producers, sound stages, from film technicians and actors and all our communities and tribes made possible the incentives from which we now are benefiting. There has never been more optimism for the future within the production community, nor more of our talented film technicians at work.
Are there challenges ahead? You bet. Our New Mexico filmmakers need to be supported and educated in their quest to qualify their projects for the incentives. Commercial production needs real help in attracting more projects. More technicians need to be trained to enter the world of filmmaking.
The incentive programs need to continue to be developed and delivered to producers efficiently. The worlds of digital filmmaking, animation, computer graphics and editing all promise to be areas of growth and opportunity for us.
The progress New Mexico's diverse film industry and its government made together has been nothing short of a miracle. The partnerships and programs the state agencies of the New Mexico Film Office (of the Department of Economic Development) the State Investment Council and the Taxation and Revenue Department created together and delivered to the marketplace has been a success story unmatched by any other state, and one that only stands to grow.
To Gov. Bill Richardson and his team, I wish great success in building an ever-stronger New Mexico production industry in the years ahead.
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