Media maven: Vault Studios is a one-stop shop for multimedia production

A new media production hub has opened its doors in Albuquerque.

Vault Studios is the city’s newest film, television and audio production facility. It is designed to cater to larger scale productions and local community projects with a pre-visualization and post production suite, animation services, a visual effects wing, a green screen area, an advanced audio production studio and technology capable of performing a range of sound engineering tasks.

Vault Studios was founded by Kat Bloom and her husband, David Bloom, who also serves as the studio’s 3D generalist. Kat Bloom’s passion for music is what ignited the initial spark to open Vault Studios.

“I couldn’t find a place to record,” she explained. “The cheapest place that I could find was like $2,400 a song. And that was mixing and mastering and engineering. I was not a high tax bracket person. I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to afford that, and I still haven’t made my album.’”

She said it was either take out a $50,000 loan to record an album or open her own studio. She chose the latter.

“I registered the business, I got seven sponsorships and I opened in six months,” Kat Bloom explained. “I had some people in the beginning of the year tell me that it was too ambitious, especially if you’ve seen this place beforehand, because this is a 1940s lift and brake shop. And so it’s been completely redone and (it has been) a labor of love every minute of every second of this year.”

Vault Studios hosted a grand opening celebration on Saturday with guest speaker comedian Steven Michael Quezada.

Vault Studios has a strong team that handles its moving parts. Lycee Anaya, the studio’s visual effects specialist and senior compositing supervisor, has worked on several TV productions including “Fallout,” “Star Trek: Picard” and programs on the WB and CW networks. Nick Bell is an experienced editor and colorist with New Rockstars, The Wharton School and Next Now Digital. Darius Martinez handles audio recording, mixing and mastering duties and Luke Estrada serves as the Logic Pro expert and DJ and audio engineer.

Vault Studios’ strong emphasis on education and outreach has led to partnerships with Explora, Redbull, Dolby and Abelton.

“I opened up upstairs the audio production bay and I’m so excited,” Kat Bloom said. “We’re the very first Dolby Atmos Institute in New Mexico. So it’s not just a Dolby Atmos suite or Dolby Atmos theater, it’s actually an institute where we can teach the public about Dolby, about spatial audio and immersive audio.”

Vault Studios has also partnered with Central New Mexico Community College to offer a space where students can practice what they are learning in school. Other partnerships include the Folk Festival, Southwest Pickers, New Mexico Women in Film and Katharsis Media.

“I am so excited to get the community together,” Kat Bloom said. “There have been companies or individuals before that are like, ‘I’m going to do this. This is what I’m doing.’ And they don’t want to network or branch out. But I feel like that is the most beautiful part of being human is connection and meeting with other people and saying, ‘Oh, you need this. I can do that.’”

A list of Vault Studios’ services can be found at vaultstudiosabq.com.