Santa Fe Community College to train aspiring moviemakers with backlot film set

SANTA FE — When he interviewed for his current role as dean of the Liberal Arts and Art and Design programs at Santa Fe Community College, Jim Wysong wanted to know what students needed most to succeed in the film industry.

“Tell me the big project,” he remembered asking Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department.

Riess didn’t hesitate — students needed a training facility, he said. “Preferably a backlot or some studio space,” Wysong recalled Riess saying.

SFCC started work on the project right away after Wysong came onboard six years ago, and on Tuesday a groundbreaking event was held beside the 50-acre parcel where the school’s first film set and training space is expected to open next spring.

Located east of the William C. Witter Fitness Education Center, “Backlot Santa Fe” is the working title of what will become a fully functional street film set meant to train students in all manner of filmmaking — from set design and construction to lighting, camera work, acting and directing.

“You have six movie ranches within 5 miles as the crow flies, so we didn’t need another Western town,” Wysong told the Journal on Tuesday, explaining that the school consulted with Netflix on the type of set the state needed most. “This will be a mid-century street that can be a brownstone on the East Coast to a city in Middle America.”

Backlot Santa Fe will be a training site for SFCC students first and foremost, Wysong said, but the school also hopes it will attract both movie and commercial film productions.

“This prevents a production from either having to go somewhere else or paying to close streets in Albuquerque,” Wysong said.

Film in the Land of Enchantment has been lucrative for the state, bringing in $3.8 billion in direct spending from film production revenue since 2016, according to the New Mexico Film Office, whose director, Steve Graham, was in attendance at the event.

“This is what I sell when I go out there and I work with producers,” he said, speaking inside a tent brimming with school administrators, faculty, students, Santa Fe politicos, film professionals and project sponsors on Tuesday. “They say how great it is to work in New Mexico — ‘Everyone’s so friendly, your crew is amazing. I want to spend time with them.’”

Despite attracting big business to New Mexico, the film industry is also highly cyclical.

New Mexico’s Film Production Tax Credit program and robust infrastructure has faced stiffer competition in recent years, logging a decline in direct spending from film productions in 2025, at $323.2 million, down from a high of $874.6 million in 2022.

“We’re in a little bit of a contraction right now with the industry,” Santa Fe Film Office Commissioner Jennifer LaBar-Tapia told the Journal as guests toured the land where the set will be built. “But we’re gonna come back, we always do. The constant investments that are continuing to happen — like this backlot, Aspect Media Village and the investment that’s going on over there, working with Taos to create a film office — we’re still rockin’ and rollin’.”

SFCC President Rebecca Rowley said the new film set and training space is an investment in the future of their students, rooted in a belief that the film industry will continue to provide careers across a variety of disciplines.

“We do believe film is a viable career path, and the backlot will essentially give them work-based experience that they certainly didn’t have before,” she said. “It’s very difficult for them to get that kind of experience, so we’re pleased to be able to provide it.”

The school has received $1.45 million in public funding for the project. The Santa Fe County Commission contributed the lion’s share, at $1 million, with $500,000 coming from American Rescue Plan Act funds and another $500,000 from the Santa Fe County Economic Development Fund. The city of Santa Fe also committed $250,000, and the New Mexico Legislature earmarked $200,000 to support site and utility infrastructure, according to SFCC Chief Communications Officer Todd Lovato.

Those initial funds will finance site preparation, utilities and an initial set and training space on a 10-acre portion of the parcel, which has been leased by Mosaica Inc., a nonprofit established by SFCC. The school plans to attract an additional investment of $2 million to $3 million.

Other project partners include film and TV labor union IATSE Local 480 and Stagecoach Foundation Inc., whose co-founder, best-selling author George R.R. Martin, was in attendance on Tuesday.

“It’s exciting to do storytelling,” Martin told the Journal, “and to give people a career that, in my opinion, they still get excited about. That is, to my mind, one of the biggest questions of people trying to make a life for themselves — trying to find a career and a life that will bring them happiness, you know?”