Albuquerque has once again been named the best big city to live and work as a filmmaker by MovieMaker magazine. It's the fourth year in a row the city has topped the list, the first time that has happened in the over twenty years that the ranking has been done by the magazine. Santa Fe came in at number 3 in the small cities category.
https://www.moviemaker.com/best-plac...ker-in-2022/4/
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1. Albuquerque
This marks the fourth year in a row that this New Mexico metropolis has claimed the title as the best place to live and work as a moviemaker in North America.
And for good reason: production spend during the fiscal year of 2021 surpassed spending in the 2019 fiscal year by over $100 million. “Estimated spend for fiscal year 2021 was $500 million,” Cyndy McCrossen, the city’s film liaison, tells MovieMaker. “Fiscal year 2022 is at pace to continue that upward trend.” The production boom is breathing new life into the entire city, including a budding film tourism business to satisfy visitors’ curiosity as to where huge television hits like Stranger Things and Breaking Bad were filmed. It’s also helping ancillary businesses like Crafty Apes — a full-service special effects company that opened a 2,000-square-foot facility recently — and Keslow Camera, a camera rental house based in Los Angeles that opened an office in Albuquerque. Netflix is a huge driver behind this growth. The streaming giant bought ABQ Studios in 2018, pledging to spend $1 billion in the state, and furthered that commitment with another billion-dollar-pledge in 2020. This year, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham celebrated the opening of NBCUniversal’s New Mexico Production Studio in Albuquerque after the ribbon-cutting ceremony was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic. “We are not just making movies here. We are a movie industry hub for the United States and the world,” Grisham told local paper The Santa Fe New Mexican. The governor’s support of the film industry echoes a sentiment McCrossen expressed to MovieMaker: “Albuquerque is a movie town. The city government and the citizens themselves take great pride in the industry and culture of film.”
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A quote from MovieMaker's editor-in-chief was included in the Santa Fe New Mexican's coverage:
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“Four times at No. 1 is astonishing, and it’s a testament to how much Albuquerque has exploded as a production hub,” MovieMaker editor-in-chief Tim Molloy said in a news release.
NBCUniversal in June opened its 80,000-square-foot Albuquerque production studio with three sound stages.
NBCUniversal joins Netflix, which in 2018 acquired Albuquerque Studios and its eight sound stages. Netflix plans to build 10 more sound stages in Albuquerque. New Mexico has 23 sound stages in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
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https://www.santafenewmexican.com/ne...16895b77d.html
Adding to the studio space, the Albuquerque Journal in late November revealed and opened a new studio complex in its former production plant at Journal Center. This comes after the Journal moved production of its print edition to a joint venture with the Santa Fe New Mexican at its printing facility in Santa Fe.
https://www.abqjournal.com/2447512/m...nal-plant.html
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As New Mexico’s film industry continues to boom, studio space is scarce.
Enter The Studios At Journal Center.
William Lang, president of Albuquerque Publishing Co., announced on Friday the formation of a movie production facility.
The new venture will be headquartered at and utilize portions of the publishing company’s facility at 7777 Jefferson NE, the same campus that houses the Journal.
The Studios At Journal Center is comprised of a main stage area of 23,000 square feet with adjoining office space, a secondary stage or mill area of 13,000 square feet, and approximately 10,000 square feet of office space that can be used for production offices or filming. Additional office and general utility rooms are also available.
The site has parking for more than 350 vehicles and can accommodate production base camps.
New Mexico-based productions have used Albuquerque Publishing Co. as a location for more than a decade.
“We have served as a location in a number of productions and look forward to providing first-class facilities and experiences to future productions” Lang said in a news release.
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The final season of Better Call Saul is currently filming in the city. Production has recently been spotted downtown and at the BioPark. Downtown Albuquerque and the BioPark are apparently standing in for Omaha, replete with fake snow, since we've had a very mild winter with little snow here so far. Production is expected to wrap up in early February, with final filming taking place in Santa Fe.
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