NM08 - Film — Lights, Camera, Action!

When you think of New Mexico you hardly think of Hollywood glitz and fanfare, but the film industry here has emerged one of the best in the country. With a financial incentive program, state-of-the-art sound stages, experienced crew, and diverse landscape and communities, the state has become a second home for many Hollywood producers.

Not new to the celluloid crowd, New Mexico was a film location long before it became a state. The first film made in the territory was shot at Isleta Pueblo in 1898. The Thomas Edison Co. ventured out West to film Native American children at their schoolhouse on the pueblo. The title of the film was Indian Day School and it lasted only 50 seconds, but it launched a very long and vibrant local film business. Early on, films portrayed life in the Wild West — large working ranches, Indian villages, and army forts amid diverse high desert terrain. Throw in a sunny and dry climate and you have the perfect setting for a western. Over the years, New Mexico was the backdrop for hundreds of westerns such as Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, Lonesome Dove, Wyatt Earp, and 3:10 to Yuma. It later became popular for road films, most notably Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. The film industry by nature is fickle, but the industry here has survived many ups and downs and delivered a range of classics.

When the state began offering financial incentives to lure filmmakers, it also had to convince them that it could pass for any location around the world. New Mexico has recently doubled for such far-reaching places as Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and even a futuristic Mars landscape. It has also been made to look like many cities around the United States. It’s rare that a story shot in Albuquerque, Gallup, or Las Cruces actually takes place in those cities.

Some of New Mexico’s most popular attractions have served as backdrops to many favorite films. Georgia’s O’Keeffe’s former home, Ghost Ranch, is used so often in films that they have a special production manager that handles all inquiries. Steven Spielberg recently shot the opening sequence to the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series at Ghost Ranch. According to the ranch’s [or is he the film’s production manager?] production manager, David Manzanares, Spielberg looked all over New Mexico for a “spectacular mountain range” and found it in Georgia O’Keeffe Country. 3:10 to Yuma starring Russell Crowe shot extensively throughout the Ghost Ranch property as well.

“It’s spectacular and untouched,” Manzanares says of the landscape. You can take the hourlong landscape tour and literally move through movie set after movie set. You may well recognize landscape scenes from such classics as The Missing, All the Pretty Horses, City Slickers, Young Guns, Wyatt Earp, and more recently Appaloosa, The Year One, No Country for Old Men (winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture), In the Valley of Elah, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

White Sands National Monument — the world’s largest gypsum field located in southern New Mexico near Alamogordo — was the backdrop for Michael Bay’s The Transformers and for Astronaut Farmer starring Billy Bob Thornton.

Other popular attractions that double as movie locations include the Río Grande Gorge Bridge in Taos, the beautiful red sandstone cliffs of Red Rock State Park near Gallup, the 27 radio antennas that make up the Very Large Array near Socorro and the many western movie towns such as Bonanza Creek and the Eaves Movie Ranch near Santa Fe.

The film industry has brought many ancillary benefits to New Mexico, including more than 25 different film festivals. Special film screenings and movie premieres occur frequently, and the business has brought a plethora of acting classes, stunt workshops, writing seminars, and film training programs.

The New Mexico Film Museum was recently established to capture and record this rich history. “Through engaging interactive exhibitions, groundbreaking educational seminars, experiential learning, and gatherings of celebration, the museum raises awareness of the cultural impact of motion pictures and television and inspires the storytellers of tomorrow,” its mission statement says.

The museum offers exhibitions on various productions and will also exhibit still photography, animation, and digital works. For more information, make a guest appearance at the New Mexico Film Museum.