In response to the state’s booming film industry, UNM’s digital film program gives students the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of “New Mexican Hollywood.”
Six film and television projects are in production in the state, including “The Lone Ranger,” starring Johnny Depp and the television series “In Plain Sight,” according to The New Mexico Film Office. Through the University’s Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media Program, students can intern with companies including Sony Pictures Imageworks and Albuquerque Studios.
Miguel Gandert, the director of the program, said one IFDM student is working on the Men in Black 3 film as part of an internship with Sony, while others work with the City of Albuquerque and the University to create digital film projects.
“Anybody who’s making film using new media here, we’re willing to partner with them,” he said.
But despite a growing number of film projects in New Mexico, Gandert, said UNM’s digital film program will not be developing into its own department any time soon.
“I have no interest in becoming a department,” he said. “It would just make my mission much more complicated. When you’re an interdisciplinary program, it enables you to (be flexible), I like to think of it as taking the best from each of my partners.”
The program partners with the College of Fine Arts, College of Arts and Sciences, Anderson School of Management and the School of Engineering to create a specialized major for students who want to work in digital film.
Since 2009, students have had the opportunity to get a degree in the field. Gandert said the four-year program focuses on aspects of film such as gaming, animation and business.
In 2004, then-Gov. Bill Richardson created the New Mexico Media Industries Strategy Plan in an effort to make the state an innovative leader in media arts and sciences. As part of the project, UNM was awarded a $3 million grant to create the Art, Research, Technology and Sciences (ARTS) Laboratory.
The IFDM program is built upon the ARTS Lab.
Students can apply to the program as freshmen, but Gandert said the program is competitive, and applying doesn’t always guarantee a spot. He said there are about 130 students in the program and another 70 will be accepted in the fall.
IFDM student Eric Geusz, who was accepted into the program as a freshman, is a computer science major. Now a senior, he said he can’t decide if he wants to pursue video game design, visual effects or advertising animation.
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Regardless, he said the program has helped him to establish the friendships and connections he needs to pursue a career in any of the fields.
“IFDM has been very life-transformative,” he said. “IFDM, for me, has been about networking and getting to know other students and artists as well as industry professionals who are working in the positions I hope to one day be in.”
For his senior project, Geusz said he is working with classmates to create a video game about robots fighting to acquire resources in a world of scraps. He said his love for digital film has helped him to keep working hard on his studies in the vigorous program.
“I’ve lost count of how many long nights I’ve spent in the computer lab cranking away on projects during crunch time,” he said. “I go to classes and my job all day and work on projects all night. You really have to love it, and I do. Every last second.”
