I n t h e P r e s s — a c l o s e r l o o k . . .
Opening of Post-Production Facility Downtown Will Mean Start-To-Finish Filmmaking Here:
By Dan Mayfield
Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer
Friday, February 8, 2008
If movies are running away from Hollywood to places like New Mexico, then we must have run-to production. But so far, the run-to movie productions have had to run back to L.A. to do post-production work like film editing and special effects.
That will change soon when the city's newest post-production facility, Production Central ABQ, opens soon.
It's a niche in the business that will complete the circle of production. A filmmaker can now work pretty much start-to-finish in Albuquerque.
Rick Clemente, best known as the second-unit camera operator for the original "Star Wars" (OK, now known as "Episode IV: A New Hope"), is also a well-known television commercial director and champion vintage-car racer in his 1967 Alfa Romeo.
He's opening Production Central ABQ in Downtown to give editors, special effects gurus and sound mixers a place to work in the heart of Downtown.
It's in the old Gorilla Tango comedy club suite on Central Avenue.
Clemente has kept the Gorilla Tango stage for casting, and he's added a screening room with state-of-the-art sound. There's a fully equipped lab upstairs.
But where it will all come together is in the upstairs computer lab, he said. "It's as ready as it can be without adding to it."
Clemente is ready to start marketing his concept to producers.
Producers have their own favorite editing or sound-mixing software programs, and once they tell him what they need, he'll get it, and outfit his lab with their favorite gear.
The idea of a boutique, specialized editing and mixing facility like this is new to New Mexico, but not to other mature film production towns like Austin, Toronto or L.A., where several have popped up offering specialized digital services.
"Once you build this facility, that's the start of it," he said. "There's a good, but small, talent pool here and some more will move here if they have a place to work."
The state's film incentives brought Clemente here about a year ago. And, they have brought the people here who will be his customers.
Clemente is a man of many passions– like the 1958 pickup he's restoring– so Production Central ABQ won't be all film. He's adding a small coffee shop, Village Coffee Roasters, downstairs where folks can sit, talk movies and sip some joe.