Spankin’ new digital art and film facility opens for students

The trendy Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media Program will host an open house Thursday to showcase its state-of-the-digital-art facility and thank those who made the program possible.

In an effort to boost the state’s economy, Gov. Bill Richardson convinced the Legislature to contribute millions to develop the IFDM Program and ARTS Lab, said Nick Flor, the program director.
“It’s all part of his plan to create a native New Mexican Hollywood,” he said.

The program integrates digital media with computer science, business and fine arts. It gives students knowledge of digital media beyond film and traditional uses. Digital media concentrations are offered at Anderson School of Management, College of Fine Arts, School of Engineering and College of Arts and Sciences.

Flor said state funds were available to the program, but it had to cut through University red tape before getting approval.

“Now the economy has tanked, and we’re in this budgetary crisis, and it looks like we’re spending money that we shouldn’t be, but this is money that was always targeted for the Film and Digital Media program,” he said.

Shirley Gallegos, the program coordinator, said the building is closer to Albuquerque Studios, giving students a leg up in landing New Mexico film industry jobs.

“It’s the way of the future in terms of experiencing media in a new way,” she said. “It’s a way to visually show and explore problem solving in various fields that would transcend the film media in the film industry.”

The opening enables the public to see students’ innovation since they started it in 2009, and Gallegos said it will hopefully attract prospective students to the program.

Projects such as video games, immersive media, digital advertising, science fiction films, music videos and virtual worlds will be showcased at the open house.

Flor said digital media extends across fields, and it’s entertaining, entrepreneurial and educational. He said instrumental politicians, including Richardson, will attend the opening.

“We know that because our students have gotten jobs at places like Lucasfilm,” he said. “We have another student interning at Sony ImageWorks, and we have students interning at Sandia and Los Alamos. It means we’re teaching things the industry views as useful.”