New Mexico

New Mexico Denies Film Incentive Application on Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Movie After Fatal Shooting

Published

3 days ago

July 4, 2024

New Mexico Denies Film Incentive Application on Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Movie After Fatal Shooting

Producers of the western movie Rust may have to forgo a robust economic incentive as they try to sell the film to distributors and fulfill financial obligations to the immediate family of a cinematographer who was fatally shot by Alec Baldwin during rehearsal in 2021.

New Mexico tax authorities denied an application this spring by Rust Movie Productions for incentives worth as much as $1.6 million, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. A late July deadline for producers to appeal the decision is approaching.

Meanwhile, Baldwin is scheduled to go on trial starting next week on an involuntary manslaughter charge in Halyna Hutchins’ death. The lead actor and co-producer of Rust was pointing a gun at Hutchins when it went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.

Melina Spadone, an attorney representing the production company, said the film production tax incentive was going to be used to finance a legal settlement between producers and Hutchins’ widower and son.

“The denial of the tax credit has disrupted those financial arrangements,” said Spadone, a New York- and Los Angeles-based senior counsel at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. She helped broker the 2022 settlement that rebooted the stalled production of Rust in Montana with some of the original cast and crew, including Baldwin and Souza. Filming wrapped up last year.

Terms of the settlement are confidential, but producers say finishing the film was meant to honor Hutchins’ artistic vision and generate money for her young son.

Court documents indicate that settlement payments are up to a year late, as attorneys for Hutchins’ widower determine “next steps” that include whether to resume wrongful death litigation or initiate new claims. Legal representatives for Matthew Hutchins did not respond to telephone and email messages seeking comment.

The prosecution of Baldwin and the film’s tax incentive application both have financial implications for New Mexico taxpayers. The Santa Fe district attorney’s office says it spent $625,000 on Rust-related prosecution through the end of April.

The state’s film incentives program is among the most generous in the nation, offering a direct rebate of between 25% and 40% on an array of expenditures to entice movie projects, employment and infrastructure investments. As a percentage of the state budget, only Georgia pays out more in incentives.

It includes a one-time option to assign the payment to a financial institution. That lets producers use the rebate to underwrite production ahead of time, often layering rights to the rebate and future movie income into production loans.

Among the beneficiaries of the rebate program are the 2011 movie “Cowboys and Aliens” and the TV series “Better Call Saul,” a spinoff of “Breaking Bad.” As for current productions, New Mexico is the backdrop for a new film starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera about the rescue of students in a 2018 wildfire in the town of Paradise — the most destructive in California’s history.

Charlie Moore, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, declined to comment specifically on the Rust application, citing concerns about confidential taxpayer information. Applications are reviewed for a long list of accounting and claim requirements.

During a recent 12-month period, 56 film incentive applications were approved and 43 were partially or fully denied, Moore said.

Documents obtained by AP show the New Mexico Film Office issued a memo in January to Rust that approved eligibility to apply for the tax incentive, in a process that involves accounting ledgers, vetting against outstanding debts and an on-screen closing credit to New Mexico as a filming location. Taxation officials have final say on whether expenses are eligible.

Spadone, the attorney for Rust, said the denial of the application is “surprising” and could disrupt confidence in the tax program with a chilling effect on rebate-backed loans that propel the local film industry.

Alton Walpole, a production manager at Santa Fe-based Mountainair Films who was not involved in Rust, said he faults the movie’s creators for seemingly cutting corners on safety but officials have an obligation to review its tax credit application based on legal and accounting principles only — or risk losing major projects to other states. Movies are inherently dangerous even without firearms on set, he noted.

“They’re going to say, ‘Wait, are we going to New Mexico? They could deny the rebate,’” Walpole said. “They’re watching every penny.”

“Popular opinion? I’d say don’t give them the rebate. But legally, I think they qualified for it all,” he said.

At least 18 states have enacted measures to implement or expand film tax incentives since 2021, while some have gone in the opposite direction and sought to limit the transferability and refundability of credit.

Under Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico has raised annual spending caps and expanded the film tax credit amid a multibillion-dollar surplus linked to record oil and natural gas production. Film rebate payouts were $100 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2023 and are expected to rise to nearly $272 million by 2027, according to tax agency records and the Legislature’s budget and accountability office.

Democratic state Sen. George Muñoz has criticized the incentive program and asked whether taxpayers should be responsible for unforeseen expenses.

“If we’re going to do tax credits and there’s a problem on the film or the set, do they really qualify or do they disqualify themselves?” said Muñoz, chairman of the lead Senate budget writing committee.

Rust does not yet have a U.S. distributor, as producers shop the newly completed movie at film festivals.

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New Mexico

New Mexico wildfires prompt precautions, new food assistance

Published

4 hours ago

July 6, 2024

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(New Mexico News Connection) New Mexicans affected by recent wildfires and subsequent flooding may be eligible for Disaster Supplemental Nutritional Program benefits. The additional SNAP dollars will provide one month of groceries for individuals and families affected by the South Fork and Salt fires.

Srikanth Paladugu, environmental health epidemiology bureau chief for the New Mexico Department of Health, said those in wildfire-prone areas should always be prepared because the state’s increased and persistent heat as well as strong winds can aggravate asthma and other respiratory issues in both children and adults.

“For example, during the 2022 Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire, we reported a significant increase in the number of emergency room visits compared to what it was in the same time frame in 2021,” Paladugu noted.

The 2022 fires were the largest in state history. The recent fires have so far destroyed more than 1,400 structures, including 500 homes, and killed two people, according to state officials. Those affected in Lincoln and Otero counties can apply for D-SNAP benefits beginning Wednesday. More information is available at 1-800-283-4465.

Paladugu pointed out the state has created a new “531 Visibility Tool,” incorporating mileage and landmarks to help determine visibility if a wildfire is nearby and the need to seek shelter. He explained the method can also be used by event organizers, coaches and recreational leaders to decide if practice or the game should go on or be postponed.

“If you can’t see landmarks that are about five miles away, then young children, and adults over 65 and pregnant women and people with lung and heart disease should minimize their outdoor activities,” Paladugu advised.

He added at any time, regardless of the visibility, those who feel they are having health effects from smoke should take precautions to avoid further exposure and consult a health care professional as needed.

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New Mexico

The off-grid Earthship community in New Mexico is an otherworldly desert landscape

Published

11 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Press Room

The off-grid Earthship community in New Mexico is an otherworldly desert landscape

Approaching Earthship in Taos, New Mexico, at dusk, landscape photographer Victoria Sambunaris (featured in our Wallpaper* USA 400, a guide to creative America) began to make out the gently sloping profiles of homes, buried in folds of a dune-like landscape. ‘It was like entering some other country, the architecture revealing itself as part of the earth, but of the earth from the earth,’ she says.

Founded in the 1970s by architect Michael E Reynolds, the Earthship community in Taos uses everything from the power of the wind and sun to recycled coloured glass bottles to create unique self-sufficient dwellings

(Image credit: Victoria Sambunaris)

Welcome to Earthship

Sambunaris was here to stay in one man’s vision for the past, present and future of housing. Michael E Reynolds (also in the Wallpaper* USA 400) founded the unorthodox utopian Earthship community here in the early 1970s, with the goal of building homes that don’t use fossil fuels or generate waste. ‘I call it soft development,’ he says, ‘They have a soft look because they’re also logically encountering the phenomena of the earth. At the same time, you’ve got your own power, your own water and your own sewage. You’re secure in the future.’

There are more than 60 off-grid, fully independent, self-sustaining homes in the Earthship community in Taos, and up to 3,000 across the world. Each Earthship follows a specific formula, designed by Reynolds, and is made using earth-filled tyres as structural columns buried into the land on three sides, with a south-facing glazed wall incorporating a multi-functional greenhouse. With their slanted glass roofs and fan-like designs, these often contain verdant jungles filled with fig or banana trees, tomato vines, squashes and watermelons. They also serve to capture rain water, and recycle and filter grey water for use in the home.

With their sandy, doughy, hand-moulded walls encrusted with glistening coloured glass made from recycled bottles, Earthship architecture presents itself as Antoni Gaudí meets Mad Max in the American West. Yet, look closer and the informal, often sculptural design of the buildings is hinted at in the nearby Taos Pueblo settlement, where the ancient adobe architecture by indigenous communities, including the Red Willow people, remains. The traditional house construction in this region also uses earth mixed with water and straw, which is then either poured into forms or turned into sun-dried bricks. Reynolds named these houses as a play on spaceships, but they are more rooted and terrestrial than meets the eye.

Sambunaris’ goal was to photograph these homes across time and space, going out early in the morning to catch the varying light and observe the clouds and sun as they played with the architecture. ‘I was able to look at the same places at different times of day, from morning to dusk, and return to those places. Sometimes, the light hitting the cans that are used in the structure would shimmer, or a wall made of bottles would glisten as the light came through from behind it and illuminated the colours.’ In her site explorations, she ran into a homeowner walking her dog who had lived there for 27 years, as well as couples visiting for the weekend in an Airbnb.

Sambunaris’ work often takes her to remote areas, where she finds herself camping for multiple nights, but she says her most memorable experience of staying at the Earthship community was not the various ingenious technologies, or the curvilinear walls, firepits or handmade mosaics, but simply the silence. ‘It was really, really quiet,’ she says. ‘The night skies were phenomenal; the sky lit up with stars. Even when I’m camping, I hear people’s RVs and generators, and so I really appreciated the silence.’

While the Earthships seem like the definition of a singular experience, their architect feels they should be available for everyone. So the next challenge he is taking on is the creation of a prefabricated version, called the ‘refuge’, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom ‘market ready’ edition, which is now being developed for a wider audience. ‘I’m looking at the last 55 years as a valuable learning experience in research and development, and now I am seeing what I need to do: I want to build the equivalent of a Ford Model T for housing,’ he says.

The proposal is compelling and as, Reynolds points out, in the midst of a planetary-scale climate emergency, often causing power outages for days or weeks with flood or drought conditions, a readily available off-grid home is going to have market appeal. ‘Off-grid used to be an adventure or a stylised journey that young hipsters used to do. Now the writing is on the wall – the grid is failing, as well as destroying the planet. Off-grid is a secure way to live, and people are really looking for this.’

For many, the economic and logistical plausibility will need to be seen to be believed, but there is no doubt it is a cause worth fighting for. Sambunaris herself seemed touched by the idea and left with a sense of hope. ‘After spending a lot of time on the road in the American West, I see that there is definitely a need for someone like Reynolds who’s thinking about sustainability and affordability and housing. So how do we make that happen, where he creates the Ford Model T for housing, so that everybody can have their own home.’

Meanwhile, Reynolds and his Earthship team are rolling out prototypes and organising seminars and academies to teach people how to adopt and embrace an urban off-grid home. ‘Now that I know how to do it, the next lesson is learning to make it palatable and economical.’

earthship.com

victoriasambunaris.com

This article appears in the August 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, available to download free when you sign up to our daily newsletter, in print on newsstands from 4 July, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

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