ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As New Mexico’s film industry continues to grow, the state is not only seeing huge studio companies select the state as their permanent destination – but also world-renowned artists.

“You feel the grandiosity of what can happen on screen – that’s what music can do,” Marcello De Francisci said.

De Francisci carries many hats in the film industry.

A recording studio can feel like a home away from home for artists like De Francisci, who is a film composer. But after working on Michael Mann’s 2023 biographical drama, “Ferrari,” De Francisci decided to make New Mexico his next home.

“I decided to come here after Ferrari, I basically packed an entire, my whole entire facility in a truck and picked it up in a warehouse out of Glendale and just drove through the Mohave to Albuquerque,” De Francisci said.

With tools like Zoom and Facetime, De Francisci said this gives him the flexibility to work on Hollywood projects in the Duke City.

“Zoom calls now have really changed the landscape of creativity,” De Francisci said. “And that’s the one thing that I took seriously into consideration when I moved here. I said, well, I already got the clients. Many times when I was in Los Angeles, and I was based in Pasadena for example, I had a director in Santa Monica, they would come one time to my studio and after that, they had to come back they’d always tell me, it’s going to take two hours to get to your place. Why don’t you upload the files? So that was the catalyst for me to say, well, wait a minute. If I can Zoom somebody and the quality control that I keep, which is very strict in what I do, I can deliver the same thing to the guy in Santa Monica from Albuquerque.”

As Marcello gets set for his next big project, he’s also looking for New Mexico talent.

“I like the people, I like what’s going on,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of room for growth here. I think I can bring that talent, with my production skills and my cinematic background, to introduce those talents to the film industry, and I find that idea to be pretty exciting.”

For more on De Francisci’s work, click here. To contact him, click here.