I Miss You

I have no words to describe the heartache and numbness. Michele Serros passed away on January 4, 2015. 

We were supposed to grow old and sip sidecars while we gossiped.  

I am grateful for your friendship and the beautiful women I now call friends because of you. THANK YOU for the gifts and blessings you bestowed upon us. The world is a better place because of the legacy you left behind.  

International Women's Day

Las Contemporaneas of the Museum of Ventura County held their First Annual Latina Short Film Festival on March 8^th 2014. They were generous enough to screen both The Big Deal and Day of the Girl.

I was moved by the audience’s love and appreciation of both films. I am always humbled when I get such a great reaction to my work, it makes me proud of what I have achieved and motivates me to keep going.

The Chicana Role Model gave a fabulous

 

 

 I was honored with a spiffy award

 

Accepting my award

 

People want a feature film based on How to Be a Chicana Role Model - fingers crossed we make this happen.

xoxo,

Lucy

Imagen Award Nomination

The Big Deal has been nominated for an Imagen Award in the Best Theatrical Short film category. Check out the link below to see all the nominees - I'm proud to be sharing the honor with so many talented and prolific people.

http://www.imagen.org/awards/2011

I'm currently in NYC scouting locations for the next project. I'll post some pictures so you can get an idea of how amazing this film is going to be.

Onward & Upward.

xoxo,
Lucy

Adapting "The Big Deal"

I have a deep admiration and appreciation for a great book.  When Michele Serros gave me the OK to adapt “The Big Deal”, one of the chapters from her LA Times Best Seller book, How To Be A Chicana Role Model, I was flattered, grateful and scared. I wanted to make an adaptation that was true to the story Michele wrote.

I’ve reluctantly come to understand the need for a screenwriter to change things to make a book more cinematic, visually stimulating and/or to tell the story better. As a filmmaker, I had a responsibility to tell the story in the best way possible and as a fan of the book (one of my favorite books of all time) I wanted to see a film that was true to the story in the book. 

I wrote about 10 drafts of the screenplay. The first few drafts had Michele’s voiceovers (as they appear in the book) and in the last 5 drafts I did away with them. Everyone who gave notes on the script told me to get rid of the voiceovers and figure out another way to convey that information. It was hard to get all the juicy tidbits in the script without those voiceovers.  So I made the first change.

Some pictures from the shoot

Catalina Maynard as Aunt Alma & Onahoua Rodriguez as Michele

Michele Serros gives Onahoua some tips on How To Be A Chicana Role Model

The Big Deal

Sometime in late 2000, I read an excerpt for the book How to be a Chicana Role Model by Michele Serros.  I don't recall which chapter Latina Magazine used for the excerpt but I was hooked. I loved Michele's voice, it was fresh, sassy and vibrant.  The first line of Publisher's Weekly's review of Chicana Role Model sums it up better than I could - "The wisecracking, bicultural/bilingual, self-deprecating, post-Valley Girl author..." that description sounds a lot like me (minus the author part) and I'm sure most of her fans feel the same way.

I've always been an avid reader but this was the first book that felt like it was written just for me. Every time I read a book, images pop in my head and in the case of Chicana Role Model, those images always lingered. I've read the book many times, given it as presents and continue to buy it (currently out of print but used copies are available at Amazon). 

Reading the book, I got to know Michele.  She  became a pen pal, sort of, one that I did not write back until late 2007. I emailed her via Myspace and asked if I could adapt a chapter from her book. She was amiable about the whole thing and here I am almost three years later about to direct it as my second film.

Michele (left) and I looking fab at my wedding. 

She was my Maid of Honor. 

July 3, 2010

xoxo,
Lucy