Meet the Makers: Lauren López de Victoria

Lauren López de Victoria is a 2nd-year student in the creative producing concentration. She is currently producing her 2nd-year film in collaboration with her classmates who are in the 3rd and 4th years.

What do you enjoy about producing?

I love the writing stage—the development—and I tend to be a people person. I was shy all my life. So when I came here, I made an effort to have conversations with as many as people as possible. All steps of the collaborative process, I enjoy. I also love having a partner—co-producing co-writing, etc. It’s really nice when you are able to trust and share your vision.
 

Where are you from and what is your background?

I’m from Puerto Rico, and I moved to upstate NY to go to undergraduate school there when I was 17. I studied Engineering. But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I have been wanting to do architecture in my entire life. My mother paints and my grandmother founded an art school in Puerto Rico, so I’ve  painted since I was a child. But my artistic side of the family was all broke, so they told me if I wanted to make art then it should be architecture. But I really didn’t like it, so I picked engineering instead.

After college, I worked in IBM for 7 years. 2 years in NY, 3 years in South America, a year and half in the NYC.
 

Did you want to do filmmaking as a child?

No. I was always interested in art, but not films. I think I started to get really interested in films when I was traveling for work. In my time off in a different country, I often went to watch movies with my coworkers. When I moved back to New York, I knew that I wanted to go back to school. I came to an  open house in Columbia film program and I really liked it.
 

Did you have any producing experience before you came to Columbia?

Not at all. I’m very aware that I have no experience, so I produced as many as movies possible in my 1st year in Columbia to learn more. I didn’t want to make it my disadvantage.
 

Is there a particular type of movie that you enjoy producing?

I’m interested in characters. As long as there is something in a character I can identify with or respond to, I would probably be interested in the story. I love to be included in the development process as much as possible. A lot of it is about learning a balance of how many projects you want to do and how many you can participate in from the beginning. It’s nice on set when you can almost read a director’s mind and what’s going on in general. Ideally, a producer and a director should be in sync so there’s no confusion on set. I think at the end of the day, a producer should have a little bit of a director’s mind and a director should have a producer’s mind too so they both understand each other and be there together. Then on set, we shut off our director’s mind and director’s can shut off their producer’s mind. I think that’s the ideal relationship between the two—trust.
 

Why did you decide to study producing instead of writing/directing?

I actually thought about applying for writing/directing concentration as well, but I think I made a right call. I have been working in finance mostly and I didn’t want to throw away 7 years of work experience; I wanted to bring this experience and make it beneficial. We don’t have many producers with a financial background. I would love to have my own production company in the future, eventually.
 

At Columbia, producers are also required to take directing and writing classes during their 1st year. How was your experience been learning directing as a producer?

I had good professors in my 1st semester. Again, not having previous experience in filmmaking, learning directing from directors wiped my fear away. By the 2nd semester, I was already a little bit more comfortable on set. I think it’s valuable and important for producers to know how to direct.
 

Have you had any noteworthy experiences or challenges at Columbia thus far?

We sometimes have discussions about how we can make the program better with the faculty members. I like the close communication between students and faculty members. It’s intimate. If students raise concerns or ideas, faculty members respond quickly.

Shooting a film in my own country for the first time was challenging. [Lauren directed her 8-12 in Puerto Rico.] The heat, I had people staying in my house, limited resources, etc. There was a also day I ran into a friend mid-shoot, and it was a strange feeling of mixing the film world with my old non-film world.

For that shoot, I went home for spring break in my 1st year and started to talk to small production companies. I pitched my idea, and there was a particular production company interested in making non-profit movies. So we started to work together. I got many discounts through them, they recommended me crews- I got really lucky.

It was fun in general, but it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. It’s my home, I do producing, so I thought I could manage everything pretty much on my own, but thinking back, I should have had a solid producer or UPM back in Puerto Rico to help. That’s the lesson I learned.

I am definitely interested in making more films in Puerto Rico in the future. They have a big film industry actually. I also contacted student filmmakers there and they are all willing to work for projects.
 

What kind of a filmmaker you want to be?

There are couple people I really admire, Abbas Kiarostami, for example. I’m not saying I want to produce movies in his style, but if I can make something that makes people emotional like when we watch his movies, then I would be extremely happy. I think it’s special when the audience leaves the theatre after watching a movie, still living in the aftertaste of the movie. I want to make a movie that audiences can leave with.