Producer Katy Lopes’ Creative Dynamism Spells Success
By Stan Whittaker
Dynamic. That’s the best word to describe producer Katy Lopes. The Brazilian filmmaker sweeps through her projects with the range and momentum of a cyclone. From the earliest stages through fundraising, logistics, location scouting, on set trouble shooting and meticulous post-production oversight, Lopes’ comprehensive grasp and unflagging energy guarantees a world-class finished product.
It’s a skill she’s honed since the dawn of her professional career, landing a behind-the-scenes position in television when she was just twenty years old.
“I first started at TV Bandeirantes, one of the biggest television broadcasters in Brazil,” Lopes said. “I began as an art department production assistant, and it was a lovely experience, but something inside me was always looking to the producer side. I watched the producers work and was fascinated by that.”
After a year or so on the art department job, the audacious Lopes took a chance and went after an important job upgrade.
“I negotiated with the director and they agreed to give me the opportunity to move to the producer’s department,” Lopes said. “There, my job was to scout and make deals with location sites, book casting, make sure to hire a full crew and basically deal with logistics and also the creative aspect, to develop episodes. It gave me significant experience and I learned a lot from it.”
Lopes wasn’t just learning firsthand on some small local TV program — it was the immensely popular comedy series ‘Panico na TV,’ a weekly show with more than seventeen million loyal viewers spread across 749 South American municipalities.
“Working on ‘Panico na TV’ taught me so much,” Lopes said. “It was like a huge school for me, where I felt at home and loved what I did. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be what I’m today.”
After three years of critical hands-on experience, the ambitious producer struck out on her own, undertaking a successful series of short films (‘Blades,’ ‘Inner Self,” ‘Blurred’).
Teamed with two ‘Panico na TV’ alumni, director Pedro Millás and his partner Marcello Tamaro at the up and coming Gorilla production company, Lopes wasted no time and launched work on the provocative coming of age drama ‘Misfits Prick.’
Written by Millás and filmed in Los Angeles, ‘Misfit’s Prick’ casts an optimistic perspective on the challenges of the human condition. The two main characters, a troubled teenage punk rocker and his bigoted, close minded grandfather, are forced to confront their own beliefs about family life and learn to truly love and care about each other.
For Lopes, the production was also an extended family affair.
“Marcello a great friend from ‘Panico na TV,’ and he introduced me to Pedro a couple of years ago,” Lopes said. “We get along very well and since then we have been working together whenever we have the opportunity — it’s always a pleasure.”
Lopes began her typically ecumenical production process, anticipating and formulating every aspect of the project.
“’Misfits Prick’ was a relatively smooth project to work on,” Lopes said. “The creative team and other departments all worked very hard and brought a lot of valuable knowledge to it. There were challenges because we had a lot of locations and setups, but with patience and choosing strategies to make the best decisions we made it happen.”
The film has been uniformly well received at screenings and is currently making the rounds of the international film festival circuit.
“Even with the challenges we faced, ‘Misfit’s Prick’ was a wonderful experience,” Lopes said. “It was definitely a team effort, cause without each crew member it couldn’t’ve happened.”
Such modesty is typical of the low key Lopes style, but she is always the driving force behind each project she takes on.
Director Millás summed this fact up best: “Katy was indispensable on the project, having absolute control over all the production coordination. She is always mindful of production’s most minimum details. Also, she’s a creative producer with an insight that solves problems in a timely manner. These are just a couple of qualities from a dozen others that make her one of the most responsible producers I’ve ever encountered — I’ve never worked with a more skilled producer.”
