Interviews with crew of the indie feature film Gabriela.

Kelly Fitzgerald- Co-producer

I’m CO-producer on Gabriela. I think just over the months of just working on Gabriela , Vince kind of guided me through and taught me a lot of stuff and trusted me a lot. He’s kind of like my mentor, he molded me. [While making the film I was] twenty-two, but I believe that I am older mentally. I didn’t look it as I’m a twenty-two year old young person, I just kind of went along with it and did my best. The mistakes that I made, Vincent was there to help me. I just didn’t see age as problem.

Everything was challenging. I guess the one thing that I actually did have a problem with, was having people actually believe in me, because I am younger, I’m one of the youngest people on the crew. I kept on having in my head, that everyone was looking at me like the baby of the crew, so how can you take her seriously. It kind of did and it kind of didn’t. A lot of people might have, until they got to know me, put the age thing up there before the actual mentality.

I just graduated from Pepperdine University with my B.A in psychology. When dealing with people, it was really helpful. My heart is actually in film, I want to do more producing. I’ve just been an extremely lucky person, to actually be able to start a producing career so young and have somebody like Vince Miller help me through it. I started out right after I graduated on commercials. It was only my second movie, but before Gabriela, I was a production assistant on commercials as well as a pervious movie. I actually had the guidance of my cousin in San Francisco who introduced me to the idea, the thought, of being a production assistant. She told me how to go about and how to get into it. She helped out a lot be giving me the insights.

Everyone was great, cast and crew. JaimÉ is a complete star. He didn’t have the actor attitude of: I’m superior over everyone else. He didn’t have that: oh wait on me hand and foot. He was right there, at the same level as everybody. He was great, he was making sure that everyone was as comfortable as he was. Great actor, he’s really an all around professional star.

I see it as doing very well, because it does portray the Latino culture in a very positive way. As many people have said, the Latino culture gets sunned down as far as everybody’s a gangster, everyone robs people, gang bang. Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of it is portrayed and Gabriela has been lucky enough to have some of the top Latino actors in film, be in the movie in a positive manner, where everyone’s a professional. The lead actress’ mother was a lawyer. The lead actress, she was getting her Ph.D. I think it will do quite well, because it’s kind of like a first time thing, where people can actually look out and say: you know, that’s really how the culture is.

Funny moments...gosh, everything is kind of a funny moment. One of the scenes is with Troy Winbush, who plays Douglas, with the dog. At one point I turned around, without having seen the rehearsals- I had been off doing paper work- I turn around and the next thing I know, I see Troy carrying the dog to the actress. That’s how they put it into the script, that the dog wasn’t familiar with Douglas. So there Douglas is picking up the golden retriever to carry her over to see Jessica. I thought that was absolutely one of the funniest things. It was a complete ad-lib, that Troy just happened to do during rehearsals, that boom, it ended up on film.

Vince is a very, very talented guy. His scripts, not only Gabriela, but the others I’ve read, that’s he’s done, are absolutely heartwarming. He takes the time to listen to other people’s suggestions. He took the actors into consideration after he cast them and rehearsals and the character they want to do. He wasn’t out there to make the movie for himself, he was out there to make the movie for everyone else. He wants to see the actors careers soar, just as much as he wants to see himself soar. Sadly enough now that it’s such a challenging thing to be a director, or a screenwriter, in the film business, that it seems that everybody is out there for themselves; they don’t share with other directors or other screenwriters. If they have an actor that they work with a lot, they want to make sure that actor doesn’t go to another director. It like a fear, a subconscious thing: what if that actor like that director more than me. Vince isn’t like that, he’s willing to help anybody. He took the time to learn everybody’s name, all the crew. I’ve worked in other commercials, even other films where the directors don’t care. If your not one of his top people up there, then you don’t matter to him or her. I think that’s sad, because you’re not like a family, you’re not creating something. People dread going to work and that what it shouldn’t be like.

Interview by permission from the producers of Gabriela.