For more than 20 years, University Theatre Productions, the theatre-film-television component of UTPA's Communication Department, has been making films as part of a class called Summer Television Workshop. A major difference this summer is that the film will be written and directed by a student as opposed to faculty as in the past. This summer, the student taking to role of script writer and director will be none other than Valente Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is not a stranger to UTPA. He is most famous for playing the role of Ernie on “The George Lopez Show,” but has also acted in movies such as “(500) Days of Summer,” “Erin Brockovich” and “The New Guy” among many other films and television shows. Originally, from Edcouch, he attended the university in the 1980s and is returning over the summer to record a film as a part of his master’s degree in Theatre.
The script titled “Big Dreams, Little Balls,” follows four college students who study together for a Spanish class. They gather money to buy lottery tickets after hearing the lottery on the radio and each of them comes up with a big dream of what they would do with the money if they were to win big.
The script was developed by a theatre workshop from Los Angeles which Rodriguez is a part of.
“He has spent the past semester turning the stage play they developed into a workable screenplay,” says Dr. Jack Stanley, UTPA’s Director of Drama who will oversee the project.
Cast and crew will consist of students enrolled in the Summer Television Workshop course during the first summer session.
“The majority of the production will take place inside COAS 107, the Studio Theatre where a library snack bar will be built. The rest of the production will be shot in and around Edinburg and the UTPA campus. But the major action of the story takes place inside this snack bar of a library, which we'll build to suit ourselves,” says Stanley.
A typical graduate student in the film program is not required to produce a film as a part of their coursework. Rodriguez is working on a film in order to base his thesis on what goes into changing a script into a film.
“What Mr. Rodriguez is doing, in fact, is working on a thesis about the conversion of a stage play into a motion picture. The production of the film is but a small part of his work,” says Stanley.
“Big Dreams, Little Balls” will be the 18th feature film created in the Summer Television Workshop with hopes of it being distributed internationally as well as entered in film competitions across the globe like some of their previous works.
“It will show the world what it is we do here, and how well we do it. This is a unique program combining theatre, television, and film together an enabling our graduates to work in all three or go on to other graduate schools with a solid base in hands-on production,” says Stanley.
About eight graduate students and close to 30 undergraduate students will be working on the production.
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