There’s not too many moments when Paul J. Lucero is at a loss for words.
His head is filled with stories and it can be a full-time job to get them down on paper.
Lucero is also no stranger of taking one idea and turning it into a film or series.
Case in point, the TV series, “Our Crazy Family,” which he created in the last year. It is available to purchase on Amazon Prime.
“This family has nothing to do with my family at all,” Lucero says. “It’s completely separate from my life.”
“Our Crazy Family” follows the life of Lydia and Dominic, who are siblings in love with the same girl. They must compete against each other and win the girl over in three dates.
This isn’t the first film project for Lucero. He’s been part of several short films in New Mexico.
He was also at the helm of the short film, “Nina,” which was released in 2020.
In between the film productions, Lucero is also a model.
“I write a ton,” he says. “I like to write stories and break down the story lines.”
Lucero will often write and complete a script and pitch it to random people.
When he finished the script for the pilot episode of “Our Crazy Family,” he knew he wanted it to come to fruition.
He raised some money to film it around Albuquerque in 2021.
“We started around June and then had to hold off for a few weeks because one of our actors got COVID,” he says. “We picked up again in August and then ran into some issues filming.”
Lucero says some of the locations fell through and many of the locations found after saved the production.
“We had to shoot at one of the parks to double for a golf course,” he says. “Then El Charrito on Central stepped up and let us use their space to film as well. New Mexico Escape Room and ABQ Axe also stepped up.”
The production also used Studio 519 in Downtown.
“I wanted to make sure that this seemed like it was a project shot in New Mexico,” he says. “When we were shooting, we made sure to get Zia symbols in the shot. The locations all were super nice to keep us going that we wanted to capture that in the series as well.”
As Lucero continues to work on his next move, here are a few things you didn’t know about him:
1 “I have two dogs.”
2 “I eat a lot of fruit.”
3 “I broke my hand sparring which made me switch careers from boxing to film.”
4 “I was born and raised in Albuquerque and proud to call it home.”
5 “I got my first tattoo when I was 16.”
Editor’s note: Venue Plus continues “In Case You Didn’t Know,” a weekly feature with fun tidbits about New Mexicans and their projects.
