Meet Lawrence Razo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lawrence Razo.

Lawrence, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Today, I’m what you call Video Assist Operator. My responsibilities are to make sure Directors/producers have monitors up and ready for viewing of all the action, and also comp out the green screen as well as layer video to line up shots for VFX setups. Most recently, I was able to apply these skill sets to Captain Marvel, Avengers End Game, and Spider-Man.

I didn’t go to school to gain these skills. It was all on the job training. When things went wrong, I’d have to fix it on the fly or be fired. Which I never have and I have been in some real sticky situations but always got myself out of. How I got into this position was being in the right place at the right time.

Before I started working on TV shows and big Feature films, I started with commercials and music videos, and before that, I was producing low budget feature films( which paid less than minimum wage after all the hours we’d put in per day) and where it all started was me doing extra/background work.

I started doing background work I believe in June of 09. I was doing that for a couple of years before I felt the urge to do more than just being an extra in the background. I decided becoming a Production Assistant was the best place to start. I started responding to ads that were seeking inexperienced PA’s for no pay. For me just being apart of the production was worth more than getting paid. I was still taking background work so that I wouldn’t go completely broke.

During this time I was living with my mom, and she’d ask me for money to help out. Completely understandable, especially because she’d drop me off at the train station so that I could take the Metrolink to LA, also at this time I didn’t have a license because it was suspended. I’d help out as much as I could, but it wasn’t much. I was finally able to get my license back, so when I did, I moved out and started living in my car.

Now I was free to take any jobs I could take. I answered an ad to PA for low budget movie company and took the experience I learned from doing background to this company and quickly moved up from PA’n to producing. I worked on five films with this company, but I knew there was only so far I could go. I continued doing background work on commercials. These commercials were big-budget commercials so I told myself I should try and get in with one of these companies.

I was on Corona beer commercial, and I was asking any PA I could talk to how I can become a PA. They kind of just shined me on and were  reluctant to help me. While all the background were waiting in holding, I stayed onset just to watch. When someone walked up to me and asked me what I do for the production. I let the man know that I was just background and I asked him what he does. He told me that he was the producer.

My eyes lit up, and I asked him how I could become a PA. He told me to meet up with him when we wrapped. I did, and he told me that I could start tomorrow as a PA (It was a five-day commercial). So the next day I was an official PA. While there, the gentleman doing the videos assist job was having trouble keeping up.

There was a lot of company moves and lots of equipment that had to be moved around, so the producer told me to stick with the video assist operator and help him out for the duration of the shoot. I did, and he loved me. Robert, the video assist operator, continued to call me to assist him and taught me everything he could. A year after meeting him I got into the union. I’ll forever be grateful to him.

My first union job was a TV show Adult Swim tv show, Black Jesus. It was tuff but a great learning experience. I got close to the sound team. I started to imdb the sound mixer, Willie Burton. He did a lot of great movies. I also noticed a man named Dempsey Tillman was the video assist operator on a lot of the movies Willie worked on. Plus he was a filmmaker. I knew I needed to meet him and try and work with him.

After Black Jesus was done, Straight Outta Compton was starting up. Willie was going to mix it, and I found out Dempsey was the video assist. I had a friend who was helping out with casting, so I knew this was my way of getting in to meet Dempsey. I ended up getting casted as background.

Soon as I got on set, I went straight to the sound guys. They were happy to see me and told me to hang out with them. Which I did, and I was eventually introduced to Dempsey. I let Dempsey know I was a video assist operator and I’d love to work with him. He ended up calling me a month later, and that was the start of my movie career.

I’ve been working non-stop since early 2014 on TV, film, commercials and music videos.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The road was definitely not smooth. I didn’t have transportation when I started, so I’d bus it to wherever I needed to be, mostly LA/Hollywood, all the way from Chino. When I finally got my license back, I started living in my car.

I’d take showers at 24-hour fitness. I’d take as much crafty as I could from the set so I’d have food for later. I’d even go to sets I wasn’t working on so I could go eat their catering.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I’m a freelancer, so I do work for myself, but I don’t have my own company yet. I specialize in video engineering, and I’m most proud of the recent movies I was able to work on, which is Captain Marvel and Avengers End Game. I went from working on 40k budget films to working on the two of the biggest films of 2019.

I believe what sets me apart from others is my work ethic. Not only am I a hard worker and a hustler, I love people and get along with everyone. I bring positivity and kindness wherever I go.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My mom did everything she could to help me out in the beginning. Enrique Saucedo was the producer who gave me a chance. Robert Morales was the one who took me under his wing and taught me everything he could.

Dempsey Tillman took the skills I attained and gave me the opportunity to work on the biggest movies and TV shows. My wife who was also living in her car when we met gave me the inspiration I needed to make all this happen.

Image Credit:
Straight Outta Compton, Director F. Gary Gray, Dempsey Tillman

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.