Today we’d like to introduce you to Maud Lazzerini.
Maud, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up as an only child in a small town in Burgundy, France. Having not much to do, I would watch hundreds of movies a year, and I became passionate about filmmaking at an early age. I moved out when I was 15 to follow my dream of becoming a director, first to the biggest city in Burgundy, then to Paris when I turned 18 and New York at 23. I first wrote and directed short films that received some attention at International Film Festivals and that is what got me my first paid gigs as a director. I moved back to Paris in 2014, and for almost five years, I worked with production companies and agencies, directing – and often producing – over a hundred videos including web series, branded content, short films, music videos…
During that time, I was using the few free time I had to travel to Vegas in order to do research for a feature length screenplay about sex workers that I was writing. Then at the end of 2018, I decided to radically change my life by leaving my career, friends and family in Paris and moving to Las Vegas. There I opened a production company called Glitz Entertainment where I produced and directed video and photo content for local brands and shows. After a year in Vegas, I decided to move to LA that was more familiar to me and closer to the kind of cities I was used to live and work in before.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I think that every artist’s journey is filled with challenges and struggles to overcome. It’s a cliché, but it is never easy to follow your dreams… However, I would say that the hardest challenge so far is probably the one that I am facing right now by living and working in a new city during a pandemic outbreak. I ended up moving to LA at the end of February, at that time I still had a few gigs in Vegas and by the time I was done with them, the lockdown started. I was literally driving back to LA from Vegas, to finally settle down and start working here, when Mayor Garcetti announced the lockdown.
An artistic career always has its share of uncertainty, and right now, we are all facing an unprecedented kind of uncertainty. In my personal path and career, I am facing multiple challenges at once. The first being the same as anybody else: how can I work during a pandemic? The second is the fact that I am rather new to LA, where I need to be able to network and showcase my company, my work at a moment when networking goes against every safety guidelines and could make me or someone else sick.
And finally, I am facing the obstacle of being a foreign citizen living in the US with a work visa in time of crisis. It is definitely a scary time for everybody and my way to stay sane and productive has been to turn my living room into a photo studio in order to offer a safer way to shoot and to keep on writing. Also, I must say, hiking and going to the beach have been the most amazing activities for me, that I never could find the time to do, or literally just do in Paris, NY or Las Vegas.
Please tell us about Glitz Entertainment.
Glitz Entertainment, my company that is now based both in LA and Vegas, is a production company that helps business owners, artists and corporations to showcase their brand and reach out to their audience and customers by creating cinematographic grade tailor-made digital content. In other words, we produce the content, either video or photo, from concept to distribution that a small business or an artist will need to reach a wider audience.
I am using my experience as a director and producer working on commercial web campaign for major corporation such as Coca-Cola, Tinder, EA Games, Nissan…and I make it fit any client’s budget. I do think that this background that mixes creativity with marketing is what is setting the company apart from other same-size production companies. We not only offer production, video and photo services, but we also work on the concept, the idea, that will perfectly target our clients’ audience. It’s a way for small business owners, artists and performers to have access to high-quality content without hiring both a marketing agency and a production company.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have moved to LA months before a global pandemic outbreak! HaHa! Joke aside, I don’t think I would do anything differently, I do love the journey that my choices and drive have taken me on. Even if it comes with its share of struggles, I do really believe that life is not a race, and I enjoy the process and the hustle as much as I enjoy the result when it pays off.
I wanted to become a director since I was 8, and managed to make a full time living out of it when I was 24, and realized that this wasn’t enough. I always want more, and I believe that most artists are eternally unsatisfied. We are all perfectionists, or we wouldn’t be doing what we do. And to accept that has been one of the most satisfactory achievements for me, and it has allowed me to enjoy the journey even more than actually reaching a goal that is forever changing.
Pricing:
- Because of the pandemic, I am actually doing a headshot special, $100 per headshot.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.glitzent.com
- Phone: 7023532356
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @glitzentertainmentla
- Facebook: @glitzentla
Image Credit:
Personal Photo: Bettina May Photography, BTS 1: Robert John Kley, BTS 2: NKWC
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