Back to Hutchins

Back to Hutchins

In the summer of 2016, Steve Circeo and I, as Hot Like The Desert Productions, conceived and shot HUTCHINS to submit to the 2016 San Antonio Neighborhood Film Project, a small film competition whose mission was to produce films that highlight various San Antonio neighborhoods and the citizens in them. In retrospect, it might have been wise to produce a short that featured a trendy or newsworthy neighborhood such as Dignowity Hill or to perhaps tackle, more overtly, important issues such as gentrification or poverty. However, we took the opportunity to send me back to my childhood neighborhood on Hutchins and Zarzamora, which hadn't changed much, to walk around and ramble on selfishly about my childhood. It's a wonder we didn't win anything, right?!

HUTCHINS became one of my favorite of the Hot Like The Desert short films, for a couple of reasons. First of all, because it's relatively speaking, autobiographical. Secondly, because we shot it "cinema-verite" style: hand-held, improvised, and with the exception of the color sequences, in one uninterrupted shot. Well if you wanna get technical, two I guess.

I wrote the first draft of the script in one sitting (probably about an hour) and sent it to Steve for edits. We got together to shoot the following weekend but we were rained out, though we had a nice Japanese lunch after the rain hit. The following weekend we got together to shoot again.

Steve and I met for coffee that morning to rehearse the script and about halfway through the second read-through we decided to just scrap the script and ad-lib all the dialogue which gave it that really natural documentary feel. That was probably the best decision we made during that entire production.


We shot the little girl sequence first with little Evie Enriquez-Sanders and she did so great. She was just about perfect and exactly matched what I conceived when I wrote it. After her scene was done, Steve and I walked up and down the block twice and filmed two entire run-throughs of the rest of the short and we called it a day.

It was nice seeing it on the big screen a few weeks later at the Carver Community Center. There was a little reception with cookies, cheese, and punch which made it feel pretty legit. The audience was pretty quiet throughout the whole thing though. There weren't any laughs in the places I thought would get them. Also, we had to edit it down to reach the time limit allowed which, in my opinion, made the film less effective. I don't know, perhaps the audience just wasn't ready for a self-indulgent autobiographical piece about a nobody And what's more, one that didn't have music cues, fancy lighting, or even a clearly defined genre to cling to. In any event, I love it and am proud to share it again here, in its full uncut glory.

Click here to watch HUTCHINS!