Marissa Díaz is no stranger to authentic and hilarious coming-of-age stories, having worked as a producer on HBO Max’s Generation. She’s also no stranger to thriving in competition, as she has had a script named to the Latinx List and been accepted into prestigious programs and fellowships like the Sundance Institute and Film Independent Episodic Labs, PGA Create, Rideback Rise, and is now a finalist in the Spotlight Dorado contest.
Through this, Díaz has written, directed, and produced a short called Fancy Florez’s Summer Staycation. The film centers around an artsy, ambitious, and outspoken 10-year-old named Fancy Florez (Skyler Esquivel), who is determined to have the luxurious summer of her dreams despite mean, body-shaming boys and a lack of money. In just eight minutes, Díaz proves herself a confident writer and director with a unique, hilarious, and vital voice.
I got the chance to speak to Díaz about being inspired by her own childhood, incorporating Western and Wes Anderson vibes, landing Mario Lopez for a key role, shooting in 100-degree heat in the middle of a double strike, and more.
FANVERSATION: You’re obviously a very talented director, evident even from this eight-minute short film. Who are some of your inspirations or influences in terms of directing?
MARISSA DÍAZ: For this film specifically, Wes Anderson was someone who came to mind. I’ve always been so inspired by the visual stylings of Wes Anderson, but I’m like, “What does it look like if Wes Anderson was Mexican and broke?” That’s the energy that I wanted to bring to Fancy Florez, and I hope that we accomplished that. Other people who I love that have nothing to do with this — Martin Scorsese. And Greta Gerwig, of course, is a huge influence. But for this one, I think it was Wes Anderson.
I can definitely see that in this, especially with the really bright color palette. I feel like it gives everything such a sense of whimsy. How did you develop the look of the film?
Well, I’ve always been super attracted to color — even on my Instagram, it’s sort of the same color palette as Fancy Florez. I just love saturated colors. And when I was in film school, I had the pleasure of learning about filmmaking by shooting on 16-millimeter film. We were given an allotment of black-and-white film, and that was great, but you had to pay like a little bit extra to try to shoot on color film reversal. I don’t even think they make it anymore now, but anyway, one of my senior thesis or whatever — the final thing I made in that class — I shot on color reversal, and the color was just incredible. So I was like, “I wanna recreate that kind of energy.” And then, of course, I wasn’t able to shoot film on this, but we added a little bit of film grain that was really inspired by that Kodak film.
I also love shooting digitally on Fuji cameras that are super saturated as well. Or when I used their film cameras — I want to say it’s Velvia, their film stock that was incredible and super saturated. That has also gone out of commission. So many of these amazing film stocks — both for a 16-millimeter moving film as well as the 35-millimeter, 120-millimeter for still photos — have gone out of fashion, and they’re no longer being produced by these amazing film distributors. So I was like, “How do I recreate that color in the digital space?” So we added a little bit of grain and then pushed all of our colors in the color of it all. I just wanted it to look super vibrant and Mexican and fun and like a callback to the 90s.
Speaking of that, I feel like that voiceover is very reminiscent of the 90s and early 2000s. Can you talk a little bit about the decision to have that narration leading us through the story?
I was so lucky. Mario Lopez read one of my scripts called Cochinas — it’s a half-hour comedy — and that’s how we met. That was right before the strike started, so we weren’t able to move forward on the project. But then I was applying to be a part of this program, Spotlight Dorado, and as I got closer, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I think he would be the perfect voice for this. He’s Latino, he’s obviously an icon, and he’s so amazing at voiceover work.”
I thought it would be a fun way to really get into Fancy’s head and get a sense of where she’s coming from very quickly because, in short films, you have a short real estate. So I was just excited to be able to work with him. He did a great job and brought so much gravitas not only to the role but to the film. We wanted someone really special, we wanted someone who was Latino, and I felt like Mario Lopez was the best fit.
Kind of going off of the actor conversation, you got such great performances not only from him but from your young actors as well, especially because I feel like they have to do some things that might be scary for anyone but particularly at that age. It reminded me a lot of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. and how natural it felt and how confidently daring they were while still having that vulnerability. Can you talk about your approach to both casting the young actors and then working with them on set?
It was actually kind of complicated to cast these kids because this was in the middle of the writers’ strike and also the SAG strike. We were in the midst of a double strike, so we obviously wanted to do everything above board. We contacted SAG to get all of our paperwork, our interim agreement paperwork, which was complicated in and of itself. But there were a lot of people who were nervous about submitting in this period, so we didn’t have a ton of submissions, and we were looking and looking and looking in every corner and crevice — whatever we could.
Eventually, it’s so fantastic, we found this girl — Skyler Esquivel — who’s incredible. She came across our desk, and I’m like, “She’s so amazing. She totally understands this. She has so much energy, so much confidence — she is the person I see as Fancy.” I’m from Texas, and I ended up finding out after I cast her that she’s from Texas, too, and she just happened to be in Texas for the summer with her mom trying to get her acting career started. And so that was really special for me of — like, “Oh my gosh, I’m from Texas! You’re from Texas!” The film was inspired by my childhood being at swimming pools and feeling uncomfortable in my skin in the summertime in Texas, so it felt like it was a nice pairing.
And then Noah Santiago Duarte — he was another fun story. We had a tough time finding Alex because so many of the tapes that we saw were boys who were playing the straightforward bully role, and, to us, we’ve seen that before. We know what that is, and we wanted to do something a little bit different, which is to sell the idea that sometimes the people who are the meanest to us about our bodies and the way that we look are sort of navigating the same issues with their own. We wanted to convey that with our Alex character and looked through a bunch of boys, and we couldn’t find the right thing. Our casting director, Victor Vazquez, was talking with his friend Liza about this role, and she’s like, “I have the perfect person. It’s my cousin.” He sent us a few videos, and he just had the best energy in the world. He quickly learned all his lines and did a reading with us and even inspired some things — like he came with goggles, which inspired the jump into the pool at the end. He just brought so much great energy to us.
We found those kids in kind of a weird, untraditional way, and what’s good about that is this was their first time, which is exciting. It was nice to be able to work with them on their first project, and their families are so amazing. They’re great kids, and they’re just down for anything. We were shooting in the heat — it was over 100 degrees in Tarzana in August, so it was hot, and they kept their energy up. They’re champions, and I’m so grateful to know them at this early stage of their careers.
Ideas come from all different places, and you mentioned that this was partially inspired by your own childhood. I know sometimes a character will come first, or even a line of dialogue or an image. I’m curious where you started with Fancy Florez if you remember.
For me in doing this competition, I was sort of like, “What makes most sense for this competition specifically?” And to me, I wanted something that was family-friendly. That’s typically not my fare — I usually do stuff more in the raunchy comedy space or things that are a little bit darker with horror and magical realism — so I wanted to challenge myself to make something that was more family-friendly and a little more commercial and available for all family members to watch. So I think I started there by being like, “What is my voice within this space that’s a little bit more commercial, a little more four-quadrant? How do I excavate my inner child and all of the trauma there first? What were the hardest things that I was going through as a kid?”
And to me, that was not having a lot and wanting a fabulous life. There wasn’t much that I could do, but I could be a little adventurous. I could be creative. And I remembered what it was like to be a little kid in Texas in 100-degree weather and having to go to the community pool and get nasty comments about me, my skin, and my body from the boys who were there. And I was like, “What would it be like if I could go back in time and be the 10-year-old girl who had all the confidence in the world to stand my ground and be a champion for myself?” That’s me now but it wasn’t as a 10-year-old. So I’m like, “Let me write about that girl.” So that was really the inspiration for this film.
And it was so nice seeing Skyler on set in her fabulous outfit and jewelry. It was so exciting. I’m like, “Oh my God, Skyler — you’re healing my inner child.” And she’s like, “Oh my God, that’s so nice.” I think it really started there with the commercial aspect trying to make something that was more four-quadrant but also having a real conversation about sort of the things that I was going through as a 10-year-old.
I just have to congratulate and thank you because, as a plus-sized girl myself, you handled the body positivity — or even body neutrality — beautifully. And you’re right — if I had seen this as a younger kid, it might have helped a lot. I definitely think kids will see this, and it will have that effect. Even if this isn’t the normal genre you work in, I think you nailed the child’s voice. One of my favorite little touches is Fancy spelling things wrong in her notepad. It’s so cute, and there are so many details packed into this that sets it apart. Do you have a favorite detail or Easter egg that you’d like to bring to people’s attention when they watch it?
It’s so funny that you mentioned the handwriting thing because, on set, we were like, “Oh, just write it out.” And we didn’t even think about it being misspelled. What I just liked was the idea of it being an actual child’s writing — not our production designer’s writing. Another thing that really inspired me was Napoleon Dynamite and all of the credits they did with the hamburger and the ketchup. I thought it’d be cool if we had something like that, and to me, this was our version of that. So I was like, “Write it on camera.” And as we were shooting it, Skyler was like, “How do you spell chlorine?” And my DP was telling her, and I was like “Don’t tell her!” And then she wrote it, and there were so many things that were misspelled, and I thought that was so cute. So that was like a happy accident.
Something I forgot that I did was try to put something personal of my own in the film just as an Easter egg for myself. Even my production designer Vanessa Plaza Laza had said, “If you could just bring a small thing that is really meaningful to you to set that we can put in Fancy’s room, that’ll just really give it a nice touch.” And I’m like, “That’s such a great idea.” And so I decided something that would be nice was a framed photo of my grandparents in this sort of Day of the Dead frame. I put it on Fancy’s desk, and I didn’t think it was gonna make the cut — I thought it was gonna be texture in the background. But in the cut, as she’s sleeping and you hear the clock ticking as Alex is sort of throwing things into the pool, you get a shot of grandparents in the background. They were so supportive of my work and unfortunately never got to see much of it live, so I was like, “Oh, that’s a nice tribute to them.”
My family now, of course, has seen the film, and on Facebook, my aunt is like, “I’m sobbing, I’m crying. I didn’t realize you put my parents in this.” So it was nice to see. That’s more of an Easter egg for my family members, and I forgot that it was in there, and I didn’t warn people. People really enjoyed that. People who are not my family members wouldn’t recognize that, but that was a fun thing for me and my family to rediscover seeing it so many months later.
That’s so sweet. I love that you pay tribute to other genres and stuff as well, like the Western parody with the water gun. Can you speak to shooting that? It’s almost a one-to-one match with a lot of those Western scenes, which makes the humor hit even harder.
We wanted to do it, of course, in line with the Wes Anderson involved. We’re like, “How do we make this a fun Western comedy at the end with this crazy Mexican standoff?” I was looking at different scenes from different Westerns, and I fell in love with the scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And I was like, “Okay, we have to recreate this shot-for-shot. I storyboarded each shot and wrote it out, and in the edit, the editor, Rodrigo Brazão, and I completely recreated that sequence as best as we could with these two kids and the close-ups of the hands and the gun. That is done with three people, but we tried to mimic it with two.
Of course, it ended up being too long because in a feature film that was two minutes, and here, that’s like a quarter of the film. So we ended up truncating it, and I think it works a lot better now. I just wanted it to be fun — the whip crack when she throws her hair back, the spurs of her walking in, some wind, and then, of course, the tumbleweed as the beach ball. There were just so many elements like that — we had so much fun. We shot that beach ball maybe 20 times so we could get one shot that would work, so that took a lot of time, but we are so happy with the way that it turned out, and it’s a lot of fun.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I feel like swimming pools are coming-of-age story staples.
Really?!
Yes. Swimming scenes are in like every coming-of-age movie — look out for them. So I love that this whole movie revolves around a swimming pool. It’s like the ultimate coming-of-age story. I was gonna ask if you had a favorite coming-of-age story pool scene, but we can also just broaden it to favorite coming-of-age movies in general if that’s too specific.
Well, now that you mention it, I’m thinking about Eighth Grade. It’s kind of a similar idea of going to a party in middle school and being so horrified about how you look in your body, and there are cool kids in the pool hanging out, flirting with the boys, and you just being the weirdo at the other end of the pool not really knowing what to do with yourself and being like, “Dad, can you come pick me up?” So I think that might be my version. I’m trying to think — what are the other pool scenes?
I should have gotten more specific examples before this. I just know there are so many dramatic scenes when teens are swimming, and it’s like a symbol of freedom. I feel like that’s such a thing.
That’s so funny. In Generation, we have Riley, who loves to jump in the pool, too, when she’s freaking out. I guess my pick is Eighth Grade, but I need to think about that more. I love a pool scene.
A pool scene just hits different. It’s so inherently cinematic. I love the Mrs. Campos character. She’s so encouraging, so inspiring. I want to know if you had any Mrs. Campos’ growing up that you would like to shout out.
Oh my gosh. That’s such a great question. Did I have a Mrs. Campos? I’m like, “Probably not…” [Laughs]
We have to be our own.
Yeah, it’s like I had to be my own Mrs. Campos. It’s so interesting. I grew up in Texas in a very conservative home environment, grew up as an Evangelical Southern Baptist, so life was tough as a young kid, and expectations — certainly on women — were at another level. So I think that in writing this, it’s probably like my fantasy. I wish I had this person who understood me and saw me and my work for what it was because I was always the weirdo ugly duckling who liked art and wore the wrong things and wore too much eyeliner and everyone was freaked out by me.
And so I think, looking back on things, it’s sort of like, “Oh, I wish I had a person like Mrs. Campos in my life who understood me and was into what I was doing.” But I’ll probably think of it later — someone who was meaningful to me. But yeah, I wish I had that, and wouldn’t it be nice if more kids did? I hope things are different now.
I hope we’re getting there at the very least. My last question for you is, what’s next for you? And do you have plans to potentially expand this into a feature at all?
It’s interesting — lots of people have been asking me this for Fancy. I’m not sure what the feature is, but I have been thinking about what it would look like as a TV series. I don’t know if it would be like The Wonder Years or if it would be more of a Never Have I Ever but aged down. I think it might be that, but I need to toss around some ideas with friends to see what exactly the Fancy Florez Universe would look like.
But in terms of what’s next, I’m working on my half-hour comedy Cochinas right now and doing notes and have gotten some interest from folks to develop it, so I’m trying to do a rewrite. I need to get my pitch together and start taking that out. And then I’m writing my first hour-long crime series right now — I’m writing the pilot for that. I’m working on a feature. So lots of balls in the air. Which one’s gonna stick, who knows? But that’s what’s happening in the immediate future.
Well, I’m so excited for all of that, and I’m so excited for the FFCU. I’m rooting for it.
[Laughs] The FFCU!
Let’s make it happen!
Fancy Florez’s Summer Staycation is up for the Spotlight Dorado grand prize. You can watch the short film and vote here until February 11, 2024, at 11:59PM PST.
— Taylor Gates