Program Details

Vision of Restoration                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Planet South PS 10x10

Isai Lopez

I grew up in Logan Square and went to St. Sylvester and Pritzker College Prep. I was a quiet kid who kept to myself, and most of my growing up indoors where I dreamed of stories. I made it about halfway through a degree at Western Illinois University before the cost became too much and I came home. I've always seen life as one big video game, full of tutorials nobody asked for and cut scenes, you can't skip, and for a long time I just sat through them. The Planet South PS 10x10 program is where I stopped waiting for the game to start.

Through the program I picked up the basics of video editing, and I'm still working on building those skills. Along the way my work caught the attention of Robert Tutman, a fifty-year veteran of CBS News, who took me on as a protégé. Working with him and Mr. Hodge on the Voices on Urban Violence mini-documentary, I learned to find the few minutes that matter inside hours of interview footage and to check every word and every name before it goes on screen. The lesson they both keep telling me is not to overcomplicate something that's simple to do. Planet South has since brought me on to work on an extended version of the documentary, and on my own time I'm building Regicide, a website where independent writers and creators can show their work and find each other.