Brownsville boy is behind your favorite TV shows
>>> Festiva's "Hometown Hollywood" tracks down the big names that have emerged from the Rio Grande Valley, as well as the rising stars who are bound to make us proud in the future.
On paper, Noel Guerra is a busy Los Angeles co-executive producer with a house on the beach just outside the city limits. In reality, he admits, he's actually just a big TV geek.
"I love television, I love what I do, I love going to work - not every day (laughs) - but I enjoy my job. I'm literally a fan of what I do," he said.
While the everyday fan's passion for television ends at the living room couch, his has taken him from a youth in the heat of the Rio Grande Valley to the sets of Project Runway, America's Next Top Model and Last Comic Standing.
Originally born in Santa Clara, Calif., Guerra moved with his family to the Rio Grande Valley, where he attended St. Joseph's Academy in Brownsville, right after the sixth-grade, so they could be closer to his sick uncle.
"I just remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, we're going to Texas. But it's so hot down there,'" Guerra said in a phone conversation with Festiva on one of his rare days off.
Guerra's Valley experience ended before his junior year in high school, but his father and sister still live in Edinburg. Though brief, it gave him an appreciation for the quiet life. When a new show of his premieres, don't look for him out partying; he's at home "with a pizza and a root beer." He says he will always opt for the quiet life in lieu of the hectic world of L.A.
But he has learned in his 13 years in entertainment that living in the center of activity is the nature of the beast. He's always been willing to make sacrifices and take every opportunity that presented itself. Long before becoming a co-executive producer or editor, he would jump at a chance to sit in the back of the room and run audio for an interview or carry cables on a set.
His unending dedication to working hard is a lesson he learned from his mother, who like his father was a migrant worker.
"Everything I try to be is a direct result of her," Guerra said.
His ambition has been overdrive since eight years ago, when his mother was diagnosed as terminally ill about two weeks after he first became an editor on Star Trek: Voyager.
In the middle of getting his first cut done, he got word that she had only two weeks to live. He became determined to finish it so she could see it on TV.
"I had never done anything that I could say ‘Hey mom, this is something that's going to be on TV. This is mine,'" he remembers. "She died before she got to see it air, and it just ripped me apart because I really wanted her to be proud and for her to see it."
After that day, Guerra wanted to be nothing less than his full potential. He wanted his mom to see what he was going to become.
"It's never easy, the passing of someone that you love so much, but she wasn't a parent, she was my role model, my hero and it didn't quite work out," he said. "(After that,) I wanted to be a better person in my life and I wanted to be a harder worker in my career."
Her driving force has stayed within him, he said. Two Emmy nominations and over 15 shows worth of editing, co-executive producing and consulting credits under his belt, he's still not quite done. He wants to lose the "co" in his title and possibly develop a show.
"The nominations, my title, everything that I've achieved, I never take it for granted."
WHERE HE LIVES NOW Los Angeles
HOMETOWN: Santa Clara, California/spent childhood in South Texas
HIS JOB consulting producer, co-executive producer and editor
WHAT HE DOES: "I design the look and feel and sound of the particular series I'm in," he said. "The network is in charge of a show, it's their product, but you have to deliver their product to them as they want it - as it should be." He oversees a team of five to 25 editors and works with a large post-production team. He also hires staff for a portion of the show. It's a convoluted position. "The hairline has suffered quite a bit," he joked.
SHOWS HE'S WORKED ON: WCG Ultimate Gamer, Project Runway, Last Comic Standing, America's Next Top Model, Star Trek: Voyager an Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
ON EDUCATION: After dropping out of junior college and later losing his job building airplanes at an aerospace company, the then-19-year-old found himself short of options. "It was a very stereotypical thing. ‘Oh crap, I don't have an education; I don't know what I'm going to do. Everything your parents tell you about going to college and getting skills you need to get into the world, it all came true. It all just sat in my face."
ON EDITING: "It's something I'd always done with music. I'd mix tapes together, take pieces of songs and put them together, finding good edit points, never knowing that people did that for a living." His friend encouraged him to take radio-TV courses at a college in Long Beach. After one semester, he got an internship editing corporate instructional videos. It wasn't an ideal gig, but he took it seriously nonetheless. "At the time, I was putting everything I had in to it ... I was going to make the best sexual harassment videos and the best isle cleanup videos," he said, laughing. But it was doing this seemingly menial job that Guerra learned how to edit, do voice-overs and how to cut audio from former DJs and news directors who had settled down. "It was amazing for me to be around those types of people," he said.
BIG BREAK: His first major experience in his field was running audio at an interview with Eddie Van Halen, a job he was offered by someone he worked with during his time making corporate videos. "I ran audio with Eddie at his house up in Hollywood. It was the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me in my life." It was the turning point. He decided to move to L.A. and take any job he could to help himself move up. And it's exactly what he did.
HIS MOST USED PHRASE: "I don't know what it is, but I'm in." Following this method of thinking has paid off for Guerra in the past. It is why he decided to learn a new, modern form of film editing many years ago, which gave him a leg up in the industry, and it's why he took a chance and accepted a job working on a then-risky form of entertainment called reality TV.
ONE OF HIS FAVORITE PROJECTS: Resurrection Blvd. "The staff on that show was largely Hispanic. For me, being Hispanic, even though I don't look Hispanic at all, it was great to be involved with a show like that ... and to see so many people of color working the show."
HIS ADVICE TO OTHERS: "I have done every crap job in this business. ... It's very helpful to know a little about everybody's job," he said. "I've never been focused on succeeding; I've been focused on how I can be better and why people would want to work with me. ... A lot of people consider the business who you know. That's partially true, but I worked really hard. I wasn't afraid to get in there."
Click the links below to read more Hometown Hollywood profiles.
* MIKE ZEPEDA Former Mustang got his big break in 'Prison'
* LAUREL ST. ROMAIN 'Gossip Girl' makes McAllen fashionista the talk of the town
* DR. NOEL OLIVEIRA: Edinburg physician finds 2nd career on primetime television
* JOSH WISE: Mission actor starred in films, TV with Hilary Duff, 'Gossip Girl''s Penn Badgley
* SHELBIE BRUCE: Valley girl in 'Spanglish' is now an L.A. woman
* LINDSAY GRAHAM: Sharyland grad helped cast Oscar-nominated film The Wrestler
* CARLOS MORENO: San Juan actor had roles in Transformers, ER
* ENRIQUE CASTILLO: A South Texan who wrote music in Will Smith's new film, Seven Pounds
* VERONICA LOREN: A McAllen actress and singer who's sweeping 2008's indie awards
* LIZ RAMOS: A McAllen dancer who taught Brad Pitt to tango
* ERIC HAHN: A clown at the Nolana IHOP who did stuntwork in 'Platoon,' 'Delta Force'
* MANDO ALVARADO: San Juan actor shared scene with strippers, Doogie Hauser
* RICK DEL CASTILLO: A Brownsville rocker who found a knack for screenwriting
* RAUL CASTILLO: A McHi grad who has acted and studied with Philip Seymour Hoffman
* TANYA SARACHO: A Valley playwright who is hot in Chicago
* DAVID BARRERA: A San Juan native who was in an NYPD Blue episode everybody saw
* MICHAEL RAY ESCAMILLA: A writer, actor, director and producer from Pharr
* MARISA QUINTANILLA: A McAllen Memorial grad who was in Road House 2
* FAUSTO CUEVAS: A Brownsville drummer who has toured with Britney Spears and Stevie Wonder
* GABRIEL PENA: An Edinburg North grad who does Matrix-style stuntwork
