Lulu in Hollywood

If she doesn't feel loved, she will leave.

I launched the crowdfunding campaign for Computer Hearts ten years ago this week. One of the perks was my used panties. Exactly eight years later I started hormone therapy. I’d suggest that if I had done those things in reverse order I would have had an extra $50 in the Computer Hearts budget, but nobody claimed that perk this time either.

Reflecting back on that movie ten years later it’s hard to believe that its become a cult classic, along with its 2022 critical reappraisal, VHS release, and sold-out repertory screenings. One of my friends in the UK recently told me a story in which she was talking movies with a random stranger and after mentioning my name the guy said “You know the chick who directed Computer Hearts?!” A pretty crazy feat for a film I still sell exclusively myself on a one to one basis. I hope the new movie gets to be that cool.

It’s July 11, 2023 and I’m driving down the I5 from Vancouver to Los Angeles with my film’s skeleton crew, which comprises of co-producers Dakota Blais and Jost Gratton and co-camera operator Jasmine Provins. I’ve been making movies with Jost for over seven years now and he’s acted in half of them. My first producing credit was for his feature debut, a queer slasher movie called Cuties which is unfortunately out of circulation because we released it a month before another movie with that title and I didn’t particularly enjoy confused QAnon psychos sending me death threats and calling me a groomer. Cuties was a lot of firsts for me. In contrast, Dakota and Jasmine are new to the Louise Weard filmmaking experience and have been on the film in multiple roles since we began production at the start of the year.

We are going to LA during Outfest since the festival presented an opportunity to shoot scenes with all of my friends in one place instead of having to fly everyone to Vancouver individually. After a lot of number crunching, I decide a day of LA photography is the best bang for our buck. It also gives me the chance to fill an obligation to filmmaking wunderkind Alice Maio Mackay, as I promised to take her to the Universal Studios theme park. After we ride the Harry Potter attraction we get dressed and head over to the Outfest opening night gala. I severely underestimate how many people there I know and I’m not drinking enough to trigger remembering everyone’s names. I spend most of my night chainsmoking with the remarkably talented Sepi Mashiahof while Alice and Jost run off to take photos with Dylan Mulvaney. I’m grateful for a kindred spirit in Sepi, as we’re both insane filmmakers who make movies in which we show our assholes on camera. I think we found it hard to process how we fit in that space, so huddling together with my pack of Marlboro Reds was certainly a necessary comfort.

The next day we filmed twenty minutes of scenes.

The rest of the weekend our skeleton crew went to Outfest to support our friends’ movies. Then we drove back to Vancouver and I barely had time to dump our footage before Dakota and I were on the way to Montreal for Fantasia.

There were so many other trans people at Outfest but we were the only two at Fantasia’s industry events, which made us the life of the party obviously. There is a great Vice article from the mid 2000s about how to throw the perfect party and it opens by saying that the highest priority guest is “TRANSSEXUAL.” The article continues by saying “If the tranny doesn’t feel loved, she will leave. Then you’re fucked.” Fantasia made us feel very loved. We shoot a few scenes for the castration movie in Montreal while I spend the rest of my time putting together the finishing touches on the financing for my ten-year-filmmaking collaborator/ex-wife Dionne Copland’s next movie (It’s going to be the hottest movie of next year). I talk with all my festival programmer friends until we have a solid strategy for the release of the castration movie. I pitch that any screening environment needs to match the film’s underground roots. I mostly just want to be able to smoke in whatever venue we screen the movie in.

I wrote in my director’s statement in May that I didn’t understand why people like me. Between my recent experiences in LA and Montreal, any worries I had were quashed. It wasn’t until this past month in which I’ve travelled around shooting this ambitious little movie with my friends all over the place that I finally understand why I am loved. More importantly, I accept that love as a celebration of my self rather than a malfunction of it. I’ve never felt this good in my life. Our movie is going to be amazing. Hopefully next time I do this I can finally sell a pair of my panties. Then I’ll know I’ve made it.

Much love, Lulu

Scenes Completed:

Part 1: 40/75

Part 2: 5/55