Originally from Culver City, Aurora De Lucia is a respected and celebrated television producer and editor. While the media represents a notoriously precarious career choice, De Lucia recently recorded her 1,000th episode of television–a notable and enviable achievement.
De Lucia says that she loved the media growing up, believing that the media can genuinely “change people’s worldviews and therefore change the world.”
“I always knew I wanted to change the world (or, at least try to) in this very cool and creative way of working in the arts,” De Lucia says. “I went to a performing-arts focused high school where we did 10 to 12 shows a year. Then I went to a performing arts conservatory for undergrad (Berklee College of Music). I always knew the arts were for me.”
She tried her hand at editing, and applied for every job that came up in the media in order to get her foot in the door. Eventually, she found herself working in reality TV.
“That was just kind of what I could get and I kept fighting to get something more meaningful to me, but the more I worked in reality, the more I got hired in reality because the more people pigeonhole you into ‘oh, this is your vibe; this is what you do,’” De Lucia says. “Then, I came across a job for an at-that-time new late night show, executive produced by Jon Stewart, called The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. It had always been a dream of mine to work for Jon. For the middle part of my childhood, after we left SoCal, I was in a spot surrounded by a lot of hyper-conservative views, and Jon Stewart was like a voice representing a different way to consider things. He literally made me think about the world differently – hence, again, the importance of media! And I thought it would be such an honor to work for him. (Spoiler alert: It was!)”
Editing is what stuck. De Lucia got a job as a junior editor that would lead to assistant editing. For De Lucia, this was an important step that would see her gain vital experience.
“With it being a new show, they were going to have their own learning curve of what their show would be and how it would work and so they couldn’t afford to take on someone who would also be fighting their own personal learning curve at a job they’d never done before, which was fair,” she says. “Now that I knew someone in that world, I wanted to build that relationship so badly. But I didn’t want to come on too strong or overwhelm someone during such a busy time of getting a new show off the ground. So every three months or so, I wrote a short little email of just a few sentences, talking about some of the recent segments I liked. And I was never getting a response. I was hoping she was just too busy to respond, and not annoyed, but I was scared of pushing too hard and burning a bridge (and/or just making someone uncomfortable in any way). So, I tried one last email a few months later. And sure enough, she responded saying I had great timing and they were actually expanding the staff and looking for an assistant editor,and would I want to come to New York to interview. I did. And I got the job on the spot and just stayed in New York (and came back to California on some weekends to get my stuff).”
From there, De Lucia kept working hard and putting herself in front of the right people. Time and hard work led to her being a full editor in her own right.
“To me, this was really a lesson in that you have to always go for what you want,” she says. “For one thing, put yourself in the places where you can even do that. (Even something as simple as going to lunch with the editors–I only knew an editor was going to be out because I was there to hear it). And then, when you’re in the places where dreams are, speak up.”
De Lucia says that Culver City was a great place to grow up, with trips to the beach, theme parks, San Diego and Mexico the norm.
“I feel like I grew up in such a cultural hub with so much to do that it really helped form parts of my personality, like being so up for adventure or curious about the world around me,” she says. “We moved for my dad’s job, so I ended up doing a few years of elementary school in Indiana and then after that, we moved to Ohio. But I moved back to Los Angeles county as a young adult. I live Downtown now, and still think LA County is the greatest place in the world. I still go to Culver City a fair amount! I participated in the recent writers’ & actors’ strikes, picketing outside of some studios in Culver City. I’ve also shot some episodes of TV at Culver City studios, like the Sony lot. And I’ve come over there just for fun too. The Kirk Douglas Theatre presents some really incredible live theater I’ve loved seeing. So, Culver City is still a fantastic place to be, always!”
De Lucia says that her first producing job was in 2014 and ’15 on a show called Living with Jacksons, which unfortunately never aired.
“Despite the fact that we can’t watch episodes, I learned a ton,” she says. “We were a wildly small crew working a million hours a day. I was a dual production manager and producer. And the entirety of the producing team was just the executive producer, one associate producer who mainly worked on prepping interviews with the talent, and me. So, I booked every location and every guest, and also worked with the talent. And as the production manager, I booked the crew, did paperwork, tracked union rules, and managed the PAs. I felt like I was being pulled in a million different directions and I’d wake up in cold sweats at 3 a.m. to check my emails to see if Jermaine Jackson necessitated any changes regarding the shoots before the next day. Talk about wanting to hit the ground running, I hit the ground sprinting when it came to my first job as a television producer.”
De Lucia estimates that her 1000th episode of TV came while covering the battleground states during the recent election.
“I had a ton of responsibility and autonomy, which was great,” she says. “Though, I was brought onto the show with the promise of it being a totally neutral show that was straight down the center, which I already was hesitant about because being in the “center” in this current political climate runs the risk of leaning toward Trump’s side, as anything not directly opposing him is normalizing him. But I figured “center” would still be talking about his danger to society, and I love working on political shows, so I decided to go for it. Unfortunately, the show’s tapings regularly leaned more right, so I continuously had more work to do as the editor, because it’s like as long as I’m the final one who touches this episode before it goes to the public, it’s not going be a right-leaning show, as much as I can help it. So, trying to make sure I cut out anything I thought was in the realm of propaganda, or at the very least, unfair right-wing talking points, while also trying to keep the integrity of what the guests were saying, was a huge feat (especially when we had an extremely tight turnaround of delivering less than a couple of hours after we taped).”
Looking ahead, De Lucia says that she wants to keep growing as an artist and a person.
“I hope to make more good media,” she says. “My sincerest hope is to always use the arts to open people’s minds (including mine) in how they consider things, and to help move society forward. I’d also like to keep branching out into more things. It would be fun to try my hand at directing. And I’ve already done a little acting, and I’ve also done some writing. I’d like to do more. So, yeah, I just want to expand – expand my skills, my jobs, my brain (and my critical thinking ability). I’d also like to visit more countries and expand my knowledge of the world! Life can be bigger, and I think that’s a general upcoming goal – to make my life bigger!”
For more, visit auroradelucia.com, auroraedits.com, linkedin.com/in/aurora-de-lucia and instagram.com/auroradelucia.