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Film by Marcos Flores

By: Sharon Aron Baron

As an aspiring director and rapper, Marcos Flores never planned to film a documentary about the life of Coral Springs High School student Steven Hoyos who tragically died in a car accident this year. However, like Steven, music was everything for him growing up.

The documentary “Keep on Drumming, Steven Hoyos” directed by Flores, really hit home for the 28 year-old former student from Coral Springs High School.

Filmmaker Marcos Flores aka Defame

“I related to Steven on so many different levels,” said Flores. “The more I researched his story and watched his videos, the more he reminded me of myself as a teenager.”

It began when his girlfriend Veronica Cordoba started working for a non-profit organization which was attempting to spread awareness about teen safety while driving. She was instructed to do online research about recent teen-related car accidents in the area, when she came across the Steven Hoyos story.

She looked up Steven Hoyos on Facebook and started contacting his friends.

An open invitation gathering in the Paul Barre Memorial Rotary Park took place down the street from Coral Springs High, which was the school Steven attended. All of Steven’s friends were invited to come share stories about who he was to them and later she would put together a mini dedication video for Steven.

Excited, Cordoba then went and told her employer about her plans, but to her surprise, they weren’t in agreement with her material. She said that the founder of the organization told her “Who cares about a bunch of kids in Coral Springs? I want raw emotion and recent stories, I’m not interested in something that happened a month ago…you must be on the scene and bring me stories within days of their occurrence.”

They then told her to cancel the gathering in the park. She said she was insulted and embarrassed, not knowing how to break the news to the group of students who were mourning their friend.

This was how Flores, got involved. “I was once a student at Coral Springs High School and I also grew up in the Margate and Coral Springs area, like Steven. After hearing the story, I thought to myself, ‘that could have been me or any of my friends in that accident.’”

Outraged at the cold response her employer, he told his girlfriend not to cancel he gathering and they would just film the video themselves. She no longer works for the organization he said.

Flores said that a lot of Stevens friends showed up to the gathering in the park and shared heart-warming stories about their friend.

“When I got home and started going through all of the footage, I was touched by the personal stories they shared about Steven and thought to myself ‘This dude sounded really cool.’”

Flores looked online to see if Steven had any videos that he could add. That’s when he came across his YouTube channel that he created as a child. “I sat there, fascinated, and watched for hours as Steven grew up literally before my eyes in each video. He was such a character.”

Flores found himself laughing at all of Steven’s crazy impersonations and antics and was blown away by his musical talent. Some of these videos had less than 20 views, so he knew a lot of his friends and family had never seen them before.

He then became obsessed with finding any available videos of Steven on Facebook, Instagram, and any other social media which Flores said has taken his mini-dedication video into a 35 minute-long documentary.

Flores said the film took over a month to complete and there is also a GoFundMe campaign which is to raise funds for the Steven Hoyos Foundation where half of the proceeds will benefit the scholarship program they have in place for the foundation.

“When a person like Steven Hoyos comes into your life, you will forever be changed. Although I never met Steven, after making this documentary, I will never forget him.”

Author Profile

Sharon Aron Baron

Editor of Talk Media and writer for Coral Springs Talk. CST was created in 2012 to provide News, Views, and Entertainment for the residents of Coral Springs and the rest of South Florida.