Monica Sotto is a Filipina-American Production Designer and Art Director, raised and based in Los Angeles, CA. Her passion for making art started in childhood. Monica grew up drawing and painting, hoping to one day work in cinema, maybe in special effects or behind a camera. Those aspirations led her to study at the University of Southern California as a Cinema-Production major (the school now known as the School of Cinematic Arts), where she discovered her passion for Art Direction, the perfect mixture of film and art.
After graduating from USC, Monica entered the entertainment business as first as a script reader intern then full time as a talent agency assistant at Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann (later known as ICM, then CAA) and at Paradigm. Missing the life on set and making art, she took an offer to join the Art Department on the film THE EXPRESS (Universal Pictures), launching her first career as an Art Department Coordinator and experiencing her first “away” gig in Chicago, IL.
Since then, Monica lived and worked in Boston, MA, Detroit, MI and Big Island, Hawaii as an Art Department Coordinator, Assistant Art Director, Art Director and finally as a Production Designer back home in Los Angeles. She is a proud I.A.T.S.E. union member, currently a member of Local 800 as an Art Director at the Art Directors Guild, and was formerly a member of Local 871 as an Art Department Coordinator.
In 2020, she received the honor of winning the award for Excellence in Production Design for a Variety, Reality or Event Special at the 24th Art Directors Guild Awards for her work on the television series Drunk History. That same year, Monica and her Art Department team received a nomination for the 72nd Primetime Emmys. Monica joined the Television Academy in 2017 when Drunk History Art Dept. team was nominated for the 69th Primetime Emmys that year.
Monica is currently in Los Angeles with her husband and their two magical black cats.