Interview with Luis Peña: Director. Designer. Long Distance Runner.
OKRP’s Chief Creative Officer explores the director’s approach & relentless energy from Haiti to the North Pole
by Matt Reinhard
OKRP recently had the pleasure of working with director Luis Peña for our most recent Own The Experience campaign for Groupon. As “agents in agency,” we’re always on the lookout for talented partners to collaborate with and help in order to tell the most compelling stories. Based in San Francisco, Luis is a positively energetic director/photographer with recent work for Fitbit, MLB, and Canada Goose. Our Groupon production was such an inspiring moment for our team that I just had to sit down with Luis and ask a few questions about how he does what he does so well.
MR: How did you get into directing?
LP: I got kinda thrown in head first. I was asked to help make a documentary on the Haitian earthquake to help raise awareness of what was happening down there. The experience of going down to Haiti and making a year-long film with very minimal access to electricity and a crew of only 4 taught me a lot. Looking at the world through a lens is a beautiful experience and capturing it with a composition and storytelling changed my life forever. It’s all I wanted to do afterwards. And thankfully good folks like you and Josh at WW7 are giving me amazing opportunities.
MR: Did you have any heroes — people whose work inspires you? Design? Photography? Fine Art? Architecture?
LP: I have so many heroes! I always say I’m the little brother to the world. I think the one thing that all my heroes share is the determination to never, ever give up. To constantly push themselves into new directions and self-discoveries. I admire and follow such a wide group of folks — from Jane Goodall who made me curious about the natural world, and Robert Rauschenberg who taught me to see the beauty in rust, to Ernest Shackleton who treated his crew as family, and Joseph Campbell who saw the power of myth and storytelling for what it really is.
MR: I actually knew you back when you were a designer. Did you start out as a designer or was that another step along your journey?
LP: To me, design is everything. It is a great foundation to build upon. As a designer I was constantly learning and perfecting new techniques. From typography, to illustration, to interactive, to photography, then finally to film.
What I love about film, is that like design, it is a world to grow within. There are nuances in acting to learn, compositions and light to study, technical understanding of cameras and toys like drones and cranes to know.
I feel like every project I am a part of is a chance to grow and get better. Just like design projects felt like to me back in the day.
MR: Tell me about the design skills that translate over to shooting and directing.
LP: I believe good design is playing with balance and directing emotions to interesting places. Capturing a story with film is very similar. Visually, I try hard to make interesting and new compositions. I intentionally keep the camera in harm’s way or take it into situations where I shouldn’t just to get a better shot. And in directing the actors I always lean towards authenticity, which is also a type of design I gravitate towards as well. To me, a hand-drawn typeface is a thousand times better than a font. It is crafted, it is created from trial and error, it is unique. And as a designer/director I try to make hand-drawn films.
MR: We recently did a gig together for Groupon and you had a ton of cameras — video, stills, GoPros. Tell me about the method to that madness.
LP: Ha! I guess it comes back to authenticity. In our project we wanted to show people experiencing super fun moments in life. And we had to be flexible in how we captured it all. I try and always go for the best quality looking film, but I also believe people are so used to seeing different types of video from GoPros to iPhones to Red Dragons that there’s a bit of wiggle room. If we have a scene caught on a shitty little camera that is an amazing moment, people aren’t gonna care about the camera, they are gonna care about “Holy shit, did they just do that?” And in the end that’s what matters to me. Even our high-end cameras I use, like the Red or Alexa, I always tend to use natural light and keep them handheld, so that they feel natural, like you are there within the scene versus lighting the scene heavily and giving it a stylized look.
MR: Nimble is something we strive for at OKRP and you definitely demonstrated that during the process. Talk to me about the art of nimble and why it works for you.
LP: It all goes back to those Haiti days. I love a core small crew. And I respect the hell out of them and allow them to do what they do at the best they can. I’ve been building a team with a mix of SF and LA folks and have it pretty dialed in. With a small team I find there is a lot of respect and love and admiration for one another. And practically it is very efficient. We are fast but never rushed. Communication flows smoothly. It is also fun. When you’re working with your friends doing what you love, everything is good.
And I also believe it’s better with collaboration with the agency and client. By being nimble it allows for better collaboration and for ideas to happen naturally on set.
MR: Why do you suppose it works for today’s content-heavy landscape?
LP: One of the great things about being fast and nimble is that we capture a lot of film around a scene or a story. A lot of the work I do is creating collages of real moments. And in each vignette we always overshoot it, not to ensure that we have it for the edit but because I see each scene as it’s own little story. So what has been happening is that clients have been taking all that extra footage per scene and making individual spots for online use. Fitbit, MLB and Groupon all did this. In fact Fitbit took one of the vignettes I filmed about the Hoyt family and made another national TV ad around it.
MR: In your mind, what makes for a successful shoot?
LP: That we all hug each other in the end. That everyone feels psyched about what we all just made together. That we miss each other once we all part. Shoots are emotional. And good ones are extra special.
MR: Let’s talk about people, and connecting with people. It’s critical to connect when you find yourself in remote places with people you’ve just met. How do you go about connecting?
LP: That’s a good question. I try to always be honest and faithful to who I am as a person and never try and be anything that I am not. And I believe by being that way, well, people get to know me pretty quick. Within 10 minutes they know I don’t like buttoned up shirts and that I like to run really far. I also am pretty curious about everyone else so I ask questions about them. To know who they are. To know what they like. And since we are all making something together I definitely want them to feel at ease and comfortable with me to bring ideas and to collaborate. I always listen to suggestions from everyone on set. And if it is a good one I will immediately make it happen. And I think that respect and that willingness to be an open person helps to connect with a wide variety of people.
I also do one thing that I think is important at the end of each shoot. I go and personally thank each and every crew member, client, agency, PA, producers, best boys and anyone who has helped make the shoot happen. And I thank them specifically for the role they played. This always surprises the guys loading the trucks. No one ever thanks them.
MR: You’re doing documentary work, and yet there is a sense of style to it as well. Tell me about style and the importance of style. Why does style matter — even when capturing real situations.
LP: I believe there is a cinematic language that is out there. People go to the movies and they see aerial shots, they see dolly moves, and they see gorgeous, well-thought-out compositions. And they attribute that to quality and a cinematic look and feel. So when I am capturing real moments I do my best to incorporate that cinematic visual language into the scenes. I use a Ronin a lot as a steady cam to smooth out the motion. I use drones to capture beautiful wide establishing shots, and I use digital film cameras like the Red and Alexa to give the film a professional feel. In composition and flow I think through the action both from the actor’s perspective and the camera’s perspective as well. When directing, it is common for me to be giving the actors and the DP direction simultaneously to capture the scene the way I see it in my head.
MR: Tell me about “real.” Tell me about “real with style.”
LP: Real is capturing a moment where you are only thinking about placing the action center of camera and watching it unfold. Curated reality is capturing that same moment but considering where the action is in the camera’s frame, where the action is most likely going to go and being prepared to follow it or make an edit point, seeing where the light is and if the camera is in the best position, and maximizing the emotion that the action is communicating.
MR: What was the craziest situation you’ve found yourself in? How did you survive it?
LP: Holy cow, I have so many! My poor wife Kristen is sick of it. I already mentioned shooting in Haiti — I got dengue fever on one of my trips there. And I shot a commercial on the North Pole with no crew, that was pretty insane — landing a helicopter on ice only 6 inches thick is nerve-wracking. But the most recent was two weeks ago, running my first 100 mile ultra marathon in Bryce Canyon under a 90º sun at 9,000’ elevation. And at mile 60 I got two huge blisters that covered the bottom of both feet that burst sending me down to my knees. So the last 40 miles were pretty painful. But willpower and stubbornness and a staff of power that my friend found off the trail got me though. And in the end, after 32 hours with no sleep, I crossed the finish line with 4 great friends for life. And I can’t wait to run another one.
MR: Any personal projects to keep you inspired?
LP: I love to build furniture and craft things out of wood. Today I’m working on a couple of carved wooden spoons. I love working in wood because there is no undo button, there is no redo. And there is no time frame. Projects take months since I go in and out of them. For me, seeing something that I hand made from raw unfinished black eastern walnut is incredibly magical to me. It is relaxing and calming and I lose myself into these projects. I always say, when I grow up, I’m gonna become a woodworker!
MR: What do you do for fun?
LP: I have two bold little daughters and I love to cheer them on at soccer games, wrassle together in the living room and practice shooting Tecate cans with a BB gun at our little place in Tahoe. I also like to run. In the mountains. Really, really far.
If you’re looking for a director with a keen eye for design, positive energy and a true heart of gold, I strongly encourage you to take a look at Luis’s work at elpena.com.
Luis absolutely rocks.
