Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Preti.
Hi Lucas, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I come from Northern Italy, I grew up in the Alps in a family where sport and filmmaking were the bread and butter of our activities. At the age of 14, I became member of Team Italy for climbing and I competed in the World Cup series for 15 years.
While doing that, I graduated in Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan and started shooting climbing videos.
I came to US for a documentary when I was 21 and fell in love with L.A., I experienced a deep connection with the city that I never had before, it was a strong call but still wanted to continue climbing so I had to stay in my home country for few more years. Then Filmmaking started to play a bigger role in my life and I found myself shooting other climbers more and more often.
In 2010, I then decided to spend one year training and shooting in California, I moved with my Italian girlfriend Federica to Santa Monica and started working in every small project I could find.
I have to thank Snehal Patel ASC for this initial push and Shane Hurlbut ASC for a brief internship that gave me the opportunity to taste what a real Hollywood set looked like.
From there, I was hooked, I quit my sports career and focused 100% on cinematography.
Fast forward more than ten years and I’m now managing my production company called Coral Climb and shooting documentaries and videos all around the world.
On top of regular content, we are focusing in Virtual Reality, Aerial cinematography and Photogrammetry.
Oh, I’m now married with Federica, we have two amazing Italo-American kids who are already roaming around climbing and taking videos…
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh, the road was far from being smooth! Being a cinematographer in LA felt like I was a drop of water in the ocean of the movie industry.
I had to be very humble to transition from world-class athlete to an average DP(director of photography).
Fortunately, I had my niche within the climbing filmmaking arena.
If I have to find an example of overcoming difficulties, last year, in the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I decided to create an Augmented Reality experience.
I wanted to encapsulate the mood of the moment, with everyone in lockdown, Los Angeles was a Ghost town!
So, the plan was to shoot VR videos in classic LA Landmarks and then combine those into a Mixed Really experience.
The main struggle was to learn from zero AR and MR technologies and platforms.
Fortunately my company had already shot 360 videos from past projects like the one for La Sportiva https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sw6yo0jbiY.
Another complication was that I couldn’t bring any crew members with me so I tackled it alone wearing as many hats as possible.
Along the way, I found support from Adobe and their platform called Adobe Aero (https://www.adobe.com/products/aero.html).
They helped me with sharing the beta version of their software and I was able to create the entire project in their ecosystem.
Now the Covid AR experience is Ready (more infos here https://www.coralclimb.com/covid-19)
It works like a scavenger hunt where the user walks around town following a map, finds a QR code on a sticker (or a map on the website) and that is the trigger for the AR, 360 video experience.
The user will see exactly how that specific location looked like during the full lockdown in April 2020…
I think it will be a great education tool and a trigger for reflections in the years to come.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As a former athlete, I combined my climbing skills with filmmaking and that, I think, helped me finding a space in the LA market. Documentary cinematography has many of the same challenges and tasks so I was naturally drawn to that too.
Overall, I often have to work as a “one man band” and I would say that still applies to many of the projects I’m doing now, including the Covid AR experience.
Through my company Coral Climb I work a lot with Mixed Reality, first we started with stereoscopic 3D back in 2010 with the first-ever 3D climbing videos, that experience translated then very well into 360 and VR content.
Now with Mixer Reality and Augmented reality, we are combining all this knowledge into a creative melting pot.
2021 projects I’m proud of:
COVID-19 AR experience: https://www.coralclimb.com/covid-19
Single take Music Video for Macy Gray in “Thinking of you” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1jjqQz6gzw
La Sportiva Olympic Climbing teaser commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23RcgJSLGj0
A series of FPV drone flights inside the Mesa rim climbing gyms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4s3dVLpriM
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I think success is a very personal and individual trajectory and not necessary related to money or fame. For example for me success is having the time to do the stuff you love and making a living out of that.
Also, it doesn’t matter if it’s something nobody else sees or appreciates as long as it fulfills your spirit and you are happy with the idea of doing it again the day after.
From my experience as a Pro athlete and then as an artist, very often success is preceded by a hard, uncomfortable and likely boring path. That’s the reason why it’s very important to choose the profession you really love…
Pricing:
- Augmented Reality starts at $1000
- Drone Cinematography starts at $700
- Web commercials Start at $2000
- Photogrammetry $500-$10,000 range
- Documentaries start at $4000 the sky is the limit…
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.coralclimb.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coralclimb/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/coralclimb?lang=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCoralClimb
- Other: https://vimeo.com/coralclimb
Image Credits
Credits: Coral Climb llc Lucas Preti Federica Rambaldini
