Meet Lucas Preti of Coral Climb

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Preti.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Ok, my path to become a cinematographer was pretty unorthodox: I come from Italy, and my entire family is both in extreme sports and in filmmaking. So I grew up with a camera as a toy and crazy climbing adventures as a “weekend family trip.” My grandfather used to load film projectors in the 50s, and both my dad and uncle are former world-class climbers so at five yrs old I was following them around the world while they were shooting climbing documentaries.

When I was 14, I did my first youth world cup climbing competition, and since then I considered that my work. I became a pro athlete at 18 and did that for more than 15 years. When I started having sponsors and brands interested in putting their names on me, I also started shooting videos to help promote my career.

In the same period, YouTube was born, and I found myself shooting a lot, at one point I was spending more energy creating videos than climbing. So I took a step back, analyzed what would have been my future in five-ten years and made a tough but rational decision: retire from my climbing career while still young enough to have time to become a professional cinematographer.

So I did my last world cup in 2011 and then moved to LA. Oh before doing that I graduated in Architecture in Milan in 2010 too. I picked Arch. only because in Italy there are no universities with a cinematography course and thought it would at least taught me composition and the love for art, lol.

Fast forward and some brands that believed in me as an athlete (fist for all La Sportiva) gave me the opportunity to start producing their branded content. Now I’m shooting a lot of outdoor content connected to my climbing roots but also with running, motorsports, mountain biking and all sort of fun stuff.

I think that what makes my cinematography services unique, is the ability to apply full scale filmmaking techniques to remote and exposed locations.

As Director of photography I can climb and set up my Red cameras on a jib 100ft from the ground and achieve shoot that are very complicated to most cinematographer without an extreme sports background.

For me it’s a familiar environment and that’s why I’ve been asked to shoot climbing commercials for brands like La Sportiva, National Geographic and The Wonderful Company.

It’s also easier for me to interact with pro athletes because I understand what they have in mind and their priorities.

Lately, I’m focusing on landing higher level “broadcast commercials” and I’m getting into narrative work. Few years ago I shot my first feature as second unit DP, a war movie with a lot of climbing scenes and aerial shots: “Soldato Semplice.”

I was picked for this feature because of my aerial cinematography and climbing cinematography skills.

Now I’m living in Santa Monica with my wife and my two young kids, Primo (four yrs old) has already a membership in the climbing gym and shot his own film camera, lol. My end life goal (in this point of my life) is shaping my craft, becoming a better cinematographer and grow my Italian/American family passing down the same passions the past generations did with me.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Ahaha it’s never a smooth road! Struggle is part of the fun though and the earlier you accept to embrace it, the better. Cinematography is essentially a struggle, lol! From dealing with every scale of technical problems on set to interact with clients and companies.

I think that background as athletes taught me how to remain positive and keep pushing, every day is a new lesson, and you need to understand that failing is part of the growth. If you don’t expose yourself to failure, you’ll never understand how to make something right.

Coral Climb – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
As a cinematographer, I work mainly for my own company @coralclimb.

We have two offices:
The Italian branch produces more high-end broadcast documentaries for clients such as National Geographic Adventure and the Italian national Tv RAI. Here in the LA office, we shoot more outdoor videos and branded content.

We are a multimedia company or as we like to call it in Italian “Bottega” where we try to create a connection with the brands we work with offering a broader spectrum of services in order to support every media aspect, from logo design to photos and marketing too.

We believe in new technologies, we become pioneers in outdoor 3d stereoscopic videos back in 2010 when we shot the first 3D climbing video and then in 2014 one of the first VR Aerial climbing project shooting with drones and 360 cameras the female world-class climber @sashadigiulian and the ultrarunner @antonkrupicka.

Cinemagraphs are super fun too and with a strong marketing impact for brands of every scale. We try and experiment with every new piece of equipment while trying to remember that the Story is still the only real goal.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I think success if being able to follow your line, similar to climbing, where you have your route and need to get on top of it without taking detours.

For Filmmaking is the same: set goals and aspirations and try to adhere to them as much as possible keeping truck with ethics and values too. Honestly, I try to keep these ideals in my company as much as possible.

I think success is a strange hybrid: a balance between achieving goals and quality of life.

Contact Info:

• Address: 2623 Euclid ST Santa Monica Ca 90405
• Website: https://www.coralclimb.com/
• Phone: 4242780750
• Email: info@coralclimb.com
• Instagram: @coralclimb
• Twitter: @CoralClimb
• Other: https://vimeo.com/coralclimb

Image Credit:
Lucas Preti

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