Today we’d like to introduce you to Ivan Rivero
Hi Ivan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I originally wanted to be a musician, I went to school at Lamar State College Port Arthur for Audio Engineering and music for Television. There I met one of the most influential person as a young adult, John Freyermuth. He just asked the right questions, next thing I know im signing up for their Audio Visual program. one thing let to the other and after a couple fun short films, and fun music videos i ended up graduation from LSCPA and went to Lamar University. I do have to mention that during my time of transition my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time (she’s also our Photographer and the Creative Director for everything we do at BOS) she taught me everything i know as far as framing, composition, and the more creative things such as why does an image make you feel a certain way and why not and so and so on. I got lucky enough at Lamar also to be allowed to sit in some of Keith Richards lectures. He’s an incredible photographer, a very honest man with an incredible sense of humor. While at Lamar I met the second most important person that will help me launch my career. That will be Jeremy Hawa. It just so happen that he was starting to work on his own short film of a pretty big scale, it’s titled The Powder Horn. After stepping into a real set I realized that yes, making movies was all i wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I believe that we are our biggest struggle. In an era where you can open your phone and see a 5 second video of someone living your dream at either the same age or even younger than you, its hard to stay motivated. These type of careers are not for the weak, they will destroy you mentally. Its up to me to get clients, it’s up to me if i’m getting the projects, it’s up to me if i’m getting paid and trust me when I say that there will be a lot of work that will go unpaid. But worst than unpaid is a honestly just doing a bad job, biting more than you can chew can be hard on yourself and make you question how people do it. When you start seeing your friends that also did the same thing start dropping out, or just slowly not shooting anything to then they are just working at an office it can get hard. It makes you question if you are doing the right things and making the right decisions. During hard times I try to think about how much I love this and how I don’t see myself doing anything else, that obsession is what keeps me going everyday. That and the support and trust of my wife, having someone in your corner that trust and knows you can do it makes a huge difference.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At Burned Out Studio we truly try to push ourselves with every project. We always try to take a simple concept either given to us by a client or something we come up with ourselves and start dreaming and making it as complex as we can possibly think of. I always say “let’s dream of the perfect scenario if money wasn’t an issue.” Once we have that then i try to be as realistic as possible and dissect scene by scene how can we make this happen with our limited resources. You’d be surprised how much a couple of creative people can accomplish with a single goal in mind. From DIY rigs to even sometimes being able to rent crazy toys for the camera we’ve done so much. The sky’s the limit.
Also we are very efficient when it comes to shooting, i’ve worked with companies in the past that are so bloated with personnel that it slows the process down so much. Not only does it makes it more expensive for the client but it also makes the process of filmmaking feel slow and boring to watch. We are a small efficient team, we can do with 5 people what most other companies struggle to do with 10.
What does success mean to you?
Thats a great question because it really shifts often. Its so easy to get lost in the work and loose sight of what “”making it” really means. When you first start is as if the first client you get will be the successm, but after so many projects, success can feel like the first six digit project. If you look at it that way, you’ll never feel successful because you’ll always keep chasing “the bag” for lack of a better term,
I think believe that getting the work you want in general is being successful. Getting to work on the cool projects you dream to work on is being successful. Being able to share that with the team makes it even better. Everytime I talk about a projects everyone is always excited and i see the wheels turning in their heads on how we can make it happen or how can we fake something so it looks real or how can we pull off this crazy sequence.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.burnedoutstudio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burnedoutstudio/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@burnedoutstudio8061
Image Credits
Paige Rivero
