OnLocation
The Babymoon
Cinematographer Luis Salas Lobo lenses an indie adventure
comedy in Costa Rica & Puerto Rico.
by Jesse Dobbs
Costa Rican cinematographer Luis Salas Lobo spent fifteen days in the jungles of Costa Rica
and Puerto Rico working on The Babymoon, an indie film about a young couple’s prenatal vacation
gone awry. Lobo was kind enough to speak with
us about braving the jungles, his gear preferences, and the challenges and rewards of contributing to a smaller-budget indie production.
How did you first get connected with this
project, and what drew you to it?
Luis Salas Lobo (LSL): When the production team
started looking for a crew in Costa Rica, they
contacted a gaffer friend of mine, Julio Jimenez,
and he recommended me. When [director] Bailey
[Kobe] watched my reel, he saw something in it
that he liked. He contacted me about the project,
and I read the script. Bailey seemed like a very
interesting person, and he had a very clear vision
of what he wanted. Just from that initial impres-
sion of him, I was on board.
It also seemed like the production would be
quite the challenge, because going through the
script, I could tell there were a lot of complex
scenes, and I was wondering how we were going
to pull it all off. I was eager to see how we would
get it done.
You had the chance to work in some very
cool locales. Tell us about that.
LSL: We only shot one day in Costa Rica. After
that, we went to Puerto Rico. There was a short
period in between, and that gave me time to really read over the script and get deeper into the
project, mentally and emotionally. So by the time
we got to Puerto Rico, it was clear to me what
we would be going for. That first day we did in
Costa Rica gave me a sense of how Bailey wanted to work, so when we started in Puerto Rico, I
found we could move along quickly and get a lot
