Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Reyna.
Andrew, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Me and my brother have been interested in film since we were kids. At around 7 and 5 years old we started filming with action figures and our Mom’s home video camera. We would make silly videos with our Jurassic park toys about swamp monsters or of goofy superheroes that fought an evil mayor that was also a baby… Needless to say we were different. And we loved it.
We were homeschooled our whole life and our mother, (who we call Red), made sure that we always had a creative upbringing. She’s the most important person in our lives. We were and are lucky to have had a mother that encouraged us to be imaginative, that’s very rare these days.
We started getting older and by that point we were around our early teen years and had made some small stuff for fun, but not anything substantial. And that’s when we met the second most important person in our lives.
Around 2009 we met a young man named Landon Pickering. He was our new youth pastor at the mega-church we were attending at the time. He came right up to me and my brother and said he heard we were the video guys. I was terrified of talking to him. I was an introvert. The word: “Homeschooled”, might as well translate to “socially awkward and shy”. But we did talk, and he said he wanted us to start creating stuff for the youth group. And so, began our journey that would take us along this wild ride for the next 6 years.
We would get weekly requests of all different videos for our youth group. From rap videos, worship music videos, stop-motion animation, spoken words, you name it. I always say me and my brother have done a video in every genre you can think of. It made us very versatile. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so we had to come up with different ways to make things and work around with creativity.
We were still teenagers, but we were told that people liked our creativity and out of the box ideas so much that once they made all of the church’s media team stop what they were doing and watch one of our videos to show them what they needed to be making. I don’t say that to brag, I just found that unbelievable, to low income teens had gotten that kind of recognition.
The youth group grew to be one of the biggest in the nation I believe, it was just fun to be a part of that. After that time came to an end we started to work with Landon and built a website that helped youth groups all over the country have the ability to have creative video, graphics, photos, etc. Now we have branched out and made our own website and are currently creating our own videos and films.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Film and Photography are an extension of my arm. When I have a camera in my hands I feel complete. I can’t imagine ever giving it up. There’s something special about forever capturing a moment in time, whether a still photo, or moving pictures it feels like you’ve saved that moment in a jar, forever.
The types of films I like to create is a broad spectrum. Me and my brother have a rule to never make the same thing twice. But our main thing is it has to be creative. Nothing can feel the same. Out of the box is what we live by. As I’ve said, we’ve made almost every type of video you could think of. But we would love to now have more of an opportunity to create Music Videos, Short Films, Docu-Series (Which we are currently doing), Visual Art, etc.
We try to use all sort of methods, More practical than digital. I find that old techniques should not be obsolete, just improved. We use a lot of stop-motion animation, lighting tricks, practical effects. A lot of people are stumped on how we create some things for our videos and are shocked when we tell them it’s all handmade and done in camera.
I find that film has a way of creating a feeling and can stir up emotions that no other media besides music can do. You have a favorite movie, right? It’s only your favorite because you connected with it on some level. Whether it was that you could relate to it, you felt a visceral emotion from a certain scene, or you experienced something you didn’t even know you would love. The stories you see unfold in front of you make you feel connected to something. I really do believe we are in a Golden Age of television. You hear about all this shows from your friends, “Game of Thrones”, “Stranger Things”, “Big Little Lies”. Netflix is a King amongst the film world because as people they keep creating these shows that touch and connect with us in way we never thought possible.
My main goal is to always make people feel something with my work. Whether it’s deep sorrow, uncontrollable joy, fear beyond words, or, the greatest of all: Love. Films can change lives. And I think that incredible.
What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
I say find the right people first, I have met a lot of creatives, (as I like to call them), over the years and I find just connecting with good people first is a great way of finding people that are like-minded. Once we met our good friend Landon, he introduced us to a lot of people who were creative and we gelled with very naturally and were also good people. I think if you find the right people first, the “Creatives” will find you.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
We have a website that includes a handful of our work, all very different. We are currently looking through our extensive library of videos to add them all to our site. We do take free-lance from time-to-time, so you can send in a video project idea on our Booking Inquires page.
We also have a new Dark Docu-series on YouTube called: “The Bizarre”, that explores bizarre and true events in an interesting and creative way. The first episode is up now and we are currently in pre-production of the second one.
Contact Info:
- Website: ReynaBros.com
- Email: TheReynaBros@gmail.com
- Instagram: @Andrew__Reyna
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXDo-jn02G5rEqjDlJJI9Q
Image Credit:
Andrew Reyna, Matthew Reyna
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