Meet Chicho Bezerra de Lima | Photographer, Videographer, Director.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chicho Bezerra de Lima and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chicho, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Like a lot of things, it started with a depression. I had been an assistant director for 15 years filming commercials and movies…in Peru. I was at the top of my game and never in my life would i have thought i would end up opening my own business in South Florida. I worked in a very stressful environment for years, filming was my life, i ate, slept and filmed, my work life balance was non existant…then the Pandemic happened, that changed everything. I was born in Peru, grew up in Canada and made my life and career in Peru,married an american girl and decided to make our lives there and eventually look after my parents (i was an only child). In the middle of the Pandemic and a second wave of Covid my parents die of it, they died 3 days apart and in horrible conditions. The country went into complete meltdown, after a couple of years of political and economic turmoil, working conditions were horrid and the fact that Peru was a ship without a rudder, after my parents death, i said enough. The best i could do for my future and most importantly my daughters future was to get the heck out of there…so we sold everything and left with basically no plan to be honest. In retrospect i think, what the hell was i thinking?

After many many hurdles i finally got a work permit and went through all the beaurocratic hoops hoping to get back into filming…big problem, im in south florida and i don’t know anyone in an industry notorious for being “contacts are everything” on top of that i’m a bit of an introvert. Most commercials and movies i saw were coming out of L.A and specifically AD’s came from there, so i thought i was never going to film again…that was killing me, not being behind a camera was a death sentence…so i started my own business. I can’t be without that, i can’t live without having that creative escape, even if it is just carrying cables, i need to be part of that creative process, so i kind of took the leap and said to my wife “i know this is crazy and we might be in the poor house soon but i gotta do this now or i’ll never do it”. So here i am, Photographer / Videographer with a cinematic style.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Film. I’m a complete film freak, when i was 25 and started working filming commercials i worked for a guy who knew everything about film. Jorge Caterbona was my boss and he knew every obscure reference you could think of, the man had seen pretty much every movie and commercial, he was a walking encyclopedia…and i wanted to be like that. I made a promise to myself to learn something new every day and to watch one movie a day, no matter how tired, no matter where, i had to watch one movie and about 20 commercials, whatever it was. So i did that and i started training my eye. I had always been a big fan of photography but i never thought i could do it as a career, i always wanted to be a director but when i became an assitant director i started making good money so that dream kind of went out the door but when i moved to the United States i found myself in a situation where i had to rely on my talent and knowledge if i wanted to get back into doing what i love.

Unfortunatley i don’t really know anyone in Florida and we chose this state because my wife’s family is here but they’re all in the food business. Photography was always a hobby and i started looking at my photographs and i noticed that throughout the years i had honed my craft into a style. I began seeing my photos like movie stills and more and more i saw that what i was doing wasn’t like normal landscape or portrait, architecture or any of the sorts…it was all very cinematic because i had been obsessed with film and images all in 16:9, i have very few verticals. I am now trying to get into photographing new styles but i’m a film maker at heart and that’s my style not only as a videographer but a photographer, i like photos that look like movie stills but at the same time it’s sort of something i am struggling with because i see a lot of people in what i do that they sort of find a niche and stick to it wether it be portrait or wedding, events etc…i want to do it all…i like doing it all, just in a very cinematic style. I have filmed over 500 commercials setting up all kinds of scenes and all sorts of shorts with very different styles of art, lighting, wardrobe, story telling etc…but i know that if i want to grow as a business eventually i need to focus on one thing.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’m a science geek and art geek so Frost Museum, Wynwood are definatley on the list. Food wise…Flannigans, every person that i have ever hosted in Florida i have taken to Flannigans and they have loved it, that place is a South Florida institution. One of the things i love about america is stand up. In south america it’s not as common to go to a comedy club, in Peru it was almost non existant so that’s always cool and the diverse acts that come to this area is insane, having all those options here is really something else, to top it all off…fishing, i love going out on the boat and just chillin, i’ve gone out many times…i have yet to catch anything.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many, my cosmovision, knowledge, culture, cinematic eye, photographic style and film knowledge is not free and my parents, wife and inlaws have helped shape me however, when it comes to photography and film, I’ve had three amazing mentors in the film industry who nurtured me in the best ways possible.

When i first started my career i worked at a production house called “Siete Samurai films”, the owner was Jorge Caterbona. He was a pretty big director in south america, he was an Argentinian known for doing awesome music videos back in the 90’s for guys like Fito Paez and was friends with guys like Calamaro, Charly Garcia and Gustavo Cerati, so this guy was no joke, he was considered a heavy hitter. After working there for a couple months they saw i had some talent looking for references and that i could put together a good mock up story by editing videos and making a mock up commercial to pitch at treatments so i became his Assistant director. Jorge was 50 by then and basically dumped the workload on me so i ended up staying late nights drawing shooting boards, making presentations, editing commercials, going to post production meetings…all the stuff he didn’t want to do, it taught me a lot. I may have complained a lot back then but in hindsight, best thing that could have happened to me, that kind of knowledge you don’t gain just like that. Then i went freelance but got caught up two years working with Ricardo Maldonado who was another huge director in Peru. He was the biggest box office hit director in the country, he had won Cannes for some commercials, the guy was on cloud 9 when i got to him…eventually i had to move on if i wanted to grow but i learned many things from him too, mostly about the business side of it all. Then there was Manuel Oxenford who taught me discipline…he’s a madman, his attention to detail and his obsession with perfection was sickening to the point of wanting to hate him but his dedication and passion made me respect and love him not only as a mentor but as a friend. I learned a lot from those three in particular about filming, composition, lighting, story telling and business.

Website: www.chichoandthecamera.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chichoandthecamera/

Image Credits
All Photos by me Eduardo Bezerra de Lima “Chicho and the camera”