We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Claudia Burgos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Claudia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?

My mother is my hero. Her incredible strength, intelligence and perseverance, just to name a few of her qualities, has been the foundation in achieving resilience and success in my life. Looking back at her life and our life together the lessons are countless, the stories… and her journey in this world taught me to be strong, fearless and kind, but most importantly a fighter.

My mother was a pharmacist and executive of public health in the Dominican Republic, her pristine classy looks, impeccable professionalism and her mission to help and serve others is one of the many reasons she is and will always be remembered. Her encouraging voice is very much alive in my heart and pushes me to achieve my highest version on a daily basis. Without her role model and the role model of all the strong women in my family i would not be the woman that i am today, i only hope one day i can be as honorable as they are.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My interest and passion for storytelling started with Theater. Acting in small plays and my years in theater school made me fall in love with visual storytelling, lighting design and using details to tell the story. Later on, cinematography made all the sense.

It is fascinating to me to be able to see an idea come to life, to be part of the entire process and then see it on a screen! Filmmaking has been a challenging and rewarding journey and being part of different projects as a cinematographer has been an incredible honor but communicating a positive message with my art is even more rewarding and affirms my mission and purpose as a creator. My recent experience in my first feature film co-created with my partner Kevin Brewer was the story of a sex trafficking victim who survived her captors. Working with a sensitive script and designing a visual plan was key for the success and impact of the story and final piece. It has been amazing to witness premieres of the film at local and international theaters.

For the past 9 years my cinematography firm, Riant Films, has been providing unique, one-of-a-kind wedding films. Specializing in South Asian weddings has given me the opportunity to stay close to the real fast paced production world and taken me and my team on many amazing adventures. Our business services Florida and New York but travels all over to capture beautiful multi-cultural events and love celebrations. As creators, my partner and i are always innovating our style and tools, our film production style is designed around the concept of providing our clients with all “angles” of the story – their story – and it is a combination of camera angles, lighting and direction to achieve a more dynamic product for our client’s experience.

As a business owner i think one of the things i am most proud of is the ability to persevere and pivot in challenging times and continue with the vision no matter the odds.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

As a filmmaker, being able to turn a vision into reality has to be one of the most rewarding aspects. To visualize a complete scene with specific lighting and details, emotions and actions, and then seeing that vision become real. There is something very surreal and gratifying about watching your own visuals in a full movie theater, even if you can still find things and details that could’ve gone differently, there is something magical about sharing a positive message and impacting and influencing an audience.

With my business Riant Films, it is so humbling to know my team and i were there to capture one of the happiest memories of our client’s lives with their loved ones, and knowing that those memories will exist in a visual tangible form for that person and their family is a beautiful reward, to know that with my art I can help someone relive those moments and to hear them say things like “you made me cry, this is everything I envisioned” or receive a client email from 8 years ago telling me how much they still cherish those memories, it’s truly rewarding to say the least.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Many times, in life you will be faced with a change of reality, sometimes drastic unexpected realities that can push you all the way to the ground or that you can use to build yourself back up, stronger and wiser than before. One of those moments was when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and a few months later passed away. My mother an i had just moved to Florida from the Dominican Republic, we were still adapting to our immigrant life when we were faced with a new obstacle. We fought as hard as we could, until the fight was no longer needed.

My life completely changed after that, and i had to pivot harder and stronger than ever, so i did. I remember i was working at a restaurant at the time and the manager gave me a new position with more hours and income, which helped me greatly. I had recently graduated from college and i was able to afford my first DSLR camera, i was so in love with it. I started offering photoshoots and videos for my friends at the restaurant, and the most surprising thing started to happen, they actually hired me to take their pictures and even did a music video for one of them, i was so happy i decided to start building a personal brand.

Long story short, after working 3 jobs, one of them gave me the opportunity to be part of the wedding industry, and of course i fell in love with the possibility of being my own “boss” at 25 and being able to do what i love for a living soon became a reality. I continued connecting with many other amazing people who helped me and believed in me, i have no words to thank them for that.

Contact Info:

• Website: riantfilms.com
• Instagram: riantfilms and orbalyte media
• Linkedin: Claudia Burgos
• Youtube: riantfilms and orbalyte media
• Other: Dont’ Say My Name Movie Trailer, AMC and Caribbean Cinemas – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySi0utbIOek&t=4s Riant Films – One of our latest wedding films at Cipriani Wall Street, NYC: https://vimeo.com/624540796

Image Credits
Photoshoot images at coffeeshop and wings mural by Stephana Ferrell