Apu Productions: behind some of the biggest productions shot in Peru

Many may have seen Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones) and Shia LeBouf (mini Indy) walk through a street market filled with vendors wearing traditional Andean ponchos and hats in the last Indiana Jones movie. Or perhaps fashion lovers noticed that the November catalogue for U.S. brand Anthropologie was shot in Peru. How did these projects come about? Well, in part thanks to the work of Apu Productions.

We sat down with Bruno Canale, founder and producer of Apu, who gave us an inside look at what the company is doing to bring the best in film, television and photography productions to Peru.

Tell us how Apu Productions got started:

Apu is a production service company for film and television. It was created in LA in 2005. I lived there since 1998, doing music and mixing. Many people I knew [in the business] started asking me about shooting projects in Peru. My partner’s uncle, who is also in the film industry also started getting calls and asked me if I wanted to do it. I went for it and we started Apu.

We cater to foreign films and foreign productions. We’re kind of a one-stop-shop for every service; from customs clearance to the most creative aspect of production, and all the in-betweens like transportation, lodging, film permits, location permits and anything that is needed like costume design and crew.

How big is the company?

I always try to keep a very low overhead, only when I need it. We can have a crew base from two to four people all the way to 100. I’m learning to delegate, but at the beginning I did everything because I wanted to know, at least do everything once, to understand the process.

Did you ever think you’d have a production company?

At the beginning no, at the beginning I wanted to be a guitar player! And then I went to school in Boston, did engineering, since I was a kid, really. I had the fortune of working with some very interesting people but when this opened up, it made sense to me. What I really like is shooting on location, I’m an outdoors person so instead of being inside four walls in the studio mixing a commercial, I can be in Machu Picchu shooting a commercial! So that side is really nice.

Tell us about the filming of Edhiran in Machu Picchu:

It was the biggest [Bollywood] movie in 10 years. To get that permit it wasn’t easy or difficult; we knew the archeologist in charge and knowing the amount of people who were going to be there, 150 on set, we wrote up the rules and regulations for the shoot. It was difficult for him to say no because it was well done. We were able to shoot even with a small crane, which has always been an issue since the accident years ago, but we were really careful. The good thing about the Indian crew is that they had certain flexibility, whenever we hit a wall - when they'd say we can’t use a crane here or there - the crew went ahead and did something else. It’s good because some crews and directors won't budge on those things but in this case, you’re shooting on location at one of the Seven Wonders of the World and that's very difficult.

What was the first project for Apu?

There were two first projects. One was Jeopardy. They have a team called the Clue Crew that travels around the world. They came to Peru and Brazil and I did the logistics for both. Usually Alex Trebek doesn’t travel with the team but because it was Peru he wanted to come! So they were all down here, the crew and main producers.

Simultaneously we did some services for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Since they were doing everything in the States, they needed to recreate what they said was Cusco or Nazca, so they did the set in LA but they needed all the costumes. They sent one person to Lima to do all the buying and then we packed and exported the ponchos, chullos, etc. Then, we worked with a second unit that needed to do back plates, which they later use in post [production] to use as a background for a scene. So they sent a guy from Industrial Light & Magic, which is a George Lucas company. We went all over Machu Picchu, up and down every field, taking pictures and filming. You don’t explicitly see it in the film but they use it when they do all the composing.

So, do you see that there's a great demand?

Peru is kind of a specific place to come. For that [project] they needed the clothing, the scenery. It’s not like some movies that go to Chile for a desert. They don’t come to Peru for that, just yet, it's kind of new and out of the map for many. But now Brazil is getting expensive, Argentina also, and they’re looking for new places. Peru is doing good economically, it’s stable and well located; 8 hrs from LA, direct flights from NY. Plus there’s good lodging, infrastructure. It’s starting to change now. Microsoft came last year from Seattle to do a documentary. Also Scotiabank from Canada that did a video to promote within their structure.

You've done fashion shoots as well...

Catalogs, photo shoots; those are an extension because it’s almost the same but in the end it's a little simpler. They are interesting projects because of the smaller crews, you can go to more difficult places. With a film shoot you have to be max. 1 hour away from your hotel. For a photo shoot you have three buses or vans and you’re set. It’s good for new locations. We’ve done projects for Vogue and Anthropologie, Vogue Holland, all in Cusco.

With the Vogue project we didn’t have complete control, as apposed to Anthropologie. With that one we had all the responsibilities and it was flawless from beginning to end. They really liked it and Peru. Fashion companies and brands are always looking for something different. I’ve done 3 or 4 bids to shoot in the north, in the Mancora area, there are some nice houses; we’ve done a couple of things for a jungle location.

You do a lot of the scouting, too.

Every big project has a scouting involved and I always try to do it. When I go scouting I definitely get what the client wants but I also get what I want because I have my own database of locations that I use extensively to sell Peru.

Are there areas that you really want to put out there right now?

They always ask me, 'What location do you think are used the least or that have the most potential?' Definitely the jungle. Right now for the jungle, they go to places like Brazil or Costa Rica. We can’t compete with Costa Rica for the ease of getting there but in Peru you can get a lot more, as a package. You can get the jungle but do so much other stuff and we have more options in the jungle itself. We have low jungle with a big river, we have high jungle with ruins, we have more variety. Also the desert. We have a huge desert up north and south. And all the colonial sites, apart from Cusco. Cusco is definitely our entry to everything but I've done shoots in Tarapato and it’s amazing. I also like Kuelap [northern Peru.]

There's an adventure side to the job, then.

Definitely. We did the shoot of a project for The History Channel, Latin America. They did four episodes, it was an 8 week shoot and we traveled by land. Two vehicles, a brand new pick-up truck, the anchorman had to drive, I did as well and a big bus for everybody. It was fun to drive all over Peru because we covered everything. We went all the way from Bolivia to Ecuador. It was an adventure, especially in places like Manu, we were driving at night, shooting during the day, it was crazy. At one point we had 45 minutes to get from one point to the other before they closed the gate and the ride usually takes an hour and a half but one of my producers is also a stunt driver. It was like a rally! The poor archeologist in the back was sick and at one point I kept thinking, ‘They pay me to do this!' [Laughs.] 

The company makes sense with a country so diverse and rich in natural beauty. You like the idea of showing it off?

I’m half a production company and half a film commission because there’s no film commission [here] yet. Every time I go out, I'm selling the country. Many companies, because people know the country, just sell their company. I need to sell the country and tell them it’s safe, etc. PromPeru has always been really good with me and helping our projects.

We also have to be careful. Machu Picchu, for example, won't always be available. It’s a matter of the number of people you let in, the problem is the high season, it’s not the low season, when you go in low season it’s very manageable. With film crews you have to be careful, we never go overboard, we always do what they recommend and let us do.

So there are a lot of projects you'd like to realize?

I would like to do a great video for el Grupo 5! But because their budget for that is small, they don’t make big videos. Here, there's a bottom line business mindset, cost conscious: if it works, why spend more? All the chicheros, they have great music and big following, they could be doing cool videos. Maybe soon.

The last thing we did was a song for the documentary Lima Bruja, it’s like the Buena Vista version in Peru. The director, my friend Rafael Polar, went to shoot the musicians and realized this is kind of an unknown side of musica criolla. I mean, you know Zambo Cavero, the famous guys, but these guys were probably a little famous in their time but nobody knows them. He went ahead and did a documentary about them, I think that’s great.

One thing I would really like to do if I had the chance would be more documentaries about Peruvian music, rescuing what’s left. There’s still a lot of that generation, it's fading but there’s still a lot of content there. I always talk to my friend Alex Acuña about this. Sooner or later we will do it.

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