THE COSTA SISTERS

VIDEOGRAPHERS

ELENA & SOFIA | THE COSTA SISTERS

Desert Mama- Who are Elena and Sofia and where can we find them? How and when was The Costa Sisters created?

The Costa Sisters- We’re two sisters who were born and raised in Wales, UK.

Named ‘The Costa Sisters’ by everyone in our hometown because you’d never see us apart. We always say if we weren’t sisters, we’d be best friends anyways.

Growing up we had a (borderline unhealthy) obsession with movies, obsessing over characters, quoting our favourite lines and creating our own screenplays with our parents old cam-recorders.

It’s been almost 10 years since we quit our day jobs together and became official videographers. We’re mostly known for creating our own niche when we shook up the wedding world and said ‘fuck tradition’! We broke all the rules and did things our way. We started filming weddings like they were music videos and it created a cult following for us.

Our style naturally screams Americana, because it’s what we know, what we grew up watching and admiring.

DM- What do you like to convey with your Videos?

T- That you don’t have follow what everyone else is doing. If you wanna ride down the aisle on your Harley, or get tattooed after getting hitched, you gotta do it!!

We want the world to see weddings differently. We love showing what a badass party weddings can be – Our videos are always filled with high energy – dancing, making out, and tequila shots.

DM- What inspires you, and what other artist currently working do you admire?

T- Travelling is what inspires us the most, we love seeing different cultures and new places. Theres nothing that gets our creative juices flowing more than an adventure!

One of our favourite videographers is Max Cutrone, from California. We actually met him in London not so long ago and made an awesome video together.

DM- Tell us about one of the projects you both have loved the most and we would love to see the video of the results.

T- We love that our jobs don’t revolve just around weddings, most of our favourite videos have been documenting motorcycle events, our road trips around the USA and filming the great frog rings being made.

One of our favourite wedding videos was an elopement we did in Scotland, where Carrie & Sam secretly eloped, they had nothing planned for the day so everything was so spontaneous, we ended up going for a Mc’donalds and doing their portrait session in their hotel bath tub!

Non-wedding related have to say one of our proudest moments was filming CKY’s music video, it was a blast going on tour with them and making ‘Head for a breakdown’ in London! Seeing our video on Kerrang TV – a channel we grew up watching absolutely blew us away!

DM- The part you love the most of what you do, and the least part:

T- The adventures filming takes us on & the people we meet along the way. We’ve met creatives all around the world, some who end up being life long friends.

We’re lucky enough to say that in our eyes there are no negatives to what we do. The only thing that comes to mind is during editing season (usually winter) it can feel lonely, working from home can be a huge contrast compared to back to back shoots in the summer. Sometimes cabin fever hits you when you spend too much time in the office, we are definitely connection cravers!

DM- Where and how would you like to see yourself 10 years from now?

T- We have lots of business goals we’d love to do, loads of brands we’d love to work with and events we’d love to film.

We have a bucket list we’re ticking off with the help of our cameras, we’d love to complete that too!

DM- You only have two days left, what would you do?

ELENA- I’d fly to Nashville, visit Graceland, eat as much BBQ food as humanly possible, rent a chopper and start riding into the desert.

DM- What makes you angry?

SOFÍA- Cancer. Cancer sucks and can just go die!

DM- Your best childhood memory:

ELENA- In high school I was a bit of an outcast, so for me discovering the local (under 18’s) dive bar and finding my tribe of music lovers there helped me to finally find a place I belong. I lived for getting sweaty in a mosh pit!

DM- Your best quality and your worst defect:

SOFIA- My passions, I have major desires to do things, mainly creative things like videography, photography, and my newest passion is painting! I get super excited, and I love to go all in, giving it all I got! I never let fear hold me back!

My worst – Overthinking.

DM- A success and a failure:

ELENA- Success – Finally passing my motorbike test!

My failure – All failures are part of success. Dust yourself off and try again!

Last year i gave up on teaching myself the Harmonica, but I’m planning to turn this into a success by starting lessons this year!

SOFIA- Success – When we were guest speakers at Way up North workshop in Sweden, doing a talk in front of 360 people! Not only was it a workshop we admired for years, and so many amazing photographers we adore had talked at the event before, but I’m so proud of us for stepping out of our comfort Zone and doing something we thought was scary as hell!

Failure – I don’t believe anything is a fail because you always learn from failures so thats a win.

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM ELENA

– A phrase: Here for a good time not a long time.

– A film: The big Lebowski.

– A song: Cocaine Country Dancing by Paul Cauthen.

– A drink: Porn Star Martini.

– A book: Daisy Jones and The Six.

– A city: Nashville.

WHAT DOES SOFIA PREFER?

Ten years in a coma / Ten years in jail
City life / Country life
Talking to animals / Talking to the dead
Having more time / Having more money
A good book / A good movie
Constantly winter / Constantly summer
Only being able to whisper / Only being able to scream
Lifetime free wifi / Lifetime free coffee
To only eat salty food / To only eat sweet food

Waking up in a desert / In a boat in the middle of the Ocean
Knowing what you will die of / Knowing what day you will
Something organized / Something improvised
Music concert / Theater play
Visiting the past / Visiting the future
To be unable to see / To be unable to hear
Reality / Fiction
Never leaving your city / Not being able to return
Continuing your life / Restarting your life