RED MESA FILMS is a Colorado-based, video production company that believes in two things, the inherent power of visual storytelling and the fact that everyone's story matters. We specialize in promos, commercials, documentaries, curriculum media, conferences, event videos, and short films, but we're game for about any video venture. Collaboration is key to this art form, and as such, we actively seek to join forces with our clients and other creatives to ensure the best results.
We direct, film, edit, and write.
Why the name Red Mesa?
I (Peter) grew up in southern New Mexico, an arid land of vast, unrelenting space, broken up every once and awhile by these strange half mountainish features known as mesas. Mesa, of course, means "table" in spanish, and when my family would travel between towns, I would stare at these landforms and wonder, "What was happening on them? What adventure was occuring just out-of-sight, on that higher plain, just near the edge of a precipitous fall?" It felt inviting, yet dangerous and mysterious. It felt like a story.
What do we believe?
We live in a world where fortune, talent, name, beauty, strength, and intelligence often determines someone's unsaid value to general society. These are abstract and fluid concepts, recurrently shaped and controlled by forces external to the individual, and are difficult to quantify. What can't be disputed is that we are all human, and as such, equal. At Red Mesa Films, we believe everyone- rich, poor, young and old- has a unique story to tell, that may be inspiring and meaningful to others. This is why we make movies.
Who are we?
Peter Lively is the founder of Red Mesa Films. He is an accomplished filmmaker with years of experience producing high quality video content for both non-profit and for-profit companies. He’s an expert in the production of documentaries, commercials, online promos, curriculum videos, short films, and event videos, across multiple formats. Peter has thousands of hours of experience, both in production and post-production.
Peter began his film career with the college ministry of Cru, creating simple conference promos, video skits, mission-trip slideshows. This eventually expanded into directing, editing, and producing short narrative films and documentaries. Having left full-time ministry in 2013, he founded the production company, Red Mesa Films, which has produced dozens of award-winning short films, documentaries, commercials, promos, event videos, and DVD curriculum projects.
That same year, he worked with the award winning and oscar-nominated film producer, Henry Ansbacher, creating trailers and other short-form videos for his 3D feature-link nature documentary, "American Mustang", which exposed the plight of wild horses in the American west. He also collaborated with Ansbacher and Denise Cox on "Ñ", an unorthodox, multi-platform documentary project about first-generation American born Latinos that uses cultural and familial stories to build community among a large and growing population, helping film, edit and produce several short documentaries for the effort.