Whitehouse Post Editor Luke Sloma Answers Five Questions with SCREEN

What do Skittles, Milwaukee, and the best advice ever have in common? They’re all right here in this week’s round of Five Questions with SCREEN! Whitehouse Post Editor Luke Sloma stopped by to play… let’s get to it!

SCREEN: Your favorite commercial ever?

LUKE: There have obviously been so many great commercials since, but in the early 2000s, Björn Rühmann directed a longform piece called “Mr. W” that stuck with me through the years. It’s simple, but perfectly scored, casted, and both poignant and hopeful. If you’ve never seen it, stop and go watch it, it’s just lovely. My favorite part in the art direction is that the answer to his identity is in the very first frame, in plain sight. Great composition all the way through.

All right, Luke, we’re in! Let’s take a look…

For an honorable mention, because I rewatched it recently, Tom Kuntz directed a Skittles spot called “Leak”. Like many Skittles ads, and no matter the nonsense, it’s the simplicity that shines. I laugh every. single. time.

SCREEN: Can you cook? What’s your go-to dish?

LUKE: I’ve always liked to cook, but during the pandemic it became an especially therapeutic escape. The commute home used to be my decompression from the work day, but I find cooking to be a suitable (and preferred) replacement to a crowded CTA bus or Metra car.

With two kids under 3, it’s all about speed. I don’t really have a go-to dish that’s not chicken tenders in the air fryer (which we just got on board with. Game changer.) I recently got J. Kenji López-Alt’s book “The Food Lab,” so that’s been fun to read and plan new things to try. A couple years ago I got a Weber smoker, getting a perfect beef brisket has been my BBQ Everest. Similar to frames in an edit, there’s a small margin for error (being overdone/underdone) – every minute matters.

Five favorite tools; A chefs or Nakiri knife, 12” stainless saute pan, cast iron griddle, tongs, and fish spatula (rarely used for fish).

SCREEN: Weekend getaway. Anywhere. Where to? Why?

LUKE: After being cooped up for almost 2 years, anywhere is good. But more specifically, my wife Lauren and I love Milwaukee for a quick weekend trip, I even proposed to her there (lucky lady, I know.) When the weather’s nice its all pretty walkable between restaurants & breweries, diverse neighborhoods, the riverwalk downtown, and some shopping if you’re into that.

SCREEN: Best advice you’ve ever been given?

LUKE: It’s hard to pinpoint every piece of advice that I’ve taken and run with. But as with many, it started in childhood with my parents and their parents being so supportive of my interests and dreams – whatever they may have been on that given day. For example, I know it wasn’t easy on my parents having the house shake during punk rock band practice in the basement. But between the shitty, angsty songs, one of them would pop their heads down from the stairs and give a “sounds great, keep it up!”, then likely head upstairs and cover their heads with a pillow. Keep going, eyes open, and never stop.

SCREEN: Your greatest athletic achievement? 

LUKE: I am 6’4” 220lbs of wasted athletic potential. The writing was on the wall when in 7th grade, off the bench, I sunk a 3-point no-doubter… in the opponents basket. Looking back, a lot had to go wrong for that to happen and it all certainly did. Though, these days my go-to spectator sport is baseball. I took my 2.5 year old Eleanor to her first game last summer and it’s a moment I’ll cherish forever, no matter how short-lived the toddler’s first experience was.  Be wrong and call it boring, but there’s something truly special about the slow-burn of a baseball game in the summer heat. Anyway, let’s go Cleveland Ind… Guardians.

Thanks for playing, Luke! Click here to check out Luke’s reel and more from Whitehouse Post!