Q&A: Justin Kaminuma on Using A Super 8 Camera for Visual Project with Vance Joy’s Latest Album
SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES IS ONE MINUTE FOR VISUAL ARTIST Justin Kaminuma to truly capture a feeling, and his latest project with Vance Joy, the moniker of James Gabriel Keogh, is a prime example. Freshly graduated from Emory University with a bachelors in film and media studies, Kaminuma created visuals for eight of the tracks on Joy’s latest album, In Our Own Sweet Time. But this isn’t Kaminuma’s first big project: his work has been commissioned from dj poolboi, Montell Fish, Clubhouse, and in addition to working with Joy in the past, Kaminuma boasts a steadily growing resume on top of his own personal projects and short films. Much of his work is recognizable for Kaminuma’s uncanny ability to capture emotions, sometimes without words, something he has done successfully, yet again, in his visual project for Joy’s third studio album.
In Our Own Sweet Time was released on June 10th along with Kaminuma’s visuals, each of which is a minute long and looped into Spotify canvases and lyric videos. The visuals explore the themes and lyrics of each song and were shot on a Super 8 camera, taking over 40 rolls of footage. The Super 8 camera allowed for a faded, nostalgic look to each image that matched the indie nature of Joy’s music. Kaminuma shot the visuals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Georgia, and Massachusetts and captured moments of love, nostalgia, longing, and loneliness while remaining true to Joy’s lyrics.
Kaminuma’s camera was a major influence on his project, which he took as an opportunity to explore what the aesthetics of Super 8 as a medium could be. He teetered between the 8mm and 16mm lenses, which created different qualities, the first being dreamy and the latter sharper. The blend of both allowed for moments of bliss and others of focus.
Read below to learn more about how Kaminuma came to create the visuals for In Our Own Sweet Time and what working with a Super 8 camera was like.
LUNA: Firstly, congrats on working on the visuals for Vance Joy’s upcoming album, In Our Own Sweet Time! How did this project fall into your lap?
KAMINUMA: Thank you! I first started working with him early this year. Lauren, a commissioner over at Atlantic, sent me a brief for his single “Don’t Fade,” which was in need of artwork and a lyric video, and he and his team really connected with the visual style I wanted to portray. They really liked what I put together for them and after the release of the single asked me if I wanted to hop on board to do a bunch more work!
LUNA: Can you talk me through the process of how these visuals were thought up? Were they of your own creation?
KAMINUMA: I feel like my ideas lined up seamlessly with what James wanted for this project, so I was lucky to be allowed to shoot exactly what I had in mind for each song. Since I needed to make eight different visuals — each with its own theme — I wanted to keep them simple and reflective of the lyrics. For example, I knew I needed to shoot “Boardwalk” on-location in Coney Island and for “Daylight” to point the camera toward the sky and the sun.
LUNA: Did you know you wanted to use a Super 8 camera to film these from the start?
KAMINUMA: I knew from the jump I wanted to continue the Super 8 montaging I used for the “Don’t Fade” video. At first, I was conflicted — film is, of course, extremely expensive, and with an extremely limited budget I didn’t want to make a costly mistake. But I also knew this would probably be one of my only opportunities to shoot a project like this entirely on Super 8, so I pitched these videos as miniature vignettes — a minute-long for each song — which are then looped and turned into full-length lyric videos. By doing this, I could have the time to make all eight videos say exactly what I wanted them to say.
LUNA: What do you feel like the Super 8 camera adds to the visuals?
KAMINUMA: I feel like I have always lived trying to look for ways to elevate a “lesser” medium and push it to its limits. Growing up, I didn’t have access to the best equipment, but working around my limitations has led me to find a unique style that I wouldn’t have otherwise got to if I was always able to afford the newest and best cameras. Because of this, I always saw Super 8 as a unique medium in a professional setting compared to 16mm. Super 8 nowadays is always treated as a side character: intercut as quick flashback shots in a montage or used for vacation travel footage, and this makes sense because that was always the intention of the camera itself, as a consumer-friendly film format. I wanted to instead explore what could happen if I made Super 8 the main character, if I shot most of it on a tripod, framed with intent rather than handheld, and used modern post-production tools to fully stabilize the footage. What I realized is that by doing this the footage looked like something in between the grainy and dreamy aesthetics we’re used to in 8mm and the greater clarity of 16mm.
LUNA: I know this might be difficult to answer but do you have a favorite visual?
KAMINUMA: Either “This One” or “Solid Ground”! Both turned out almost exactly how I imagined. “Solid Ground” was special because I flew out to my friend Ethan’s farm in Minnesota to shoot the project along with Nathan, his brother.
LUNA: What was the editing process like?
KAMINUMA: Editing all of this was a lot more than I had anticipated, partly because of myself. I wanted to experiment a lot with double exposures and layering/collaging scenes, so naturally the process became heavier. Putting all the lyrics in also took a surprising bit of time to figure out. Having an assistant editor would’ve been a good idea but since I spent so much of the budget on film, I needed to make the sacrifice of editing everything myself.
LUNA: Which visual was the most fun to shoot?
KAMINUMA: I loved shooting “Daylight.” It was the first video I did. I spent a few days walking around empty spaces shooting a few rolls of anything that I saw that looked pretty. It was like therapy for me. I had no idea if my idea was even going to work but as soon as I got my scans back, the realization that this was possible was great.
LUNA: Were there any struggles using the Super 8 camera to get these shots?
KAMINUMA: Oh, absolutely! The camera I used was fully automatic so sometimes it was impossible to get the shot I wanted. Also, the viewfinder is terrible. It’s easy to take screens and monitors for granted! Then there’s another issue of the camera just being so old. When we were shooting “Solid Ground,” it was close to freezing and the camera just completely stopped working. I thought we were screwed until I just gave the side of the camera a slap and it started working again. It’s sometimes a terrifying experience putting your trust into a functioning relic.
LUNA: What is your favorite memory from working on this project?
KAMINUMA: Honestly, the whole project felt like a bittersweet memory. I was able to meet up with old friends again and push myself to try something way out of my comfort zone. It was all done while I was in my last semester of college so everything I was doing became tinged with a sense of nostalgia. There was one shot of a sunset in the “Daylight” video — I took it during spring break at the top of a parking garage I always went up alone. It felt serene being up there and immortalizing that place in this project. Moments like that.
LUNA: What are your plans for the rest of the year?
KAMINUMA: To be honest, I don’t know. I just graduated college, and I’m trying to figure a lot of things out right now, so I’d be lying if I said I had a concrete plan for my life. All I know is that I want to keep going in this direction and hopefully things will work out for the best.
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