We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tsubasa Maruno a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tsubasa, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
It took me a while to build confidence and self-esteem. Some people naturally possess those qualities, I think it has something to do with how they were raised, but I didn’t grow up with confidence and self-esteem. It is not unnecessarily a bad thing, though. Because it made me work harder than anyone else. For me, it helped to go to many shoots. I volunteered on projects to observe how other directors and DPs do things and saw them succeed and fail. After a while, I noticed this small urge building up inside me like, “I can do what they do, too.” So I started with small projects but sometimes, you just have to jump on whatever comes to you, even if you think you might not be ready and a little scared. I’m really grateful for the people who gave me opportunities, especially at the beginning of my career. Once a project starts, there’s no turning back so you just have to get through it.
Watching other people do it from outside and doing it yourself are completely different experiences, so you make lots of mistakes that you thought you could avoid, and things just don’t go as you planned and you sweat a lot. But a great thing about filmmaking or video production is you’re not alone. So you keep your ears and mind open to what others have to say and they can help you get through it. Then you learn from your mistakes and do it all over again. Knowing what your strengths are is very helpful.
There are two things helped me to gain confidence. One was the worst shooting experience I had. I thought it fell through really bad. I couldn’t achieve anything I hoped to achieve. But I still came out with a decent finished video. That experience was a big turning point for me. The other experience was working with another DP. He has a lot more experience in the industry than me and worked on much bigger projects. I work with him as a director but also as a camera crew. On several shoots with him, just unthinkable things happened and I had no idea how to get through the situations. But he is a kind of person who has a switch turned on under those circumstances. He loves pressure. I was amazed by watching him get lively in a difficult circumstance. And I just started to enjoy it, too, and the experience of working with him reminds me that I, too, love problem-solving. So now I don’t get nervous before a shoot as much as I did before.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I make videos for brands and artists but I am trying to shift more and more into narrative filmmaking. I love stories and storytelling. I am most interested in connection and self-discovery and growth. Recently I had the privilege to direct a music video for a Japanese artist, SHINJIRO. He was one of the members of a huge Japanese Pop music group called AAA back in Japan and since the group broke up in 2020, he has been working as a solo artist. In August this year, he became the first Asian Pop start to publicly come out as gay. The song tells his story and struggle and very personal to the artist himself. I truly think what he did was brave and important and we all wanted the music video to mean something, help people to connect with his struggle and journey. My high school friend who’s now a 6th grade teacher told me he is going to use the song and video to talk with his students about LGBT in his class, which is still not openly talked about in Japan. I am very proud to be part of the production.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The first one would be start early. As early as possible. We procrastinate. Don’t. The more you do it, definitely the better you get. Also, trial and error is the only way to learn. So the time you procrastinate is the time you waste. The second would be persistence. People give up. I just didn’t or still haven’t. That’s all. I think, if you want to do something, accomplish something or learn something, the best way is to love it. Love the process. Loose yourself in the process, whatever you are doing or trying to do. If you have to do something, you better enjoy doing it. It’s simple but works.
The third would be don’t be afraid of criticism and follow your heart. People just might mean well but don’t listen to others telling you what to do or how to do it. If an idea speaks to you, do it. And do it in a way you think is the best and fail in your own way. The lesson you learn from the experience is priceless. Those experiences would lead you to build your own voice that makes you stand out from others.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Yes, of course. I would love to meet and connect with people with stories to tell and want to meet with a filmmaker, artists who’d like to tell/share something about themselves and their work to connect with the world. I also want to get more into fashion shoots so new clothing brands. I would also love to connect with producers. The rest of this year and next year, I will definitely get back more and more onto narrative filmmaking. They can connect with me on my website or instagram.
Contact Info:
- Website: tsubasamaruno.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tsubasamaruno/
