“Jungle Girl”: A LomoKino Dream by David Kupferberg

The larger-than-life dreams of an artist are astonishing when translated to reality. Filmmaker and dreamer David Kupferberg has translated his into lo-fi films. In this interview, Kupferberg talks about how he materialized his ideas through the use of the LomoKino.

Where do you come from, and how did it affect your being a photographer and artist?

I’m originally from a big town called Framingham, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston area. Art is big in Boston, and I’ve always loved all art, but it wasn’t until I moved to New York that I got really into the art of the lens. When I was in high school I requested to be in photo class. There were many more people who wanted to take photos than they had spots in the class. I didn’t get in, and they put me in Art 1. I tried to get into photo class sophomore year too, but was denied again. Who knows where my life could have gone if I had got a spot in the class. Instead, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I went to college, and went to business school.

How did you get in to film photography and filmmaking, and has it always been an interest?

Back in college at Syracuse University I had a Polaroid 600 Camera. My father often used a Polaroid Spectra. That’s where I was first exposed to film photography. At summer camp (Camp Merrimac), when I was a teenager, I took tons of film photos on FunSaver disposable cameras.

After college I worked for a clothing manufacturer in the Empire State Building in NYC. Steven Spielberg had a short film competition TV show. I had just quit my job after over a year, and I decided to make a film. It was called “The Bagman.” I got a little video camera, and we shot it at my friend’s house. There were supposed to be three scenes to the film, but we lost 2/3 of the footage due to cold weather and inexperience with the equipment. I edited the footage into a short film and submitted it to the show. I didn’t get onto the show, but now I finally felt like I knew what I wanted to do — make movies.

I bought a good video camera, and made some cool videos with my friends in NYC. I taught myself to edit, and messed around a bunch with special effects. I linked up with some very talented and awesome NYU students, and worked on a few short films and music videos. In 2009 I traded in my bulky 35mm adapter on rails rig for a 5D Mark II. Before long I was taking more photos than video, and was becoming a photographer for real.

I jumped back into film photography when I worked on the feature film I Believe in Unicorns. I was the set photographer, and shot much of the set photos on instant film. In the movie, Davina, the protagonist, is a film photographer herself, and she receives a Polaroid 600 camera in one of the earlier scenes. This led to a total obsession of instant film, which then led me to Lomography, and opened up a whole new world of film photography.

What camera do you use? Do you use other gear for your film and photography?

I use many cameras, and these days I usually shoot digital. I have a Sony A7S for a more compact setup, but my go-to camera is still my Canon 5D Mark II. I take tons of instant photos, and currently use the Fuji Instax Neo 90 for the most part. All my SLR Polaroid Cameras are broken, and I just got a Mint SLR670 that I’m enjoying a lot. I love, love, love my Mamiya RZ67 with instant back. The shutter is stuck at 1/400, which creates some challenges in low light situations. My travel camera bag is never complete without at least one Lomo LC-A. I have the regular and Wide. Since there are no places left in Maui to get film developed, I have a little backlog of photos I have yet to see from the last couple of years.

I love to use colored and artistic filters. You’ll never get the same results when adding filters in post. “Jungle Girl” was shot entirely with a Whiskey 1 filter taped over the LomoKino’s lens. I love the TrekPod monopods for their versatility and compact size.

Why did you want to create a movie using the LomoKino?

I had a dream about the Lomokino, and it all just came to me. The day Lomography released the LomoKino, you guys put out a bunch of little short films. I ordered a LomoKino immediately as the thought of shooting on film was very exciting to me. At this point I had moved to Maui, Hawaii, where I’m living currently. That night my dreams looked like LomoKino films. I got the camera a few days later, and we made “I Dream In LomoKino.”

And then my friend Stacy Lopez had just quit her job and moved to the jungle, literally. She was living in a work farm owned by a hilarious and wise old hippie in the middle of the jungle in Twin Falls, Maui. She was down to make some art. “Jungle Girl” started with some scenes I had in my head. They were all Stacy doing jungle girl-like movements that would look cool on the LomoKino. I wrote out over 50 ideas like Stacy jumping over a fallen log, or Stacy swinging a machete. Out of all these little scenes a story popped into my head. I could tell my story through Stacy. It’s a common story out here though. Maui is like the jungle, in that life gets simpler when you live here, and when you go back out into the “real” world, it can be daunting.

I had a strong 20-page script, and I thought shooting the whole thing on the LomoKino would be really cool, interesting, and innovative. I put the word out about my plans, and my good friend and professional “sound guy” Joe Stillwater offered to do sound for the film.

What’s the story and inspiration behind “Jungle Girl”?

“Jungle Girl” is about a vegetarian, Lucy Lopez, who gets lost in the jungle, and has to survive, and find her way out. Throughout her journey in the jungle, she realizes that she has all the tools around her to succeed, and decides that she would be happiest staying there. It is about self-actualization, and also seeks to fill a void in female survival tales. It’s an allegory for living on Maui in that, when you live in Maui for a while, and go back to the mainland, life just doesn’t seem the same. This theme is paralleled with Lucy’s life in and out of the Jungle. It was inspired by my life in Maui and Stacy’s real-life experiences in the jungle.

I want to make films that are interesting, but also widely appealing. “Jungle Girl” is a film that highlights female empowerment. This film is obviously meant to appeal to women. The woman in “Jungle Girl” is also very attractive, and does a bunch of cool survivalist stuff which appeals to men and women alike.

What is your favorite film, and who is your favorite filmmaker?

It’s really hard to choose my favorite film, but not hard to choose my favorite filmmaker. If someone asked me what my favorite film was, I’d probably tell them Kinji Fukasaku’sBattle Royale. It’s really a perfect movie that takes the viewers on an emotional roller coaster like no other film I’ve ever seen. There are some other films that might be my favorite as well; it’s just a hard call. The other films at the top of the list are: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly, True Romance, Caddyshack, The Goonies, Big Trouble in Little China, and One Crazy Summer.

With that said, my favorite filmmaker of all time, no question is Quentin Tarantino. He takes the best parts from a bunch of diverse, sometimes crazy movies, adds them to one of his sensational storylines, and turns it into one of the coolest films of all time. He consistently makes the highest quality films around that mix action, comedy, punchy imaginative dialogue, and beautiful shot selection.

What challenges did you face during production? How did you deal with them?

Our biggest challenge in shooting “Jungle Girl” was the rain. Lucy’s mood in the film affects the weather. When she’s scared and lonely, the weather is gloomy. When she starts to find her way, the weather gets nice. We needed sunshine to shoot most of the jungle scenes. Mother nature was not cooperating. Joe came out from SF for a week back in 2012. We shot as much as we could, but it just kept raining. He left, and we had only a quarter of the jungle scenes shot with sound. We would have to do a lot in post.

The rain didn’t stop. It took a month of driving back to Twin Falls every day with Stacy and Samantha (at that time they were both staying at my house to make production easier). Samantha aka “Baby Sam” was lead PA on the film and helped immensely. We would drive the 80 or so minutes out to the jungle early in the morning. If it were raining, we’d wait until noon to see if it cleared up (sometimes it did and we shot some scenes). If not, we would just drive home and regroup. It was getting down to the wire. A big-time TV movie was to be filming, and we had to wrap our waterfall locations. Luckily the sun came out a couple days before the other crew needed the location, and we finished. The Hollywood movie crew had a three-day schedule shooting at Twin Falls. We laughed, but of course for them, they had three days of perfect weather and I heard they shot everything without a hitch. Go figure.

In your perspective, what differs your work from the style of other artists? How has your style changed over the years?

I see my style as a fusion of different things. It’s a mix of digital and analog, masculine and feminine, the old and the new, the funny and the sexy. I try to make entertaining art; art that is widely appealing, but with deeper meanings that you can explore if you want. I try to always be fun, and never pretentious or offensive. I want people to like me, and I want people to like my art. Over the years my art has gone from places to people. When I first started photography I was taking photos of landscapes and things in nature. Nowadays almost all of my photos have people in them, or the art they created.

Do you have a certain ritual before or during a photo shoot?

I listen to house music. It makes any photo shoot a million times better. I always make sure to bring a boom box, and I’ve put together some playlists of good house and dance music that’s perfect for photo shoots. It helps to have a few playlists for the mood of the shoot. Chill music, like Pumpkin, for a chill vibe on your shoot, and some high-energy dance music like The Knocks for an upbeat high-energy shoot.

What or who inspires you in life and art?

People inspire me all the time, every day. The people who most inspire me are my friends. I have some amazing friends who do some amazing things, and I feel blessed to learn from them, and collaborate with them. I have a saying that, “It’s cool to have friends you can look up to.” Who better to learn from, than a friend? I live with my best friend Emily. She’s an award-winning vegetarian chef, and she has inspired me deeply. Stacy inspired “Jungle Girl.” Joe inspired me to make a better film.

What’s the most essential element you look for in a film?

Lighting. In order to take good photos and video you need to tailor your shots to the lighting or create your own optimal lighting. When choosing a film, you must make sure it has a high enough ASA for your shooting conditions.

What’s your stand in the the use of digital vs film in contemporary filmmaking?

There’s a lot of great technology out there that artists can use to create things they never have before. Each artist uses the tools they choose in the way they want to create their own unique works of art. If you look at it one way, now we have more options. This is assuming Lomography and other companies continue to make film, and others are still dedicated to developing it. The lower cost of digital drives the market in that direction. As long as there are a few companies out there making products for film photographers, then let people use digital as much as they want.

You get a better understanding of the digital world when you struggle in the analog world a bit first. Many young artists miss out on the analog, and others, stop to go back and explore it. At this point there are so many great film options still available, and so many cool programs to make those photos look even better. I’m all for technology, as long as it doesn’t make film totally obsolete.

Is there an art principle or philosophy you follow?

It might be nerdy, but I wanted to touch on two of my main principles as a filmmaker, photographer, and VJ (I also mix videos and project them for DJs under the name Professor LightWAV): aspect ratio and disk media.

Many people out there these days don’t understand aspect ratio, or they just don’t care. Most movies are filmed in a 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Old TV’s are a 4:3 aspect ratio. The LomoKino shoots at about 2.8:1, the same as 70mm Ultra Panavision. It really bothers me when a picture is stretched or cropped. Ever been in a bar and the picture on the TVs is all stretched out, and no one seems to care? Or if you’re watching a movie on certain cable networks, and they crop 2.35:1 films to 16:9 like HBO does. This bothers me. I’ve written to HBO a few times about it on Facebook, but received no response. My point with aspect ratio is to respect that ratio, and pay attention to it, and make sure your picture looks right.

Disk media is dying in some ways. Many films, old and new, don’t make it to Blu-ray, and are only available on digital. The Internet isn’t 100% reliable, and maybe it’s the nostalgia in me, I like collecting disks. Also a Blu-ray is 50 gigs, a digital download is 5–10 gigs. There must be some quality loss there.

What work of yours are you most proud of?

The work I’m most proud of is “Jungle Girl.” It’s the one project that I’ve put the most effort into, and it’s a true reflection of myself. With the addition of Patrick Schaffer’s 100% original score, “Jungle Girl” turned out even way better that I had originally conceptualized.

What’s next for you?

I would love to make a feature length “Jungle Girl” film.

I also have a 130-page screenplay for an action comedy about a cross-dressing vigilante called Strong Johnson. He has a pudgy, computer nerd sidekick named Sourdough, and together with their crew they save Paradise Beach from the evil, drug-dealing, record-spinning villain Mr. 45 Large. It’s classic grind house Blaxploitation with a twist. Strong Johnson & Sourdough are the first gay action heroes. They are tougher than leather, and as smooth as silk. Strong is a muscle-bound disco club owner, who wears high fashion women’s clothing, and fights crime in his spare time. Along the way Strong & Sourdough are joined by the rest of their team; Colt Arizona, a military man looking for his lost sister, and Kumiko Ike, a defected Japanese/Chinese gymnast who’s an expert in hand to hand combat.

These days I’ve been performing as a VJ under the name Professor LightWAV. I have already had the honor of performing on Maui’s biggest stage when I headlined Art=Mixx Aquasonic at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center (The MACC). Art=Mixx is a bi-annual event at the largest performance venue in Maui, where the VJ’s and the visual artists get top billing at the show, celebrating their art. I am currently in the submission process for a gallery show at the Schaefer Art Gallery at the MACC. The cool part is my proposal is for a GIF gallery show. We plan to obtain 20+ screens or projectors, and display the infinite art of GIFs for two months in the gallery. Please check out my Giphy page to see my GIFs in high def.

I am also looking to expand my VJ horizons, and would love to book some music festivals to show my projections. Right now I’m slated to play at Raindance in California in early June. I’m beyond excited.

Lastly, what do you wish for the contemporary art world?

I wish for the contemporary art world to embrace the new, but not forget the old. I wish that film lives on forever, and I wish that someone would start manufacturing packfilm now that Fuji has stopped. I wish for disc media (DVD, Blu-ray, Vinyl, CD’s) to stay alive. I wish for Fuji to make an instant wide camera as good as the Neo 90 mini. I wish for a 24 Petzval. I wish for schools to keep their art programs intact. I wish that soon, screens with looping video art sit along side paintings on the wall.

And I wish that no film will ever be unnecessarily cropped for television or any other reason ever. Cropping kills vibes.