We were lucky to catch up with Justin Kueber recently and have shared our conversation below.

Justin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I first knew I wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally when I was a kid making movies with my home video camera. I always loved watching movies and I was curious how they got made. So making my own was my first step into that world. And really from there I haven’t looked back. I always knew I wanted to write and direct. It’s funny, we had to take aptitude tests in school and every time my top jobs would be Director, Writer and Lawyer. I think I’m a better fit for the first two.

Justin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am 32 years old and I am a director and screenwriter based out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I say director and screenwriter but I also do about 8 million other things with my company Guerrilla Motion Pictures including producing. I love producing but in the future I don’t want it to be my main focus. In an ideal world, I would team up with a producer who can take care of that side of things and I can focus on directing and writing. It is a challenge wearing all the hats on production but it’s a challenge I am willing to take on at this point in my career. Down the line maybe not so much.

I have six completed feature length screenplays. Many of which have won awards. In September 2018, I was awarded Best Local Filmmaker as part of Vue Weekly’s Best of Edmonton Awards. And, in 2019 I was a Quarterfinalist of the 2019 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting for his feature length script Chasing Summer. Chasing Summer is the script I have been working on the longest and I have found a fantastic team out of Vancouver that is currently helping me bring it to life. I have also directed an episode of Our House Media’s Airport Below Zero which premiered on the History Channel in September of 2016. The episode was about the Fort McMurray Wildfires. Currently, I am working on several projects including: an eight-episode docuseries titled Labeled and working on a few new ideas for screenplays, along with polishing up some of my older ones too. These are all big budget screenplays so I will need to find the right team to make it happen.

My company Guerrilla Motion Pictures focuses on all forms of media – documentaries, corporate, narrative shorts/features, music videos, etc. Sam Reid and I formed it in 2013 and it has been going strong ever since. We started off making promo videos for hockey tournaments and weddings and now here we are completing our first, eight-episode docuseries titled Labeled that we are currently pitching around. It’s been an incredible journey building something from the ground up. Celebrating the 10th Anniversary means a lot because it really was such a grind at the beginning. I remember drawing up letters and cold calling potential clients non stop just to get my foot in the door. It’s humbling thinking back and seeing how far we’ve come.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is getting to create and getting to share your creations with the world. I love getting to share a new film or new project with an audience. I always get a bit nervous, butterflies in the stomach, knees weak, arms heavy….mom’s spaghetti HAHA!

Back on topic, it’s rewarding sharing your work with people. That’s what we do as artists. I layer my projects with a lot of meaning and I don’t like to spoon feed the audience, so the greatest reward for me is having conversations with an audience on what they think it means. I never tell them what it means because that would ruin the experience. But, I like listening to theories and how the films resonate with them. The meaning they take out of it. That is my favourite part.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I want to be making movies on a large scale. It’s all I’ve ever wanted since I was a kid. I want to be working with big budgets, top talent and major studios and I won’t stop until I get there. It’s my driving force and it’s the motivation that keeps me pushing every single day.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.justinkueber.com or [email protected]
• Instagram: Jkeebs.film
• Facebook: N/A
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-kueber-439436ba/
• Twitter: @Jkeebs
• Youtube: N/A
• Yelp: N/A

Image Credits
Jose de Los Angeles Elizabeth Chamberlain Emily Welz