Nikita Kuzmenko on music-video cinematography

Hailing from Kyiv, Ukraine, cinematographer Nikita Kuzmenko has been working internationally for a number of years, amassing a stunning variety of music-video credits with artists such as Cardi B, Harry Styles, Dua Lipa and Lenny Kravitz. In this video, Kuzmenko discusses his long-running collaboration with director Tanu Muino, offers insights from his experiences in prep and production, and details his process for choosing a project's lenses - including how he developed a particular penchant for Panavision Primos. 

From Skateboarding to Cinematography

Growing up, Kuzmenko had a passion for both skateboarding and photography, interests that he found went hand-in-hand. "Later on," he says, "when I finished primary school and I was choosing where to go [for university], I chose cinematography because basically photography was something that I was enjoying that time. I'd done lots of short films in film school, and then after that slowly getting into small projects, sometimes for my friends, but also just doing the skateboard videos."

As he began to build a body of work in music videos, a few projects in particular provided significant stepping stones. "In Ukraine, where I'm from originally, from Kyiv, there was a music video for Jamala, a Ukrainian singer who won Eurovision," he reflects. "Then I shot Harry Styles' 'As it Was' music video, which was a turning point in my career."

The "As it Was" video teamed Kuzmenko with director Tanu Muino, who has been a consistent collaborator in the cinematographer's career. "We've been on a long journey of creating music videos from the very beginning," Kuzmenko shares. "We work together all the time and work as a duo." 

Discussing how he steps aboard a music-video production, Kuzmenko offers, "Of course, the artist is involved in actually choosing the director and the creative team, and it's based on the body of work that the director and cinematographer have done before. Also on the creative style, matching the visual style of the director and the tone."

Choisir les objectifs

The cinematographer's first opportunity to work with Panavision coincided with his first big job in the U.S. "My first experience working with Panavision was in 2022, in Los Angeles, when I first came to shoot a 'proper' music video, for Cardi B," Kuzmenko recalls. "Tanu Muino, the director of all the major music videos I've done, she's a big fan of Panavision. We started thinking what lenses to use, and I said, 'There is a Panavision. We never used it before, but maybe we should try.' And then we ended up watching movies that had been done on Panavision.

“The Matrix is our longtime favorite film,” Kuzmenko continues, “and it was done on Primos, and we said, ‘Yeah, let's go. Let's do it on Primos.’ And since that time, this has been our first choice all the time.”

Kuzmenko emphasizes the importance he places on testing lenses during prep and even between jobs. "Usually when I go in to choose a lens, I come in into the facility, take everything I can get on that day, and look through the lens, trying to shoot some portraits, and look around the lens and see the technical aspects, like this lens is more soft or more contrasty or more warm. And then trying to see how they actually work in real life, and look through this lens for a while and see if that's going to be matching your idea.

"Because the visuals are very much the center and core of music videos, I think cinematography part is very huge," Kuzmenko adds. "That's why on the pitching process, you already present the visual concept so the artist can understand how certain things and ideas will look."

Energy on the Set

"The music-video industry is very dynamic," the cinematographer shares. "It has lots of time pressure. And usually preproduction happens very, very fast. It might take a week, or sometimes can take two or three days to prep the whole video. The shoots usually are around one or two days, sometimes three - and if you have three days, that's amazing."

Syncing the action on set with the video's song can happen in different ways depending on the artist and record label. "With Harry Styles," Kuzmenko says, "we had some earplugs [for listening to the recorded track]. They tried to keep this music very private. But sometimes people just want to play the [song] loud and sing the song, which is also great because you feel the energy.

"Most of the time artists are willing to do something great and kind of invest their time in the video," he continues. "You want to make sure that everyone on set is connected in a spiritual way, that everyone wants to do something beautiful and nice." 

That deep-rooted passion for the work critical for a cinematographer, Kuzmenko concludes. "I would say this is so important, to be excited and have curiosity for this job. Treat it as a science as well, and explore. And just explore all the time, look at the history, but also look at the future and try to mix it."