Meet Julius Espiritu: Cinematographer & Musician

We had the good fortune of connecting with Julius Espiritu and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julius, why did you pursue a creative career?
In my life I’ve realized that I want to impact people and all of their senses… Emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I originally started producing music at a young age and found it a powerful tool to take people on a journey and invoke emotion.. I found that videography is the perfect outlet that combines music and visuals! Taking the viewer even deeper and even bringing them back to a moment in their life where it may have brought joy or even sadness or even inspire them to become a better person or do something they’ve only imagined doing! 

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
At a young age I noticed that I had a love for the guitar and piano, so I started learning songs by ear because at the time I didn’t know what chords were or what reading music even meant! and to be honest, to this day I still can’t read music notes but did learn how to play chords! But what I can say is that, I rely a lot on my ears when it comes to playing an instrument… as I got older, I decided to pursue being an artist/producer and that was when I got deep into the technical aspect of creating music as far as using software to create songs… from that moment on I started evolving every year and just figuring out ways to get better and learning how to use new software and gear as it came out.. I wouldn’t say it was easy but it also wasn’t to hard for me to learn something new…I’m a very fast learner when it came to technology/music/computers and anything electronic haha… fast forward to 3 years ago from today, I picked up a basic Nikon camera just to have in my back pocket to capture moments and anything I found interesting at the time… I wasn’t producing music as much because I had just gotten married and about to have our first baby and so that had a lot of my attention and just figuring out life and learning how to adult haha So I found that the next best thing to keep my creative juices flowing was to pick up my camera and just start recording videos and taking photos of my growing family… As I got more involved with my church, they’re came some opportunities to take photos and film special moments… The more I volunteered to do this, the more I felt a tug in my heart to pursue it! so just like my love for music, I started to feel this love for capturing moments behind the camera and just learning to become better and find that perfect frame and angle… There was a moment that I’ll never forget on October 25th 2019, is when I created a film for church that probably impacted me more than it did the congregation haha but it was after the short film, that when I saw the reactions of the people from, cheering, to crying and to being inspired is when I knew that this was it… I saw first hand the power of combining music and visuals from a creators aspect. Im a sucker for watching emotional, impactful films but to now experience it from the other side as the filmmaker and producer was just a whole other experience… I knew from that moment on that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Ok to be real (not that im not real lol) I probably wouldn’t be the best tour guide for my friends hahah If a friend came to visit and stayed at my place back when I was in my early-mid 20’s, I would probably take them somewhere where there would be lots of people and probably would involve lots of walking, eating and walking again haha I was more into the party scene back then so friends would actually call or text me asking where the party was at haha but now in my early 30’s, I would say that I would probably suggest to a friend who’s coming to visit that we would do more of relaxing and just go with the flow and see what our mood for the day is haha…

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to give a shout-out to my wife who has been super supportive through this whole journey! She is that part of me that makes the reasonable, logical decisions that keeps my free spirit making decisions on track haha But above all else, I give Jesus Christ all the credit!! He saved me from a lot of things that probably wouldn’t have allowed me to be where I’m at today and to have a beautiful family and loving friends!

Website: http://www.spiritmade.me
Instagram: Espirit2
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spiritmade
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JuliusEarl
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/juelzproduction