Meet Our Team: 30 Seconds with Kilikai Ahuna
Where were you born?
I was born at Kapi`olani Hospital, spent my baby days living in Waimānalo and then moved to Kapa`a on Kaua`i to live the rest of my childhood days there. Later, I found myself traveling and working on both islands - O`ahu and Kaua`i - and eventually moved back to O`ahu.
What is your education background?
I graduated in 2017 from Island School on Kaua`i and studied photography at the Art Institute of Orange County California for only a semester. Then I decided to drop out to work and study Visual Effects in the movie production industry. The honest side of me never liked school. Throughout my years of high school and my quarter year in college, I self taught a lot of my photo and videography skills and ended up finding myself learning more in the field: working on sets, traveling with others, and just hanging out in the right community of people.
What do you love about videography?
The passion I have for visual storytelling is the way I can take words and express them in a visual image. By doing this, I create an augmented perspective: using focal lengths, framing, color in frame, and lighting techniques. Throughout my school years I was never great with writing essays or getting anything visually in my head on paper. I always loved asking a teacher if I could do a visual presentation. It wasn't my forté when it came to writing a paper on cell membranes. It was a lot more interesting to me to show how the development of the cell splits in a stop motion video. Or instead of researching and writing a paper on the overthrow of Hawai`i, it was more fascinating digging into archives of old film roles of the Queen and her cabinet and finding developed images from one of the first large format cameras.
What are you up to these days?
Nowadays, besides working with RKT Media, I’m a Visual Effects Data Wrangler/Co-Producer on major feature films. My past work includes Universal films Fast and Furious, Disney Jungle Cruise and 20th Century Fox’s Avatar. I’m also a social media influencer alongside my girlfriend creating content for social campaigns for hotels, fashion/beauty, travel companies, and much more. At the moment, I’m training for my elite triathlete card for 2021-2022.
Share an interesting fact about yourself?
I've only been doing film for about two years now. Before that, I was a professional motocross rider racing the AMA FIM motocross/supercross circuit. This is the industry that sparked my creative visions for creating motion pictures.
