Japan-born, Canada-raised artist Justin Maki is making his boldest statement yet. On “Technicolor Dreams,” the FCLMA-winning singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer unleashes a vibrant, groove-forward protest song – a defiant embrace of authenticity and individuality in the face of doubt.

Written originally with Canadian producer Drew Shalka (Mute Choir) during a snowstorm-stranded writing session in Nashville, “Technicolor Dreams” captures the thrill and uncertainty of chasing an unconventional path. “To others, our dreams are unattainable – naive, even,” says Maki. “To us, our dreams explode with colourful possibilities of what could be. Our lives, while unconventional, fill us with so much joy, passion, and purpose.”

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

Technicolor Dreams is a statement song. A protest song. It’s a song that is a decisive response to all of my haters, doubters, and detractors. My entire life, from the moment I picked up a guitar for the first time at 11 years old, friends, family, and strangers alike had warned me of the dangers of pursuing a career in music. “It’s too risky”, they said. “Have a backup plan”, they said. During my high-school and university days, I was hooked on music, focused on the task at hand, and didn’t let their comments affect me. As I grew into an adult, however, their voices became the voices in my head, like a plague, infecting my morale and my motivation. I hesitated to really commit myself to the craft after the structure of school had made way for a wide open road. Soon, I had one foot in the door of a day job and one foot in the door of a music career. In essence, I was half-assing a shot at the conventional life I didn’t want and half-assing a shot at the conventional life I did want. When the pandemic hit, I was laid off from my day job and I was nudged into making a decision: “I’m going to build a career in music, no matter what it takes, how long it takes, and no matter what anyone says”, I thought. Looking at my life now, I do music full time, make a good living doing so, and I’m happy with the life I’m building and the change I’m affecting in the world. As such, Technicolor Dreams is a song that asserts… “Everyone thinks they know what’s right for me I live my life in Technicolor Dreams In the kaleidoscope, that’s where I’ll be I’ll be alright in Technicolor Dreams”

Regarding the visualizer, this answer isn’t going to be sexy, but it’s the truth: my content team and I decided to visualize this song specifically because it aligns with our plan and with our strategy. When charting out the content strategy for this record, we felt it most efficient to create a visualizer for every song on the record, so as to ensure a long form visual asset of some sort could pair with the song up on YouTube. While full fledged music videos are fun, they are also extensive and expensive and I first wanted to see how the song would do first on the streaming and downloading front before seeing if it “qualified” for a music video. For now, all songs (including Technicolor Dreams) will get a visualizer (the music video’s simpler and more efficient long form video cousin). If the song’s metrics do exceedingly well, my content team and I will make the effort to create and release a music video. Essentially, we want to make sure there’s demand first before committing to a big video project for this album.

2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

The main reference/model Brad (my main content guy) and I used when brainstorming an idea for a visualizer was Shaboozy’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”. This video was very simple – it consisted of Shaboozy singing the song into a camera with a few friends dancing and singing along with him around a truck. The same scene persisted for the entirety of the video. It accomplished the (arguably essential) task of a video asset to support the song without an extensive storyline; an expensive budget for props, location, people, and the like; or multiple interlacing scenes. The video is very simple. And yet, said video has almost 300 Million views. This is the perfect example of work smart, not hard. 

Along the same lines, I didn’t want an extensive or expensive music video for Technicolor Dreams. We wanted to work fast, cheap, and effective. The whole video took us all of 3-4 hours to film and it truthfully began with a random spark of inspiration. You see, Brad and I have regular content brainstorming meetings, and during one of these meetings, I organically had the concept of this video pop into my head. This was my thought process: “Technicolor Dreams” has a prominent “colour” theme; churches have stained glass windows with plentiful vibrant colours; what if we used a bright light to project a coloured hue through to the inside of a church, which would shine on me as I lipsync to the song? From there, I tracked down a church, booked a date, paid the booking fee, and we filmed the video. There isn’t much more to it than that. PS: The different “attitudes” paired with each colour and the dancing you see interspersed through the video were completely improvised and thought of on the day of the shoot. 

3. What was the process of making this video?

I already pretty well answered this question above, but to elaborate, the making of this video involved 4 parties: Brad; his assistant Brandon Grubb; my contact at the church, Laurence Williams; and I. I cold called a number of churches to pitch the idea and Laurence got back to me promptly and enthusiastically. We discussed the details of the arrangement and we locked in a date shortly thereafter. I will admit, it was a slight challenge finding a church that was willing to facilitate a secular music shoot, but a little persistence got us over the finish line. The main character in this video-shoot was definitely Brad’s cinema-grade light. I couldn’t tell you what the model or make is, but boy is it ever bright. The strength of the beam from this light made cutting through thick stained glass possible. I will also note that I had originally envisioned patterns being projected on my face, but arriving at the church and testing the beam through the stained glass quickly revealed that we would have to commit to one colour at a time. Finally, a quick Chat GPT session the night prior to the shoot revealed that the coloured light beams’ effects would be amplified if we were to use a haze machine. As such, on the day of the shoot, I dropped by Long & McQuade on the way to the church and rented a haze machine. I’m so glad that I did.