The why: Justin Perkinson uses filmmaking skills to bring research to life

Research institutions such as Virginia Tech often feature collaborations that extend beyond traditional subject areas.

But the combining of a filmmaker, a nanoscientist, and a biologist to study freshwater mussels probably stretches even the wildest imaginations.

“It is hard to imagine,” Justin Perkinson, associate professor of cinema production in the School of Performing Arts within the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design, admitted. “But it doesn’t surprise me… It’s been one of the more rewarding aspects of this job. When I was hired, there was a lot of talk about transdisciplinary work, and I was like, ‘Great, bring it. Let’s go.’”

Hired in 2018 to teach filmmaking and cinematography, Perkinson is using his unique background to do that and also to tell the stories of conservation research efforts around the globe. He specializes in using virtual reality (VR), 360-degree video, and other emerging technologies to highlight research endeavors that not only educate, but hopefully prompt action.

For a man who wanted to become a medical doctor, Perkinson has found a unique niche at Virginia Tech, bridging the gap between science and cinema at a university that welcomes unlikely collaborations.

“I’ve discovered some things with the blending of my passion for the underwater and the filmmaking and the science,” Perkinson said. “This has really been the place that’s put those things together and given me a model for a way forward for continuing this type of work.”

Unlikely collaboration beneath the surface

Such was the case a few years ago when Perkinson gravitated toward this path. He teamed with Jess Jones, a restoration biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stationed at Virginia Tech, and Matthew Hull, a nanoscientist at the university’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, on a project that studied freshwater mussels.

Hull originally went to Perkinson with a broad idea to work on a VR project to convey nanotechnology in the world around us. But he happened to bring up the graduate research on freshwater mussels that he had done with Jones, and Perkinson became captivated.

Shortly thereafter, Perkinson, Hull, and Jones were diving in Southwest Virginia’s Clinch River. Using specialized equipment, they put together an immersive experience that transports people to the underwater world of freshwater mussels, one of the most endangered species globally and one critical to ecosystems in Southwest Virginia because of their ability to filter particles from water to keep rivers and creeks clean, healthy and functional.

“Where this thing started and where we ended up was very different,” Hull said. “I’m not a storyteller — I’m a scientist and a researcher, and so I’m trying to think about how to communicate this technically complicated subject, and the more Justin and I talked, the more he really took interest in the mussel part of it, so we never really got beyond that part of it. We ended up just sort of really focusing in on this story of the endangered freshwater water mussels. I think Justin saw the story within the story.”

Their collaboration resulted in a seven-minute immersive documentary, “Benthos 360," that takes viewers beneath the river, one of the most biodiverse and most threatened mussel habitats in the country, to explore the vibrant yet vulnerable aquatic world known as the Benthic Zone.

“Benthos 360” ultimately won a People’s Choice award at the 2022 ACCelerate Festival held at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and has been part of exhibitions throughout the country ever since. It even led to Hull receiving a grant to put together another immersive experience with Perkinson and Jones – this one called the ConserVR: Immersive Conservation Training Modules Development and Virtual Administration/Evaluation. Within this project, Perkinson helped create modules to provide conservation professionals with hands-on, immersive learning tools that simulate real-world hazardous spill situations and improve training to deal with such scenarios.

“Personalities are so important, just having good people to work with,” Hull said. “If you can connect and respect one another and appreciate one another and get along, I think that’s when even the weirdest disciplinary collaboration becomes possible.”

A winding path to filmmaking

Perkinson never expected his career to evolve this way, though perhaps his stepfather’s collection of National Geographic magazines foreshadowed his future. Or maybe he was shaped by freediving and spearfishing to catch seafood during extended visits to his father’s home in Negril, Jamaica, where he developed a deep attachment to the people, the culture, and especially the sea.

The Richmond native attended Davidson College with original intentions of majoring in chemistry and becoming a medical doctor in a small mountain town.

“I basically got the mountain town part right,” he joked.

A freshman writing course at Davidson opened his mind to different avenues and started a circuitous path toward filmmaking. A study abroad trip to Spain led to him pursuing a degree in English with a minor in Spanish, but no firm career plans.

“I probably should have been thinking about that more,” Perkinson said. “I liked reading, and I liked writing. I thought, ‘Well, I like this stuff, and this is something I can deepen and study.’ I justified it to myself by saying, ‘Well, in any job that I might have, I need to communicate and so this is giving me skills for that, and there is analysis that goes along with that major.’”

A postbaccalaureate fellowship with The Rotary Foundation following his graduation took him to Argentina to live and study. Upon his return, Perkinson accepted a position at a management consulting firm in New York City.

In New York, he started photography as a hobby. He also volunteered for a nonprofit group called Touch Foundation created by Lowell Bryan, a senior partner at the consulting firm and a Davidson graduate. The nonprofit focused on training locals in Tanzania to become doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers.

Perkinson eventually left consulting for a full-time position at Touch Foundation. He convinced Bryan to let him update the nonprofit’s video, resulting in Perkinson traveling to Tanzania to make what became his first real documentary.

“That was really the hook for me,” he said. “That’s where I realized, ‘OK, this is what I want to do with my life.’”

To learn more of the nuances of filming and editing, Perkinson bought a camcorder and became involved in a project that explored the dangers of working at a certain silver mine in Bolivia. His experience with that project led to another life-altering decision.

“I decided to commit to being a filmmaker and to studying it formally in a graduate program,” Perkinson said. “Some of my favorite filmmakers never went to film school, but for me, I wanted that focused, structured learning environment with other people.”

Choosing film school

In 2009, Perkinson enrolled at UCLA to pursue a dual Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in film directing and cinematography. He studied Mandarin for two years while in graduate school and then built on that after receiving a Fulbright Arts Grant to study and live in China.

Perkinson spent 15 months in China shooting footage for a documentary titled “Winter Worm Summer Grass” that focused on a family who foraged the Tibetan Plateau for Cordyceps, a medicinal caterpillar fungus. He completed the editing of the documentary with assistance from a Virginia Tech grant after his arrival in Blacksburg.

Following his graduation, Perkinson worked on numerous film and video projects, while expanding further into immersive storytelling. A History Channel project led to a connection with a company called Secret Location, a Toronto-based studio that won the first-ever primetime Emmy for a virtual reality project. Through that company, Perkinson landed a VR project with United Nations Foundation that focused on the global malaria crisis and took him to Tanzania for a second time — a full circle moment for him.

“The first time, it’s ‘Oh my gosh, I’m in Tanzania. I’m making this film. I don’t know what I’m doing,’” Perkinson said. “And the next time I’m there, I have a dual MFA degree in filmmaking and cinematography, and I’m doing this innovative storytelling with a virtual reality camera.”

His work since has spanned different projects and platforms – everything from short web stuff to music to documentary work. He has worked with outlets like Vice, Viceland, Live Nation TV and PBS, and helped to create documentaries such as ones about the people living on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and a minor league baseball rivalry in Mercer County, West Virginia.

Entry into teaching

In 2016, a friend of his in the industry — Jeanne Tyson, a noted cinematographer who also taught a cinematography course at UCLA Extension and was Perkinson’s teaching assistant during his first year in graduate school — asked Perkinson to fill in. After some contemplation, he agreed, balancing his professional work with teaching the once-per-week course. His enjoyment of teaching led to him joining a higher education listserv that publicized open jobs.

In 2017, he came across a job posting at Virginia Tech’s School of Performing Arts, which was seeking a documentary filmmaker with a virtual reality background.

“That job description matched my work,” Perkinson said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, wow, this could be interesting.’”

Perkinson’s two uncles and his sister had graduated from Virginia Tech, so he had first-hand knowledge about the university. But in the middle of a project with Hyundai at the time, he decided to pass on applying.

Then he had second thoughts. He emailed the head of the search committee only to find that the committee had its finalists.

“Something felt big about missing that opportunity,” Perkinson said. “Something in my gut was like, ‘That was for you, and you dropped the ball. You missed the window.’”

As chance would have it, the committee reopened the search and reached out to Perkinson. In June 2018, he accepted the position.

Science needs storytellers

Since then, Perkinson has enjoyed teaching two courses each semester, guiding students through the finer points of cinematography and filmmaking. Yet his workload continues to increase outside the classroom, as colleagues both at Virginia Tech and across the globe become aware of his skillset.

Perkinson, an advanced and self-reliant scuba diver, currently is collaborating on two projects with the University of the Virgin Islands. One involves a documentary on a summer program called Ocean Explorers that provides swimming lessons, hands-on marine science training, and conservation training to young kids in hopes of creating interest and building skills and pathways for children to become scientists and conservationists. The other is an immersive project about coral restoration and mangrove protection, how the two are intertwined and their importance to everyday people.

These types of collaboration are probably going to increase, according to Jones, the biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“The conversation always centers around how the sciences can reach the public in a meaningful way,” Jones said. “It’s a big issue today. How do we convey relatively complex science and distill it down so that people can understand it? I just feel like this medium, what Justin does, really does that. It allows you to connect with them and explain those kinds of things.”

That is great news to Perkinson, who aspires for more adventures. He wants to earn additional certifications in scuba diving, and while enjoying the work with his current projects, he desires to explore others. For example, he expressed interest in nudibranchs, colorful marine mollusks often referred to as sea slugs, and he says he would enjoy collaborating with researchers on these unique creatures.

As a kid, Perkinson wanted to be a physician. Years later, he interestingly has found a different way of helping others by carving out an unexpected role at Virginia Tech — partnering science and cinema in a place where surprising collaborations often thrive.

Perkinson once imagined a future in medicine. Instead, he discovered a different calling at Virginia Tech.

“For me, it’s a welcome opportunity to keep learning and also to collaborate and to help share and tell stories that I wouldn’t necessarily have access to or would not have the expertise to be able to,” Perkinson said. “It’s not my direct realm, but that’s one of the real benefits of working in a place like Virginia Tech.

“I certainly want to continue this type of work. I really believe in science-art collaboration. I think that’s the way.”