But of course a lot happened in between, before and after.
Before enrolling at the Willem de Kooning Academy (WDKA) in Rotterdam I decided to up my technical expertise at the Media College in Amsterdam where I spent two years around lots of camera’s, lights and audio equipment. After the two years there I felt I had established a solid base for the more conceptual teachings of an art academy.
Once arrived at the WDKA I quickly found my roll as a camera operator amongst various group projects. It was here where I truly found my passion for creating moving images. Whilst learning the various ins and outs of creating beautiful and well thought out cinematic content I started my own freelance business as a film maker. Through this business I was able to experience the commercial side of film and the learned additional important skills not offered during my studies.
In 2013 I took the chance to combine my love for action sports with my ever growing passion for film and traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to intern with Teton Gravity Research. A questionable choice according to my studies Head of Deparment because “action sports videos arn’t a real thing right..?”, but nonetheless one of the best choices I’ve ever made. It was here where I discovered action sports cinematography in it’s proper form and from that moment on I knew I never wanted to do anything else. I used this new found insights to create my graduation film about the growing and ever changing surfing culture of The Netherlands. “Jong Geleerd” was the film I graduated with in 2014, a milestone in my aspiring career. From here I started doing various works in as many different genres of film and video production.
I spent a lot of time post-graduation travelling around the world working on several big and small projects to gain a lot of experience in the field. During this period I got in contact with companies like AGU, O’Neill, Protest, Quiksilver, Lets Be Nomads, KNWU and others that provided me with the possibility to create content in my most favorite of genres. During this time I also settled for doing some work on the side unrelated to the film industry, even though this was necessary to pay the bills I did found myself held back because I wasn't able to pursue the full ambition of doing creative work and in the year after my graduation I decided to go ahead as a fulltime freelancer. With this now being my only source of income it was key to start building a network and creating opportunities. I found a good place to call my professional home in the Design Dock of Rotterdam where I can be amongst other film makers and creatives.
Things now started to get traction and with a steady stream of work I could really focus on the things I found important, which mainly means, doing as much work as possible. Sometimes things I love, sometimes things I needed to do, and creating a perfect balance in that. This made me create a small platform for travel video's in the fall of 2017. The concept, called One Minute Worlds, was to create a short travel videos up to one minute in length, the perfect amount to showcase on social media and probably , coincidentally, the avarage time the young millenial brain seems to be able to focus. With this I've now created over 25 unique video's combining old and new projects in one curated portfolio. I'm even trying to get other filmmakers on board to give them a platform to showcase their adventures.
Things are well, but as I'm always looking to grow, improve and learn, my main focus is to keep connecting with new people and companies to see how we can support and complent each other!
I hope to hear from you soon!