Meetings along the Bosphorus

In: Inspirational| Photography Projects

20 Feb 2010

kunsthalOn the 23rd of january a photography exhibition about the great city of Istanbul opened up in ‘De Kunsthal’ in Rotterdam. It’s called ‘Onmoetingen langs de Bosporus’ which basically means ‘Meetings along the Bosphorus’.

Photographer Nicole Segers travelled the bosphorus river up and down by some of the ferryboats on the river for about a year, starting in 2007. She took pictures of all the people she met along the way in one of the oldest cities in the world that links west and east, old and new, and Europe with Asia.

I’ll be visiting this exhibition next week to gain some new inspiration. I’ve been in Istanbul many times and I’ve taken many pictures of it. To me, the city never dissapoints. On each street corner there is something new to discover. From all the places I’ve seen in the world, there is no place that calls me back more then Istanbul does.

You can read about the exhibition in the link below (in Dutch). I also added some photos from Istanbul that I made myself in this post. So don’t confuse them with the pictures from exhibition in Rotterdam. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy them!

Link: Kunsthal website

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Gerda Havertong Portrait in ICCO Magazine

In: Photography Projects

19 Feb 2010

JRA short time before I went to Lisbon I did a photoshoot for the ‘Ceramics Museum in Leeuwarden’, Holland. The same day, after the photoshoot in the museum, I also made some portrait photos of Gerda Havertong. One of these pictures has recently been used in ICCO magazine, for an interview with Gerda Havertong. Gerda Havertong has been actively involved with ICCO and has been a member for years.

Gerda HavertongGerda Havertong

Gerda Havertong used to present on the Dutch Sesame Street. She is a professional artist and also writes books. Just recently she did the voice over for a 3D character in the Disney film ‘The Princess and the Frog’ (Dutch version).

Some of her activities are poetry, storytelling for children and poems for ‘third world liturature’ in combination with music.

About ICCO

ICCO is an organisation that works on a world without poverty and injustice. For this reason ICCO supports various projects in the world that have that same main goal, and ICCO gives a contribution to these projects by for example financing it and giving assistence.

The interview for ICCO Magazine used one of the portrait photos I made of miss Havertong. The interview was held by Jan-Henk van Vulpen. You can read (in Dutch) and see the article and picture in the link below. I also added the photo in this blogpost.

Read the article here: ICCO Article

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Back in Holland

In: Graduation| Journeys| Video Projects

18 Feb 2010

JR

On december the 29th I flew back to The Netherlands from Lisbon, Portugal. My internship at CheckTheGate had come to an end. After very nice goodbyes with both company CheckTheGate and other people that I’ve met over the past 4 months that I was there, I was packed and ready to go back home to work on my graduation project.

I’ve decided to make a documentary and at this point I have several options, both local and abroad. The most important thing for me right now is to find a place to put the film. What I mean with that is that I need an institution, a channel or a website that’s interested in what I would like to make and possibly, if necessary willing to finance it. In the upcoming posts I’ll write about the various subjects and options that I have at hand.

I would also like to use this blogpost to share some of the pictures on the filmset I worked on for the NGOL Commercial in Lisbon for CheckTheGate.

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CheckTheGate – Part 6 – Merry Christmas & a happy new year!

In: Internship 'Check The Gate'

17 Dec 2009

Blog_ChristmasI would like to use this particular blog to wish everyone a merry chrismas and a happy and succesful 2010 from Lisbon, Portugal. I know that at this moment in the province of Friesland (where I was born) in the Netherlands there is currently a 30 cm pack of snow – and still growing. Unfortunatly in Lisbon this obviously is not the case! :) However, I would like to post a picture from my province – made by a friend and fellow student of mine – to share a pre-white christmas with everyone who reads this.

Also I have another anouncement to make: my next semester will be my graduation project, and I’m currently working out several ideas including a synopsis for a short fiction film and a plan for a short documentary about a town called Hasankeyf in the far south east of Turkey. Due to the ammount of time a project like this might take, I might go back home a little earlier from Lisbon then planned before. Officially I should be doing an internship for 5 months, but my faculty agreed they don’t want to stop me from working a little longer on my graduation project by starting a bit earlier on it. Another reason for me personally is that currently there are not so many filmshoots at the company – allthough a lot of other work is obviously being done, all linked to filmmaking.

When exactly I will be going home is uncertain at the time. I enjoy my time in Lisbon very much. Both at my internship and socially it’s a good life here at the Atlantic Ocean :) Have a look at the Christmas card I made in Photoshop as well for all the foreign clients of CheckTheGate!

Snow in the Province of Friesland - Photograph by Jelmer de JongChristmas_card_Final_English

Christmas card I made for clients from CheckTheGate

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CheckTheGate – Part 5

In: Internship 'Check The Gate'| Video Projects

9 Dec 2009

logo_CTGIn this blog I posted the commercial I worked on during my internship at Check The Gate. It was a commercial for Angola, one of the former colonies of Portugal, where – just like in Portugal – they love football! Enjoy the 30 second commercial for ‘Ngol Lubrificantes’ and leave a comment if you like or not.

The commercial was shot with two Red One cameras and the post production was done in Tobis, the first post production house in Portugal.

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‘Letting Go’ premiere at the Northern Film Festival!

In: Video Projects

23 Nov 2009

Letting_Go_00On the 11th of november I went back to the Netherlands for 6 days to be at the Northern filmfestival (NFF) in The Netherlands, Leeuwarden. Thanks to a teacher from my faculty in The Netherlands I was able to enter a workshop ‘Making Documentaries’ given by two famous Dutch documentary makers Pieter Verhoeff and John Appel.

The next day the short films that were nominated a few months earlier were shown in the ‘filmhuis Leeuwarden’ which included my short film Letting Go which ended up in second place in the highest catagory (Semi-Pro). I’m very happy with the second place of Letting Go, also because at first I wasn’t planning on sending it to a festival in the first place! I added the film in this blog below.

The competition was also very enjoyable because some friends & family came along and also the crew and actors were there. Koen Leerink (DOP), Arne Mulder, (DOA) Boa Mulder (set photographer), Christopher Morgan (actor) and Vassilena Valchanova, who was the actrice in the film, came to the festival from Bulgaria to the Netherlands. In the end it was a great week for me of networking, inspiration, motivation, agknowledgement that we made something good,  and off course meeting up with family and friends.

And now it’s finally time to put the short film Letting Go on my blog! Hope you enjoy it :)

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CheckTheGate – Part 4

In: Inspirational| Internship 'Check The Gate'

23 Nov 2009

logo_CTGIt’s been a while again since I last posted here so I figured it’s time for some new ones! Firstly some more about my internship! Finally went to the filmset some weeks ago and it was great! We did a 23 hour job straight on but I got so much positive energy from it that I didn’t feel tired at all. I especially learned a lot from the Director Of Photography (DOP) Rui Pocas who is known as one of the best DOP’s in Portugal. He tought me a lot about lighting and camera movement and compositions and most importantly – why he chose them. What was interesting for me as well was that some shots were exactly how I would have done them.

I was able to work in the intire process of this  production (which by the way was a commercial for Angola, I’ll try and upload it once it has been aired on TV) from making the photos during the scouting for filmset locations up to the casting of the players and finally the Post Production. The casting and scouting allready took several weeks of work. The Post Production company was actually very interesting as well. In fact; it’s the first one in Portugal and nowadays they do basicly everything that’s possible in Post. From 35mm film up to the digital RED and from colorgrading to high standard 3D modelling and animations. I especially enjoyed the colorgrading part in Post on the commercial they did. Learned a lot from it!

I also do some editing myself at Check The Gate. So far I did a making off and some showreels for Check The Gate itself. Some of those showreels contain commercials they did in the past but a showreel where special film techniques are shown are not rare either. More soon! :)

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‘Letting Go’ Soundtrack

In: General| Music Projects| Video Projects

15 Oct 2009

Letting_Go_PortraitIn this blog I would like to share two songs from ‘Letting Go’. I made other versions after I finished the script and never used those.  After we started shooting I was able to compose more ‘visually’ then before.

The first video is the song Iyi Yolculuklar. I wrote it for the film under a different title at first, but later I kind of took some elements from a previous song (iyi yolculuklar) that I was unable to finish before.

Iyi yolculuklar is Turkish for ‘Safe journey’ or something like ‘happy traveling’. I promised and enjoyed composing it for a very good friend of mine from Istanbul.

The second song is called ‘Brand New Start’ and basicly begins during the end credits of the short film.

Hope you enjoy the music and stay tuned for the short film!

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‘Letting Go’ – 4 still frame shots

In: Video Projects

14 Oct 2009

Letting_Go_PortraitIn this blog I want to share a few stills from ‘Letting Go’. In the next blog I will be putting two songs I composed and conducted for the film as well, but I won’t be able to do this tonight.

I hope you like the still frames from the film. I think it will give you an honest idea of the look and feel of the short film, which for the moment is better than nothing I suppose!

After the 14th of november I’ll be uploading the full film on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Hyves, and off course my blog. In other words: stay tuned :) two of the stills contain shots that were filmed with a crane, one shot contains an over shoulder and one shot is a close-up of Christophers expression. The other two are a thumbnail and the begin screen of the DVD menu.

Enjoy the stills!

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‘Letting Go’ nominated for Naff – Part 2

In: Video Projects

13 Oct 2009

NaFF_LogoSo, as I’ve written earlier, my short film ‘Letting Go’ has been nominated on the Noordelijk amateur Film Festival in the student catagory. You can find some more information about it on the website of the Noordelijk amateur Film Festival (click here). On the page ‘dagprogramma’ you can find the time table of all the catagories and a short synopsis about ‘Letting Go’ in Dutch is also available. I hope to see you there, I’ll probably be flying home for the intire filmfestival that will last a full week! Keep it in mind that my Dutch phone got stolen here in Lisbon, so I might not yet be able to answer by phone while I’m in Holland, unless I can allready get a new one. I’ll inform you about this later!

Location: Filmhuis Leeuwarden, Ruiterskwartier 6, 8911 BP, Leeuwarden

Date: saturday, 14th of november 2009

Time & catagory:  12.00 – 13.20 UUR CATEGORIE STUDENTEN AUDIOVISUEEL / SEMI-PROFS.’

In English, I’ve translated the synopsis as followed:

Jaap Ruurd Feitsma – Friesland – 5’39 min.

A romantic meeting between a couple in love in a beautiful poetic scenery can easily find a dramatic turn.

(English spoken, Dutch subtitles).

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