It is great to be back. – I have been here for almost a week now, and even though the city was always on my mind during my absence to it, I had forgotten how amazing it is. I still can not completely believe that I am back. When I walk these ancient streets and cross the Bosphorus by ferry, drink cay with a friend or friends while looking at the most amazing views that no other city in the world has got, combined with the hospitality of the people and the rich history that makes it all even more amazing to walk these streets again, it feel like I am dreaming. Regardless of the totally crazy traffic

But this is not a travel blog, so let’s get to the point! I have visited several companies in film production. Either producers or Post-Production houses. Special thanks for making this possible goes to Dr. Nezih Orhon who taught me at the Anadolu University in Eskisehir back in 2008 in the Cinema & TV faculty. I hope to pay him a visit within my timespand as well. One of the companies I have visited is situated in both Amsterdam and Istanbul and shows some nice possible job perspectives for me. Through this company I will meet various Director of Photographers next week and more Post-Production houses and if everything goes well I can also be responsible for the communication between the establishments in Istanbul and Amsterdam and with various Dutch directors et cetera, since Dutch is my foreign language. Last monday I was already invited to the set for one of their commercials. It is now being broadcasted on more then 25 channels in Turkey already. The producer invited me to the shoot to get to know the team a little bit and as on any set, I felt right at home. If it’s possible, I will post the commercial in a later blogpost.

Apart from ‘filmstuff’ I have also met with a company that does fashion photography. Something new for me but it’s rather interesting. There is a full time job available for which I can apply, but there is also also one on a freelance based way of working within the same company. For the full time job I’ll need to get a working permit for Turkey as soon as possible and there will also be a test shoot where they will watch my performance in the studio. More news will follow next week or when I return to Holland on the 31st of may.

I recently expected, before I came back, that my memory might have played some tricks on me over the years, regarding to the city itself. And that in a way I might be disappointed by revisiting it in the future. But instead of that I was in total ‘awe’ all over again by gazing at all it’s wonderful streets and sights. You don’t have to go far from your hotel or house to run into something completely new that wasn’t there 30 minutes ago, while some of the oldest buildings in the world stand watch high above it. Grand palaces white as snow on the Bosphorus shore, the sea breeze, the busy life in Taksim, the diversity of the European side and the Asian side and everything in between make it impossible to get bored for even a minute in this city once called ‘the capitol of the world.’ And even though actually living in such gigantic city full of traffic and over 20 million people is a whole different thing, I’m still planning on doing this. – It’s great to be back. More news later.

All this due to the fact that many of the works online there are pretty outdated and the current website apart from that is very hard to actually update every now and then with recent work.

Also, it consists of photography work only while I’m also focussing my work on filmmaking and on composing and conducting musical scores for various projects.

And so, for obvious reasons my future portfolio site will consist projects that include film, photography and music productions.

In the meantime I’ve created an account on Behance and some of my more recent work can be viewed there. For some of my music have a listen at my account on SoundCloud.

To view the various accounts/sites just click on the orange links.

Back in Holland

It’s been a while since my last blog post about our project from Namibia. In the previous one I was still in Gobabis. Meanwhile I’ve been back since the 4th of september and I’ve recently graduated with the documentary we shot in the town of Gobabis in Namibia.

In the video link below you can check out the teaser I made of our film.

The symposium

The film was shot to be shown at a symposium by the municipality of Smallingerland about Development Aid and about the ‘twinning’ between Smallingerland and Gobabis. The purpose was to start up discussion by showing the film, about both the twinning and Development Aid.

Bert Middel, mayor of Smallingerland

The symposium was a succes! Allthough personally I was very dissapointed that the mayor Bert Middel did not like the film simply because he had been told or thought so himself that the film would show all the great things that Smallingerland had done for the twinning and Development Aid. This however, was not our assignment. Making a promtion film was not the goal. If that is what they actually wanted they should have said so and they should have sent two first year students who they can grab by the arm and tell them what to do and exactly how to do it, but not two grad students that are willing to take the assignment seriously and actually talk with the people in town and in the slums to create an honest point of view. The assignment in fact was to give an overall view – from a new perspective – (Jelmer and I are fairly new to the whole Development Aid scene) on things and to tell a clear and honest story of what went wrong and what went well between the twinning and Development Aid in general, and tell something about future perspective et cetera.. The mayor was very dissapointed about the story we had told with our film.. Apparently a dishonest film is more appriciated than an honest one.. That’s life. In bureaucratic ‘lies’ become a policy.

Graduation presentation

On wednesday the first of december there will be a presentation at the NHL University of Applied Sciences at 19:30 and afterwords we will show the film. There will be snacks, coffee and thea and everyone who would like to come is more than welcome!

Hope you enjoyed the teaser, have a look at Jelmer’s one below (we both made teasers seperately).

In 2008 I studied and lived in Turkey for about 8 months. I was a participant of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), an exchange program that gives students the oppurtunity to study in a foreign country. I chose to do this in Eskisehir (Eski = Old, Sehir = city), Turkey.

In Eskisehir I studied at the Anadolu University at the Cinema & Television department. During my studies there I made several films and photography projects, learned a little bit of Turkish language and about it’s history and travelled the entire country and some of it’s middle eastern neighbours, many photo’s I have taken on this great journey can be found in my portfolio up till today (allthough I am currently making a new selection of pictures).

Apart from all that, during my study, me and some other Erasmus students were asked to be interviewed for a Turkish TV channel at the University about the Erasmus program and our experiences with it. ‘Why did I choose Turkey?’ ‘What are the biggest differences between the university in Turkey and the one I study in at Holland?’ And a whole lot more questions like that.

I was never able to actually (re)watch the interview myself either online or on TV, but my dad came across the following article from the ‘Anadolu Haber’ a Turkish newspaper from the Anadolu University.

Basically what the article says is that I had been in Istanbul a year earlier -  before I went there for Erasmus – and fell in love with the city and it’s people (this is true ).

It also says that I talked about two Turkish Students (Pinar and Fikeriye) who went for Erasmus in Holland at my faculty from Turkey and when I became friends with them. I decided to study in Turkey myself for a couple of months. The article goes on about how ‘special’ it was for me and then continues with the questions about our cultural diversities and stuff like, all very interesting!

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you, I found it quite nice to see this article.

And for the ones who can read Turkish, enjoy

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!

So this is what happened; I was enjoying a coffee and reading a book in Rossio, a nice area of Lisbon  with the biggest shopping street and two nice squares with some very nice fountains on both ends. Sitting at the cafe next to one of the squares, a little girl and – I assume – her mother asked me to buy hankerchiefs. I had allready given a little money to someone else earlier that day, so it was enough for me. But they kept bothering me, more then usually. The little girl was on the left behind me at some point while the mother was on the right side behind me. I was holding my iPhone (I was texting). The little girl started tapping my shoulder annoyingly, so I turned to her and at the same time (soooo stupid!) I put my iPhone on the table. The little girl pushed the hankerchiefs in front of my face (so that I couldn’t see propperly anymore) and when I pushed the hankerchiefs away they finally went away. But off course when I looked down on the table the phone was allready gone! I had allready payed for my coffee so I went looking for them instantly. Obviously they were nowhere to be found. I suppose it really WAS the oldest trick in the book…

Also, Jose told me today that – if the short documentaries about Portugal are a ‘go’ – I can direct one or two myself. I’ll be involved in the whole film production process in any case for the other ones as well. more information and updates soon!

Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) was born on the 27th of october in 1466. He was a was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and Catholic Christian theologian (and much, much more..). And he was way ahead of his time when it came to opinions about war, women rights and for example Christianity. He is by far the most famous person of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and during his studies he went all over Europe to gain more knowledge and to learn more about cultural diversities. He wanted more people to do the same because it was such a life changing situation for him.

And in 1987 the Erasmus Scholarship programme was born. In a way, as a legacy to Erasmus himself. The programme offers students within the European Union, but also some future EU canditates (such as Turkey and Switzerland) to go abroad and study in a different university than the one in their own country. It is now also possible to do an internship abroad.

I was an Erasmus student in Eskisehir, Turkey for one semester. I was there for 7 months in total. I studied Cinema & Television at the Anadolu University (one of the biggest campuses in the world) and my time in Turkey was simply unforgettable. You get to meet so many people from all over the world (not only Europe, because there are obviously more scholarship programmes) and you get to learn about their culture and visa versa.

The beauty of the Erasmus programme for me personally is that you will be Erasmus forever, even when you’ve gone home, you’ll always be Erasmus. The people you meet during your Erasmus time – both local and international – become your friends and some of those friends become best friends. In other words: you visit them and they visit you.

Basicly, that is what Desiderius Erasmus wanted to achieve and in the end he did! A very good friend of mine who I met during my Erasmus time once said that ‘Erasmus was the lesson of her life’. She didn’t mean the studying part on another university in particulair, but mostly she meant that getting to know so many new people and learning about each others cultural diversities and obviously about the country you are living in is just one big eye-opener. A life changer.  And once you have removed the prejudices you might have had about a certain country all the little pieces fall into place and you start to understand what Erasmus was talking about hundreds of years ago.

So for all future Erasmus students who read this and maybe even more for the ones who are not quite sure yet weather to go or not; GO! Go and meet with international and local people. Get to know the country you will live in and you will love it after some time, I’m sure. Go and have the time of your life.

I am now, fot the ones who don’t know this yet by the way, Erasmus for the second time. back in turkey I was studying and now I am doing an internship. It’s a new and different situation for me in which I will keep you posted within my upcoming blogs (and some previous ones). The video below is a short TV programme I directed at the university in Turkey. I allready posted it before, but I’d like to put it here again. It will give you at least a little bit of a feeling of it might be when you Erasmus. I hope you enjoy watching it and I hope, for the ones that aren’t sure yet of having their own Erasmus experience, might change their minds and simply go after watching it.

Down here are three photos I made yesterday. Photo 1 one is the ‘view from the office of Check The gate.’ Photo 2 is ‘Metro life at ‘Cais do Sodre’, Lisboa’. And Photo 3 is ‘People become art in a metro hall of ‘Cais do Sodre’, Lisboa.’ The last two photos I shot on my way back home.