Who is your biggest influence?
I try to be equally influenced by as many artists as possible from the worlds of cinema, music and fashion in order to form my very own vocabulary. If I’d have to pinpoint a few names from the world of film however, it would have to be Alejandro Jodorowsky for his otherworldly vision, Ridley Scott for his subtle sense of spacious cinematics and Ash Thorp for showing me that it’s possible to excel in various roles.
What were some of the challenges you had to face in making your films?
Surrendering control! I originally studied Art Direction for advertising and one of the things that’s special about that is that you get a crash course in everything: Concepting, graphic design, 3D art, photography - you name it. This multi-faceted skillset has served me really well as a one-man show freelancer. Now that I’m taking on increasingly bigger productions though, needing my fingerprint in every step of the process is something I’m learning to unlearn.
Do you have a favorite genre to work in? Why is it your favorite?
I am just getting into it, but lately I am very excited about all things Virtual Production. I realize that’s more a technology than a genre, but it’s making a lot of new things possible in the world of cinema.
Personally, I am looking to create vast sci-fi fantasy scenes as well as hyper-stylized arthouse films with it. I just love it when you can stop a film at any given frame and there’s enough thought there to dissect it for the rest of the night.
What’s your all-time favorite movie and why?
If you had asked me last week, I would have said The Holy Mountain, Kooyanisqatsi or the original Bladerunner. Gregory Colbert’s ‘Ashes and Snow’ is pretty high up on the list too.
Since watching it over the weekend however, I am more than infatuated with the masterful craftsmanship behind the show ‘Arcane’ brought to life by French production house Fortiche. The hand-painted textures and brilliant composition work had me binge it twice in a row.
If you could work with anyone in the world, who would that person be?
As a director, I would love to work with Japanese musician Miyavi. I admire his courage to push the boundaries of what is futuristic in his music&videos, always utilizing the cutting-edge technology to make it happen. No stranger to volumetric capture in game engines or 360 degrees live streams, he’d sure be open for whatever shenanigans I could think of.
As a musician being directed, I’d love to work with Andrew Thomas Huang.
The subtle poetry and powerful energy in every single one of his works is something I’d love to learn to embody.
The one person who has truly believed in you throughout your career.
Who really helped me snap out of it was my partner actually. I was definitely experiencing the filmmaker’s equivalent of social media induced body dysmorphia for the longest time - I always felt I didn’t have the skills necessary to make it yet and that I was overall not doing well because the online fame wasn’t coming along as I had envisioned.
As my partner was close to me and saw how tirelessly I work across all the disciplines of film and music, she made me realize that I had become the artist I’ve been wanting to be long ago.
What was the most important lesson you had to learn as filmmaker?
That it’s vital to not only learn about one craft, but about many. Especially when you’re feeling stuck.
The nature of this fractal universe is laid out in a way that patterns repeat themselves in every discipline: Composition, rhythm, medium, the active and the passive, style and flavor; these are only some of the concepts that can be applied across the board. I think that you can learn almost as much about making films by learning about music as you can by actually making films. Hell, I believe you can even learn about filmmaking through cooking.
Is it harder to get started or to keep going? What was the particular
thing that you had to conquer to do either?
To me personally, it was the hardest thing to commit to this path in the first place. I wasn’t born into it so it took a great deal of reflection and determination to go ‘this is me’. There is so much stigma and existential fear around more alternative paths of life when really it’s like jumping into a pool: You feel it with your finger and shudder from the cold. But once you jump in, it gets warm pretty quick. And god is life more fun inside the pool.