It's award-winning cinematographer and documentary maker, Jean Counet! I attended his workshop The Secrets of Filmmaking in Amsterdam and have to admit a part of me was tempted to give up corporate life and join the sets of a documentary in a remote part of the world. Since that would be a tad extreme and could potentially backfire, I decided to play my cards right and pour myself into another blog.
🎥 Profile
Jean Counet a triple threat. He's an entrepreneur, a cinematographer and a director. He has 24 national and international awards in his kitty. He describes his filming style as poetic and subtle and seeks authenticity in his documentaries. He's Dutch and a proud father. His latest venture, If the Sun Explodes just released and you can catch it at The Netherlands Film Festival in September.
🎥 Camera First
He could've been a writer. He could've been an artist. In fact, he could've been anything creative. As I learned, his passion for the camera started early and he decided that feature films took too damn long. Photography allowed him to be more spontaneous and live in the moment without the distraction of a crew and script writing. He loves the depth documentaries allow him to extract from his subjects and enjoys peeling the layers of cultures and locations. According to Counet, a successful documentary has to connect with its audience.
🎥 Making Impact
Counet always wanted to become a cinematographer. He judges his work as a teenager harshly and shares valuable advice for starters - "If you're really passionate about it, you can learn, improve and continue to hone your skills. You need to develop and find your personal style. Find your own voice. Persistence is most important to get somewhere. Quality and talent will always shine through and find their way".
🎥 Sands of Time
When he started twenty years ago, professional video cameras could set one back by hundreds of thousands of euros. Film making was a luxury, accessible only to those with deep pockets. Counet finds the industry has become very democratic today but not without a silver lining - in the last ten years, Canon has made the camera available to every layman. Shooting has become more accessible and sharing is possible thanks to the Internet.
🎥 Entrepreneurship
In 2006, Counet brought business in-house when he started his own production company, Tam Films. The company name is ode to La-bas, his first film to receive awards and be picked up by numerous festivals. Counet initially started the company to sell his film, Trulichka to Finnish television. This progressed to short films and music videos. Today, Tam Films offers high-end cinematography to documentaries, feature films and short movies.
🎥 Competition
He's won many awards and competition is a part of the game. Locally, the documentary culture works to his advantage as Dutch producers tend to hire locally for their films - "Film markets are national markets". A co-production internationally could take three times as long (locally the same film would take one year) with more stakeholders needed for project buy-in. "There are enough proposals to share; there is positive competition", says Counet.
🎥 Travel
The documentary world isn't immune to economic recessions. Fortunately for Counet, when Europe was going through a recession in 2008, he wasn't hit as hard because he was working on documentaries and television series which zoomed in on the recession. In fact, he was able to pack his bags and film in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.
🎥 Family and Love
Growing
up, his mother was a painter and a keen photographer herself. His father
was a businessman. As far as Counet can remember, he wanted to play with
the camera. His journey hasn't been entirely solo. He met his wife of 12 years on
a film set in Latvia where he was filming three generations of women in
Soviet time. He was so impressed with her that he decided that "she
could organize [his] life".
🎥 Money Talks
There was one recurring question from the audience in Counet's workshop - "how lucrative is the world of documentaries?" Turns out The Netherlands is a safe haven for documentary makers. NPO Fonds and Film Fonds continue to actively support productions. It hasn't always been easy. Due to an entire year's delay on a co-production in 2007, Counet found himself without work and was forced to think about how to make ends meet. "Be critical about what you earn if it's not coming from what you are passionate about", he told us. He started to work as an editor. Perhaps it's these periods which taught him to improvise - Counet gave us a sneak peek of his underwater shots in If the Sun Explodes. Imagine this. An award-winning cinematographer-director up to his knees in water carrying an aquarium. Inside the aquarium sits a video camera. And voila! Magic!
Follow Counet on Twitter @jeancounet and Instagram @jeancounet and check out his latest work on www.tamfilms.com.
