I produced a series of 60 second clips for PURE Sports Nutrition to tell the stories of their sponsored athletes. As many of you know, I absolutely love working with athletes. They always have captivating stories to tell, they look amazing and fuelled by dedication and commitment, are a great source of inspiration to so many of us.
The PURE team were super kind to send me a batch of their products. Over my years of training and racing, I’ve tried quite a few brands and I must say that I love this Kiwi line; the taste and how it hydrates and replenishes. PURE, as the name suggests, is committed to using pure, natural ingredients without the artificial add on’s, so great quality without the nasty stuff. Awesome!
This post marks a sort of personal milestone for me. Over the last year or so, I’ve been working on a film series named CURIOSITY. I’m not necessary new to motion work, but producing a consistent short film series brings a new tool to a filmmakers kit so I threw myself into the deep end and took this on, with the sole objective of creating five special shorts with five super talented athletes. It’s been a journey of fun, learning and fine-tuning along with establishing my own RAW style and juggling with unscripted story telling.
Making films, with captivating people in beautiful places, has become one of the most satisfying things that I do. I’ve so enjoyed the entire process and I feel truly stoked to finally release the series. All five are now online at www.wouterkingma.com/film. I hope you take the time to watch them all and feel moved by the inspiring individuals featured. Here’s a quick trailer.
It’s been an absolute privilege to work with these five incredibly gifted athletes… David Labouchere, Sjaak van Tunen, Claudine Foong, Karina Bensemann and Heidi Jones. The art of storytelling is so very powerful but it’s their unique and personal stories that really make the series such a success. They live and breathe their sport and it’s inspiring and humbling to learn about their successes, struggles and failures.
Watch the individual episodes:
David Labouchere // triathlete & entrepeneur
Karina Bensemann // surfer & PT
Claudine Foong // pro golfer & coach
Sjaak van Tunen // surfer
Heidi Jones // Integrated Health Coach
The majority of the series was shot on the new Canon Cinema C200 camera. As a Canon ambassador, there are always talks about new projects and field stories so I suggested they let me use the prototype C200 to shoot this series. A new piece of gear inevitably brings new challenges like unsupported software, no manuals and having to just figure things out as you go but overall, I really enjoyed working with it. It has great features like internal RAW recording and a touch screen with auto tracking. It delivers great quality footage with unbelievable colour richness and fits all my existing Canon lenses too. Check out this super short behind the scenes video about bringing the series together.
As for what drives my personal work? Put simply, it provides total creative freedom. I’ve always been a big advocate of doing personal work. You don’t have to worry about brands and labels, politics and hidden agendas. You can just work with your own ideas and push yourself to produce something that adds value to others. That is the ultimate reward, the ability to inspire and motivate others to leap into the unknown and fulfill their own dreams.
The feedback I’ve received so far has been awesome so I really hope for future opportunities producing more series with inspiring entrepreneurs, artists and designers.
With a bit of pre-summer breathing space in the shooting calendar, I’ve been able to catch up on personal work and hangout with some mad athletes. I love the surfers lifestyle and have enjoyed getting on a board myself in the past, mainly in Oz. I dusted off my Aquatech waterproof housing then called Karina to go have some fun. Soon after, we found ourselves on sunset beach to hit the morning waves and take advantage of the last big swell of the season.
Karina is a total badass. She called the day before to ask if we we should still shoot as she had a black eye from a recent surf crash… “Hell yeah,” I responded. “More RAW!” And the following morning, in an attempt to avoid hitting me with her new board, she cut her nose. More blood and I did appreciate her efforts in keeping me out of the firing zone! It didn’t slow her down. She lives life full stop without slowing down.
I also brought my super long telephoto lens but stayed put with the waterproofs. In the water. In the waves. In where the action is. It’s certainly harder to shoot this way… waves are variable, the subject moves, I move, waves break just when the composition is right… it’s hard to really grasp what you’re shooting. But when the shoot comes together, it just looks so much more authentic. A long lens shot would have helped tackle some of the variables but on the downside, could then create a distance between the viewer and athlete. And I love wide angle ‘in your face action’.
