Minivegas Directors

Maarten’s surname is pronounced ‘bone’ but actually means bean. As a youngster growing up near Amsterdam, he aspired to becoming a carpenter but that changed as soon as he realised computers left behind less sawdust to tidy up and he headed to film school to study Visual Effects instead. It was there, during his graduation year, that he got the opportunity to work with one of his heroes – Paul Verhoeven, on his movie ‘Blackbook’. This almost sparked an early-onset midlife crisis due to fulfilling his dreams too early, but thankfully he managed to hold it together and graduate. He went on to have a successful career as a CG supervisor and visual effects director before eventually founding Minivegas Amsterdam where he has directed and co-directed a whole host of award-winning live action, animated and interactive projects. All this experience means that Maarten possesses a uniquely integrated approach to his work but, sadly, remains a very average carpenter 

Rob can pitch a five-man tent in under 10 minutes in any weather conditions but, remarkably, this is not his biggest talent. Growing up in the West country of England, he spent his formative years break dancing and harboring dreams of becoming an Astronaut (because all good astronauts should be able to body-pop), but neither head-spinning on sheets of cardboard or space travel are what we think he’s best at. No, we like his films most. Amazing ones that are full of atmosphere, beauty and huge, epic-ness. Rob’s background in graphic design and his love of photography burns through his work . He’s a vivid story teller and, what’s more, he loves a dabble in digital content and interactive ideas too – what’s not to love? And, as a bonus, if we ever need to save a bit of money on a shoot, we’ll just get him to prove his tent-erecting skills and then take it out of the hotel budget. Everyone’s a winner! 

Damien comes from a small medieval village in the south west of France. Not medieval in terms of the standard of living you understand, but it’s heritage. Apparently it was the perfect playground for kids, with towers, ruins, moats, underground passages everywhere, so Damien could prepare for his preferred future career: being Indiana Jones. As it transpired, he eventually followed a slightly different path – studying art history in Bordeaux, followed by a second helping of art studies in Lyon and then a naughty desert of 3D animation in Valenciennes. After all that, it’s hardly surprising that he graduated with honors and won a bunch of awards for his graduation film: Overtime. As a grown-up, just like his childhood hero: Indy, Damien is never happier than when he’s travelling through wild places and eating monkey brains. But in his spare time he makes amazing animated films, and that’s the main reason we love him. 

Photographer, Video Jockey, Performance Artist, Bandleader – Jean-Paul Frenay is one of those people who simply don’t know what to do with all their creativity. We know what to do with it und brought him on board.

His big break came with his short film “Artificial Paradise” which has been a permanent fixture at international festivals and has made Jean-Paul a permanent fixture at international post production companies. He also speaks fluent German, English, French and Flemish.

His way of not only seeing things differently but also executing presenting things differently has made this gifted Belgian one of the most sort after directors of his time. Is there anything he can't do? As soon as we know, you’ll know. 

Claas swears he has never drunk any alcohol or experimented with drugs which is surprising given that A. he grew up in ‘a boring shit hole’ on the outskirts of Hamburg and B. that he is always the first one dancing on the table. As a young man, he harbored ambitions of becoming a comic book artist and a womanizer but he was swayed in at least one of those pursuits by the work of Jonze, Glazer and Gondry on MTV. These role models turned him onto movies and he fled for Munich and the famous HFF film school. He picked-up a Cannes Young Director’s Award on the way out and everything went from there. Claas’ sense of humour is right up our strasse and we’d love to help him in his quest to build a reel like his idol Tom Kuntz. In the mean time, we promise to keep him supplied with Nutella, Cheeseburgers and Ginger Beer in return for the secret to his indefatigable optimism. 

Los Pérez is Tania Verduzco and Adrian Pérez, a Mexican/Spanish (Mexicanish) dream-team who together write, direct, edit and compose music for some of the most glitzy, colourful and stylish films we’ve seen. Tania was born in Mexico City, one of a mere 20 million inhabitants while Adrian grew up in the slightly smaller city of Vigo, in Northern Spain, listening to seagulls and dressing like batman. Their mutual passion for film making brought them both to Barcelona where their paths crossed while studying cinema and battling for the title of top geek in class. Tania went on to win a Young Director Award at Cannes and Adrian to front CatPeople, one of the most important independent rock bands in Spain. Today, together, still geeking out, still winning awards and still making amazing music, they are Los Pérez and they are going to be massive! 

Derby is an English town, famous for being the birthplace of the industrial revolution. Despite being neither industrious or revolutionary in his formative years, this is also the birthplace of Will Innes Smith. While we think that Will’s early ambitions of becoming a sniffer-dog could actually have been pretty revolutionary indeed, it wasn’t until a chance encounter with Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven that his passion for film was born. Nowadays, Will is one of the most industrious folks we know. Whether shooting the latest spot for Sony Playstation or making food do beautiful things in slow-mo, he is always at the creative heart of a production, unraveling the seed of an idea into something watched by millions. He may tell you that, had he not become a director, he could have been playing central midfield for Derby County or furthering his degree in Psychogeography… we don’t even know what the second one means but we are just glad he chose to make great films instead. 

Brennan grew up in the US and once told his dad that he wanted his job to be “jumping out of airplanes and shooting all the snakes”. Dubious, to say the least. As he grew up, he decided he’d rather just take pictures and shoot movies instead of snakes (he still hates snakes though). Since then, he’s directed A-List celebrities and worked with top-notch brands but he also possesses an amazing knack for digging-out incredible real-life stories and weaving them into films that make your hairs stand on end. So when he told us of his vaguely sinister intent to “snatch away people’s minds for a moment in time”, we were pretty sure his intentions were good. Pretty sure. Regardless, he tells us that he excels at finding the best ice cream joints in town so we have promised to try and secure him his dream film – working with large-scale pyrotechnics – in return for this unique knowledge. 

Andrew has been knocked-out three times : Once falling off a rope swing, once being kicked in the head during a football match and once being punched in the face playing rugby. He maintains that no lasting damage was sustained. He is an ‘agency side’ convert, having spent 14 years working in integrated and digital agencies in London and Amsterdam and winning a bunch of awards (that he doesn’t like talking about). The best part of his job, he always said, was the actual making and crafting of things so when he spotted an opportunity to get his hands dirty he leapt into the sparkling waters of creative production and joined Minivegas. Together with Maarten, Andrew creative-directs all of the projects that come through the door and now, having made lots of ad’s and films during his time with the agencies, he’s taking every chance he gets to actually direct them. He has a sharp eye for detail, tells a wicked story, is a foot-tapper, table drummer, whistler and pen-clicker.