The bigger picture Tom Martienssen , founder of the people-centric studio Dustoff Films , has always been a positive force for change F ilmmakers come in all forms, each with their own unique yet often narrow view of our world. For Tom Martienssen, an Emmy-winning earthquake in Nepal – breaking the story himself from Mount Everest – during his time with the BBC World Affairs unit. “Through all of that, I fell in love with camerawork,” he recalls.
are told,” says Martienssen. “Everything is very negative. We try to find positive stories, one of which is Rhino .” Rhino is an atypical documentary, as it looks more like a feature film – or blockbuster, according to Martienssen – than you would expect. It follows the expansion of an African rhino habitat, ”told through the eyes of rangers,” he explains. “We just wrapped shooting after two years.” Using the tools at their disposal, such as pacing and framing, Martienssen and his crew tell a true story that maintains authenticity. “There are no interviews,” he explains. “It all comes out naturally through conversation. “We want a documentary to feel like a movie; we don’t want it to feel like a documentary,” Martienssen continues. “When I’m shooting, I’m thinking, ‘If [the protagonist] was Brad Pitt, how would this be framed?’ There’s nothing staged, fictionalised or directed at all. It’s literally just using cinematography as the tool to react fast enough to frame the shots.” Before Dustoff, Martienssen made Gaucho: The Last Cowboys of
director, DOP and founder of Dustoff Films, filmmaking has broader aims: chief among them to support local communities, amplify unheard voices and raise environmental awareness. Off the ground At 17 years old, Martienssen enlisted in the Royal Air Force, doing combat search and rescue in Afghanistan. During his second tour, he realised that ‘journalism could perhaps make a more positive impact’. Mainly to process what he was witnessing, Martienssen “started an illegitimate blog,” he jests. “The blog became quite successful, and the BBC offered me a job as a trainee journalist.” During the mid-2010s, Martienssen was stationed between London, Turkey and Syria, working undercover to report on ISIS and focusing on British extremist involvement. He also covered the 2015
After his stint with the BBC, Martienssen went freelance, shooting documentaries with Diamond Docs before founding his own production company, Dustoff Films, alongside producer James May. Throughout his career so far, Martienssen has filmed in more than 50 countries, spending a sizeable chunk of time in Patagonia and East Africa. He even sold his house and moved to Kenya, wanting to gain a deeper understanding of the communities his films cover. The bright side Dustoff Films’ mission is threefold: to support the community, be sustainable and encourage conservation. Its projects all have a human story at their centre, and are created to increase international awareness. ”We exist to change the way natural history and environmental stories
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