AMSTERDAM: 100% Halal

With a name that started as a punk riff on the anti-Arab atmosphere in the early noughties, 100% Halal sets itself apart by refusing to pitch for jobs that are ‘shit’ and uses the freedom financial independence brings to nurture its growing roster of directors and photographers

It might sound like a Muslim-friendly takeaway, but something very different is cooking at 100% Halal. If you can make it to the top of two nosebleed-inducing flights of stairs in its Amsterdam office without fainting from altitude sickness, you’ll find a young, exciting production company led by three EPs who are hell-bent on making great work, even if they starve doing it.

It was 2004 when 22-year-old Gijs Kerbosch founded the original company, making music videos and creative shorts. He produced a sketch show called New Kids, which no network wanted to buy, but after it became an online hit it was snapped up by Comedy Central, who ordered a second season. Commissions from MTV followed and eventually two New Kids features, the first of which was the Netherlands’ second highest grossing box office hit in 2010.

Relaunch amid the flirting

By that time, the company was subject to flirting from ad agencies and its directors were keen to reciprocate. Kerbosch was too busy to cope and asked Roel Oude Nijhuis, who had worked for him as a freelance producer, to become a partner and help relaunch the company. The pair invited Gijs Determeijer, previously a first AD, to join them and run the commercials operation.

“I’d never produced a commercial before,” laughs Determeijer. But it’s that entrepreneurial, can-do spirit that has seen 100% Halal grow into one of Amsterdam’s hottest production outfits.

“It’s easy to start a company in Amsterdam now. You don’t need a lot of capital like you used to,” says Oude Nijhuis.

But just because it’s easy to start a company, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to keep one going. “We worked our asses off for years for very little pay. If you’re willing to do that you can be successful.”

Their naivety has, of course, led to mistakes along the way. “We’ve never worked for another production company and probably reinvented the wheel 10 times more than we needed to, but we did it our way and figured it out,” he adds.

All aged between 32 and 37, the three EPs manage different aspects of the business, with Kerbosch on fiction and strategy; Oude Nijhuis on music videos, documentaries and post; and Determeijer on commercials, new business and running the photography division, a relatively unique feature for a Dutch production company.

Together they’ve grown the roster from three to 17 directors and photographers, including youngsters like Sam de Jong, whose film school graduation project, the fantastic short Magnesium, was selected at Sundance this year. Conversely, 100% Halal also represents Dutch ad legend and co-founder of KesselsKramer, Johan Kramer. They signed the advertising icon last year and recently shot a sensational Fox Sports ad with him.

How did they convince Kramer to leave his previous rep of 10 years? “He called and said he wanted to sign with us,” confesses Oude Nijhuis. At the time, Kramer said: “I want to surround myself with people that have the urge to make innovative work. I want to spend more time with photography and 100% Halal can help me do that.”

Kramer can help 100% Halal too. “We’re a relatively young group of people. The creative directors and people he knows are a generation or two older than us, so we can tap into his network and vice versa,” explains Oude Nijhuis.

Another director on the roster is Nils Gerbens, who shot around 10 films starring the likes of Lionel Messi, Chicharito and Gareth Bale for W+K this year as part of the FIFA 14 campaign. Not many chances come for local production houses to work on international jobs like this and the EPs are pleased to have their foot in the door with the city’s international agencies, as Oude Nijhuis explains. “The international scene is appealing as the work is much better quality,” he says.

But 100% Halal isn’t getting too big for its boots. “We’re not a company that can do James Bond [referencing the Heineken ad shot by Dutch director Matthijs van Heijningen through MJZ London]. We don’t have the production power yet, but we’d love to get there,” Oude Nijhuis admits.

Thankfully, financial independence allows them to be selective about the jobs they pitch on. “We don’t have to take on jobs we don’t want to do to pay the bills. That freedom sets us apart from others,” says Oude Nijhuis.

Determeijer adds; “We made a choice a couple of years ago: we can either do the jobs that are shit for a little money or the jobs that are potentially cool for a little bit less money. We’re super-critical about the jobs we take on and that’s paying off.”

Giving directors their freedom

This freedom also allows for investment in passion projects, such as self-funded shorts and features. “We support our directors in doing fiction,” says Oude Nijhuis. “We like to work with them intensely, not say, ‘We’re the guys that send you commercial scripts, the rest you can figure out yourself’.”

As the winter draws in, Oude Nijhuis is looking forward to spending some time with his partners, planning their strategy for 2014. He already knows some of their ambitions, though. “We want to have a feature at an A-list film festival before 2015 and make more, bigger international work that will be seen across the world and win a few prizes.”

And where did the name 100% Halal come from? “It started as a joke. In 2004, everyone was anti-Arab so Gijs thought it would be a punk thing to embrace something everyone hated and make a brand out of it,” chuckles Oude Nijhuis. “Plus it means ‘approved by God’ and we only make work that matters.”