Verve Media widens international roster and opens digital division

Opening their doors just last year October, it seems like new production house Verve Media could have not picked a more challenging time to open a commercial company. 

During the first 3 months the startup assembled their sales representation and an international roster of directors. And what might have been at this point a creative and “finding a niche” decision, might now prove to be a good resource to navigate through the challenging landscape of live action shooting during a pandemic crisis. 

Being thrown into a global production shutdown just 5 months after opening their doors and finally having build a roster and company identity, Verve Media had no other choice but to regroup and rethink how to find a solution to this challenge. 
Executive Producer Cordula Weisz reached out to all directors on the roster and created a new Company deck highlighting all shooting and production capabilities of each of their directors in their respective home country. 

A normal production landscape was always based on assembling the perfect team regardless of where in the world they are located, but as the landscape has changed now, Cordula was quick to adapt and highlight the local possibilities during Covid 19 times. Remote viewing and live on set streaming is fast becoming a new standard, thus enabling us to shoot pretty much anywhere in the world, while still giving agency and clients eyes and ears during the live shoot.

Verve Media also added new International Directors to their lineup, specifically in the Scandinavian territories, enabling them to offer productions with regular casting and location possibilities. 

One of the new additions to their roster is Swedish director Henrik Hanson. Growing up in Stockholm he built a great interest for film while watching continuous hours of 90's movies. In his boys’ room he made short films with his friends. 
While working at his mother’s dance school he learnt the discipline of being a creative, but it also introduced him to the world of editing. At the age of 15 he made his first long form short which got into the hands of Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund.

Soon enough he was working at the renowned production film company RAF. At RAF he worked alongside with some of the most successful directors in Scandinavia, if not the world, directors such as Johan Renck & Jonas Åkerlund.  After receiving a scholarship from the Wallenberg Foundation, he packed his bags and moved to New York to study screenwriting at the School of Visual Arts, which earned him a BFA with honors. After graduating he moved back to Sweden and started working as a director. 

Henrik's work includes commercials and music videos for artists and brands such as Miller, Axe, Swedish House Mafia, Alesso, Jarlsberg, Synsam, Kappahl and Bjorn Borg. His style is a vivid combination of his raw and uncensored passion for storytelling, mixed with his great eye for lifestyle and human emotion. 

The next addition is Johnsen & Mona, a director duo from the far side of the Norwegian fjords. The duo joined efforts after art school to make music videos, TV - graphics and experimental films. Their work covers a wide range of styles and techniques, but always with a distinct, personal touch. 

Their commercial work often features food as the subject of aesthetic exploration, but also as a central part of the human experience; food as part of our history and myths, tradition and heritage, family and friendships. 
Food brings us together in shared experiences, lets us relive memories and creates new ones. Food is what reconnects us with nature; the landscapes and the seasons, the sun, the soil, the rain and the wind. Food is visual and tactile, it tastes and smells, it snaps, cracks, trickles and oozes, cools us down and warms us up – in short, food raises our appetite for life. 

Johnsen & Mona's films have a distinctly modern look where everything feels fresh and natural, yet somehow slightly more beautiful than in real life. Their stories are told with warmth and com- passion, and are characterized by a subtle sense of humor. 

The third European addition to the roster is Jorrit Stollman from the Netherlands. His vast experience with high speed and motion controlled shooting, enables him to make the invisible appear and capture the unknown and visualize abstraction. No matter what genre or theme - his work never fails to amaze and inspire. 

As a trained microbiologist, he became fascinated with movement, structures and life forms. He uses this inspiration for his work as a director, always looking for a surprising visual effect. Choosing high speed cameras as a specialty, Jorrit is able to enlarge reality, visualizing every small detail and transforming all movements into a form of art. His strong intuition for mood, design and music has enabled him to create work for fashion and lifestyle brands which deliver high impact. 

His portfolio includes beautiful tabletop (food and liquid) shots, extreme close up shots of chemical reactions, the impact of one single drop on a running shoe and the floating of a butterfly. Jorrit travels to South Africa for a fashion shoot, capturing the unique and perfect light conditions of an outdoor shoot but also likes to take control of all cinematographic conditions in a studio environment. 

Jorrit also has extensive experience in the complex processes of CGI integration with live action, having started up and owned a well-regarded animation and postproduction company in Amsterdam.  Mastering and integrating all available real life and computer techniques, Jorrit has created his own visual style to create surprising, visually spectacular work for clients such as Asics, Schweppes, KPN, Philips and YSL.