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Nataasha Van Kampen, Rest in Peace

We will keep this biography as a tribute to Nataasha, who sadly died in July 2012.   These are her words when we asked her to describe herself as an emerging artist:

Nataasha was born in London in 1984 into a family consisting of an architect, some thespians and a composer. Alongside attending the Rudolf Steiner School, Nataasha traveled the globe in true gypsy form on theatre tours with her folks, developing a hunger for life experience and story-telling.

As opposed to pursuing academia in traditional educational institutions, Nataasha decided to enter the real world at 16. She initially took a work experience job in the art department at 3 Mills Studios for Sky television, where Hewland International then offered her a contract on a T.V. series. Nataasha soon moved towards production designing short films, and was then asked to production design two feature films, ‘Rolling With the Nines’, directed by Julian Gilbey and ‘Outlanders’, directed by Dominic Lees, both of which were released nationwide. Nataasha decided to improve her technical skills as a production designer, and was accepted at the London Film School, where she graduated in 2008.

During her time at the LFS , Nataasha continued to develop as an independent artist with many commissions of artwork including installations, such as ‘Monument To A Witness’ which was exhibited outside the Royal Festival Hall in 2007 as part of the South Bank Literature Festival. Her own film, ‘Nocturne’, which she wrote, produced, directed and designed was her graduation piece for the LFS, and not only marked Nataasha’s debut as a film director, but has achieved notable success in festivals such as the London Young Film-makers Festival (sister festival to the London Independent Film Festival) and the Moving Image Film Festival, Toronto. Alongside directing a series of music videos, Nataasha is in preparation for her first feature film as a director, as well as curating a mixed-media exhibition of her work .

Abubilla found Nataasha by emailing the LFS with a little advert seeing if anyone wanted to make a low-budget, but fully supported, music video. Nataasha jumped at the chance to have complete creative and directorial control in a field relatively new to her. And the product is The Knife Will Come video! Read the blog post for more info.

Vincenzo Condorelli

Vincenzo Condorelli is an Italian cinematographer and graduate of the London Film School, who deeply enjoys any form of photographic expression as the most direct way of storytelling and connecting with others. Among his credits he was the Director of Photography on “Here’s Looking at You Kodak”, directed by Giacomo Cimini, which was awarded the UK Kodak Commercial Student Award 2007 – Best in Brief. In 2008 he was nominated for the wildlife category in the UK Digital Photographer of the Year award.

In the last few years Vincenzo has been involved in a wide variety of productions in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, ranging from documentaries to music videos, short films to commercials. More recently, in Italy, he shot the music video for E Non Sai by Alexia, one of the biggest Italian pop singers. He is also the cinematographer on The Knife Will Come, the Saturday Morning Canasta Club’s first music video, directed by Nataasha van Kampen.

Apart from cinematography, Vincenzo has enjoyed taking over the role of Director for a few documentaries (the most recent, San Nicandro, Zefat – Il Viaggio di Eti – shot in 2009 both in Italy and Israel – is currently in post-production). Despite this, cinematography and still photography are his true passion and main vocation, as he does not think he could survive too long in an editing room, as directors usually do, far away from the thrill and good vibes of a shooting set. In this respect, even though he deeply enjoys all the new technical innovations that are reshaping the world of cinematography and photography nowadays, a.k.a. “the digital revolution”, he still believes there are very few better things in life than the sound of film stock rolling in the camera gate and the flickering in the viewfinder!