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THE LONG STORY

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Early beginnings

My prayers as a budding movie nerd were answered when, at the age of 10, I was given a Steven Spielberg Moviemaker Set by Lego, complete with camera and editing software. I would spend hours in the attic, bringing my toys to life via stop motion, then adding the stock sounds and transitions that came with the set. It was great fun and a formative experience for my young creative brain. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

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A few years later, I started jobbing as a paperboy, and I spent all my hard-earned cash on DVDs from the local rental store. Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller and Helge Schneider were my comedy heroes. As a teenager, I got into political satire, and I'd never miss an episode of South Park or The Daily Show, even if it meant risking a virus from sketchy streaming sites.

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Years abroad
During my time as a twenty-something film student at the University of West London, I immersed myself in every aspect of filmmaking, from camerawork and editing to writing and directing. This hands-on approach came with useful lessons in economical storytelling as we created our ambitious sci-fi and horror shorts on shoestring budgets, repurposing wheeled walkers as camera dollies. I earned my first money as a filmmaker when the university commissioned me to create a promotional film. It helped kick off the biggest fundraising campaign in UWL's history, and it also had a brief stint online. If you happen to find it, feel free to send me the link!

Throughout and after my London years, I did various internships, first as a researcher for a small docutainment company near Paddington station. There, I was tasked with reaching out to pseudo-historians — one claimed to have found Jesus’ body at a Nazi church in Germany. While I chose not to pursue this branch of the industry further, it did leave me with a drawer full of colorful characters I hope to use in future stories.

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A matter of life and death
For one of my other internships, I worked as a 2nd Assistant Director on a Stuttgart-based crime comedy series. My job was to wrangle up to 25 extras at a time. I learned that continuity could be a matter of life and death, when one of my extras crossed the street a beat too late and was grazed by the protagonist’s car.

 

Working with children

After London, I moved to Berlin to work as a media educator at schools, youth centers and refugee camps. The picture above shows me during a camera workshop in 2016. Helping children and teenagers develop their own stories reminded me of how to let my imagination run wild. In return, I’d like to think that my students appreciated learning to craft a tight three-act structure. As a nice bonus, the films we created together gained a combined 25 million views on YouTube.

 

Further further studies
From 2016 on, I decided that I wanted to be a full-time writer and thus did a B.A. in Screenwriting & Dramaturgy at the Film University of Babelsberg. For my final project, an adult animated sitcom titled Superhero City News, I founded a small company and secured development funding from the local film commission, Medienboard BerlinBrandenburg. I was also able to gain a creative partner in Toronto-based animation company Smiley Guy Studios.

 

Throughout my Babelsberg studies, I worked as a script reader for Tobis Film, which helped me apply my film school knowledge to real scripts and understand why exactly they worked well, or less so. I later started teaching dramaturgy classes at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and, having grown fond of the place, I completed an M.A. in Expanded Media + Storyworlds there. To build on my storytelling skills, I taught myself 2D animation and created a short pilot clip for an online animated series.

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Performing on stage

Today, I don’t just write (and occasionally draw) funny things on my laptop. I also say them on stage, as a regular performer at improv comedy nights and festivals such as DAS Improv Festival Berlin. It helps me get out of my head, stay on my toes and experience the creative process as a group effort. In the end, I believe that writing compelling scenes is a lot about improvising in your head.