Zeb Bulthuis | Faces of FEB
This week we talked to Zeb Bulthuis, a very ambitious and exceptional FEBtastic student who runs his own companies next to studying IB in his second year.
Written by Alina Schmidt-Pfitzner from the EBF Academy Committee.
How did you develop your passion for filming?
Well, when I was 14, I got my first GoPro camera to make travel videos on holidays. I started being really interested in it so I watched thousands of online film classes on Youtube to better understand how so called “videographing” actually works. One day, a guy from my hometown asked me to go to a festival with him to help out with camera settings and this was really my first step into filming. I met a lot of people there telling me how to get better which was awesome.
When did you decide to found your own company?
A couple of years later, when I was 17, I started stepping it up a little and bought a camera for my own Youtube channel where I uploaded my first festival video. In order to get as many jobs as possible, I promoted my company a lot in the beginning. After having made a few videos, however, promotion was not really necessary anymore since companies started to come to me with job offers. From then on, I had to sign my company at the chamber of commerce and built my own website .
What kind of companies do you have?
Right now, I am running two companies. One is about social media management for artists and labels where I am managing the social media account (mainly Instagram) to reach the right audience. My main business, however, is called ZEBDOS which is a production of videos for businesses, brands and entrepreneurs in several industries, such as clothing, isolation or yachts. This is the company I will be talking about with you today.
What are your plans for the future ?
With my company, I want to step it up a little to do more things I honestly like to film, like festivals, instead of taking every job I can like in the beginning. My goal is to incorporate my own style into the videos, to get a little creative so to speak. Next to that, I want to launch a new website as well as a new clothing line with four by four in Groningen. After having finished university, I would like to do a world trip to meet new people and see new places. In general, I will continue running my own company as long as it is fun for me and after that, we shall see what comes next.
What does a typical job for you look like?
So, usually people reach out to me via email or on Instagram if they want to offer me a job. They tell me about what kind of video they wish to get and send me the script as a storyboard as well as their budget and the available time period. During a first coffee meeting, I can get to know the client better and we check whether the requirements are suitable for doing such a project. I prepare all the information about my company and we set a specific date to shoot the video. Based on this meeting, I start to collect my own ideas of how the video should look like and prepare a storyboard including these ideas. To every job I bring my own equipment which consists of cameras and several applications for them. The shooting days are always a lot of fun with the crew and for me it feels more like fun than work.
How do you manage to run your company next to uni?
This is really the hardest part, because I definitely want to finish IB in order to be flexible in the future and to have a broad backup. But it is always a tradeoff between uni and my job, sometimes I even have to skip classes to finish a job and when I come home from uni I have to edit the whole day and night. However, finishing my bachelor is my first priority.
This article is a collaboration between EBF, Quest and the Faculty.
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| Last modified: | 19 January 2022 11.04 a.m. |