Augustijn Video Productions

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 History
 At an early age a wide interest as an amateur photographer was developed. The interest of ”looking through the camera” was sucked in with his mother’s milk. Dad was a teacher in English at the Photography vocational school at The Hague. The first elements as the ”image catcher” to be were self-made, a.o. by studying ”The Complete Amateur Photographer” by Dick Boer from 1959.

Mothers plastic cameras, a ”Agfa Clack”, and the ”Kodak box – six-20 Brownie Junior” were allowed to use. Surprisingly the huge negatives of 8x12 cm, on a roll of only maximum 8 photo’s (!!), proved even to produce colour photos.

Soon the beginner came into possession of more quality cameras. The photo camera ”Praktica MTL-5” offered substantial more possibilities. Photographs were developed and printed in black and white, in an owned darkroom. We speaking about the years seventies.
That enabled to gain knowledge, experience and to try out photographical experiments.  Graphical effects like a.s. ”Lions”, ”Burnt Mill” and ”Circus Artiste” came out quite well.

Abstract stills were made like the ”Vase”.

Already then the preference for nature, in the widest sense, was developed to capture nature recordings.

The phenomena small film ”Super-8” was introduced. The Canon Auto Zoom 518 was quite a good camera. Editing meters of film with tape and a small press, produced the first shaky films, which were proudly showed to the family. The infamous viewing ”filming evenings” were a fact, with their rolled screen, a rather unstable collapsible table and an impressive noise produced by the flickering projector. Striped on the tape and hairs enlarged out of proportion were rather annoyed. Until the tape broke yet again or the projector lamp burnt through the film. It was fun!


A relief was purchasing the first Video Camera. A handycam by ”SONY HI8-V800E”, semi professional with even one ”precision CCD”. Recorded on large cassette tapes, HI-8 metal E90”. Edited on a ”Production Mixer Pro WJ-MX 30” by Panasonic as from 1997, enabled many possibilities to make special effects and transitions in video and audio. Even a title generator were connected to it.

The digital era made an end to the disturbing ”drop-outs”. The quality of the ”SONY DCR TRV900E” was a revolution with its 3CCD and ”Sony mini-DV60” tapes (at the time each NLG 50,00!).  An amateur achieved an almost professional quality, although the ”profs” were at the time of course very reluctant to admit that. It was purchased end 1998.

Computers made it possible to fully process the digitally recorded 3CCD audiovisual material with an optimum result. Without loosing any quality. Augustijn Video Productions (AVP) was effectively born January 1, 2001.

Travel films
Augustijn Video Productions (AVP) have provided numerous of travel films and nature documentaries to Libra Films in Hilversum (NL) on ”SONY mini-DV60”, which were subsequently copied into BETACAM.

A film on East Africa was produced to benefit a leading tour operator. Narrating was taken care of in the studio by Vivian Boelen, a well known hostess from Dutch television.

On evaluation it transpired that the promo film contained no less than 30% of the video material out of the AVP films ”Kenya” and ”Tanzania”, which was kindly made available by Augustijn Video Productions.

The quality delivered by AVP proved in practice to be highly competitive. 

International Arabian Thoroughbred Horse Shows
On another field, international shows on Arabian thoroughbred horses found their way to Augustijn Video Productions. Organiser Jopie Smarius of Smaroel Arabians at Tilburg, requested Augustijn Video Productions to produce the spectacles of the International Arabian Horse Shows on film. AVP filmed the Tulip Cup in 2000 and 2002 in Deurne. It so did during the Regional Inspections and Egyptian Classic Shows in 2002 and 2003 at Tilburg. Members of International Royal house, like HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan, the daughter of the late HM King Hussein I of Jordan, and member of the Rolling Stones, Charlie Watts and wife Shirley, found their ways to become clientele of Augustijn Video Productions.

Red Deer
Numerous films on Red Deer (Edelhert) were released on DVD, on the AVP site and many others like YouTube. Particularly was received recognition on the renowned film ”Red Deer – lord and master”.

Television Broadcaster ”TV Gelderland” invited Augustijn Video Productions to attend their studios to witness the live recording of their program ”Extraordinary Film month”. The shortened version of the film ”The Rutting Season” (Bronst) by Augustijn Video Productions, was aired on TV on January 20, 2005 in ”the Silver Fox”.
 
Wildlife
The AVP crew travelled the world with a SONY VX2100E since July 2004, to record the finest films in fully owned production. From culture in America, music and theatre in China, to filming nature documentaries on the untouched savanna of East Africa.

A mother Cheetah left their cups to catch a Wildebeest. Few witnessed the moment, except for 1 car from Japanese Television, hosts Jonathan Scott and Simon King from the BBC crew series ”Big Cat Diary” and the always watching crew of Augustijn Video Productions. Scouting AVP crew did in fact already spotted the Cheetah family as from the day before and knew from experience that the Cheetah just had to go out now to make a kill.

Augustijn Video Productions have proven their all-round, flexibility, diversity and quality.

Reliable contacts ensure that continuity is guaranteed at all material times.