About the Artist

Bastiaan Koch is an award-winning film director & writer and founder of Marauder Film. Of Dutch parents, he moved around the globe at an early age, living in Atlanta, Berlin, Luxembourg, Bombay and later working professionally as film producer and feature film visual effects artist at major studios in Amsterdam, London and Los Angeles.

Before forming Marauder, Bastiaan spent three years working on Michael Bay's 'Transformers 2 & 3' and Gore Verbinski's 'Rango' with Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco. Bastiaan wrote and produced the award winning short, 'The 3rd Letter', and is co-writing/directing the feature film 'In God We Trust' and the feature period piece, ‘Blue Blood’.

Bastaan’s road to Escape Studios

Bastiaan’s education started at an early age when he would make frequent visits to factories and mills with his father. “I was on a one-way path into industrial design, and that’s exactly what I did.” Bastiaan pursued Design and Technology at Rugby School and then at Middlesex University in England. He soon became very wary of sacrificing aesthetics for internal ergonomics and from that point, decided that film and visual effects was his path. 

Without hesitation, Bastiaan enrolled with Escape Studios’ intensive 12-week classroom course focusing on VFX in Production. “Never in my life did I work so hard, so diligently and so possessed and love it so much. It was the first time I really felt like I had some kind of super power ability bestowed on me. The world really became my oyster and I really went in with nothing, except the ability to draw perspective and a passion for writing. It really does not compare to anything I did before.”

He left Escape Studios with one line drilled in his head from former his instructor: “Keep it Simple”.

Inspiration

Although he is a writer, Bastiaan found inspiration in the works of Akira Toriyama, reading, studying and collecting his art. Bastiaan tells his stories through VFX and references Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's and Hideaki Anno's Neon GenenesisEvangelion in his latest project, “In God We Trust”.

Bastiaan also credits former co-worker from ILM and “VFX genius”, GrzegorzJonkajtys for inspiring him in his career. The two collaborated on the film, “The Third Letter” where Bastiaan was challenged and allowed him to find his own style and voice while embracing his creative writing. 

Industry experience

Proceeding his time at Escape Studios, Koch held artists roles in Amsterdam and London at MPC, Cinesite and Double Negative, making his way to Digital Domain in Los Angeles before spending 3 years in San Francisco at Industrial Light & Magic. 

He describes his experience at ILM as quite humbling. “I was thrown into a very tight-knit, skilled and long-standing friendship of professional people whom many have worked together since the days of the Kerner Optical model shop.” His portfolio at ILM also includes Transformers 2 and 3 and Rango. He has since stayed in San Francisco and started Marauder Film – a VFX studio that operates like an ad agency. “Our primary focus is on theatrical feature film development now and my day to day consists of directing, producing and writing.” He acts as Director and Producer, and his work consists of everything from CG game cinematics, VFX heavy live-action commercials and feature development.