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Written byAlice Viskat
“I went from making videos that 10 people would see to videos that got a million views overnight.”
“I look at film-making and just artistic careers in general as a river. And the river has to get to a mouth or the sea. And there are littler streams that join bigger streams and streams that branch out in different directions, but as long as you’re on the river and you’re paddling and you stay in the right direction that means that you will get to the sea at some point. No one’s going to pick you up and go, “Hey man, get on the river.” You have to do it yourself and you have to keep at it.”
Luke Veysie grabbed his paddle and hopped on the proverbial river when he was just thirteen years old. While the combination of after-school boredom and an old-school computer might’ve led most of us to endless games of Pinball or kicking off our fine art careers in Paint, Luke took to his webcam. “I’d make these kinds of stop-motion movies on my computer with friends where I’d have the webcam open and just keep clicking the mouse over and over to take different photos and compile them into these short films. I’d also take weird videos on my phone and edit them together. It’s funny how something like that grew into what I’m doing now.”
He fell in love with film backwards, in a sense. The initial appeal was simply the joy of creating within a strange new medium, completely uninfluenced by anything else. From there, he came across YouTube, which was starting to find its feet around that time and much later he discovered films that traditionally would’ve catalysed a film-maker’s dreams. His unique relationship with film was to be a precursor for the originality of his work to come.
At fourteen, he entered a school film competition on a whim and did surprisingly well, prompting one of the teachers to suggest he start a film club. Pioneering the film club and maintaining his own passion projects on the side throughout high school started to strip away any and all pretence of him having a mainstream job one day until it was blindingly obvious that he was meant to create films.
“Rather a jack of all trades than a master of one.”
“I haven’t actually had formal training so it’s been a lot of figuring things out as I go along, but the beauty in that is making mistakes and making mistakes that work. A lot of what I do is happy accidents as much as my work is considered and planned.”
After high school, he opted out of going to film school and the traditional film route (surprise surprise!) and went straight into the working world to begin his career as a videographer, animator, photographer, musician, and all-round multimedia artist. As he puts it, “Rather a jack of all trades than a master of one.”
His career thus far has been a myriad of achievements, each overshadowing the last. One of his first big achievements was being hired as a photographer for Rocking the Daisies. His hard work and enthusiasm for the job earned him the upgraded role of videographer for the festival the following year. This theme of working hard and constantly outdoing himself has landed him work for massive corporations like Audi and also for celebrities such as Dan Mace and Casey Neistat. “Dan and Casey were amazing mentors for me. They were both doing this thing that no one else was doing and they were creating film for the sake of film, not for brands or profit or anything. The exposure was crazy! I went from making videos that 10 people would see to videos that got a million views overnight.”
After almost two years working alongside these YouTube titans, he decided to take a step back and focus on his own work and what he wanted to create. He was naturally drawn to music videos because of his own musical background and started to create and direct music videos for the likes of PHFAT, The Plastics, and Kloudink, with whom he has a regular creative partnership.
“I love the platform of music videos because you can get so creative with it and there aren’t really rules. They have the power to not only reach more people but affect more people than film can sometimes. There aren’t many things that steal your senses the way film does and particularly music videos. You can listen to music and do other things, and you can see an image and walk away, but with a video you have two senses. If you’ve got their eyes and you’ve got their ears, you’ve got their attention. What are you going to do with that attention?”
His career thus far has been a myriad of achievements, each overshadowing the last.
Humble to a fault and soft-spoken, you’ll never hear Luke bragging about his accomplishments, but rather lets his work speak for itself. He insists that his favourite project will always be the one he hasn’t started yet, but go check out some of his favourite music videos so far: “Carry on to the Sun” which he created for The Plastics, and “I Don’t Mind” which was for Kloudink. Although we can’t give too much away at present, you may or may not be seeing a few episodes directed by Luke Veysie aired on the Discovery Channel in December.
“We’re storytellers at the end of the day. As film-makers you’re a combination of a creative, a storyteller, and a problem solver. And combining those three things is actually it at the end of the day.”
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For more information on Luke’s new releases, and up and coming projects go check out his Instagram and click here.
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