Amsterdam Focus: Bart Timmer

Bart Timmer’s humorous spots for Heineken and Volkswagen have catapulted the Dutch commercials director to international acclaim. As Laura Swinton discovers, it all began when he put down his saxophone...

“What are my ambitions?” muses Dutch director Bart Timmer. “Well it’s the most clichéd thing to say as a commercials director… you know the answer already, I think…” he explains. “I want to become a teacher.”

With a showreel smirking with laconic humour – the likes of Heineken’s Walk-In Fridge have brought Timmer much international attention in recent months – it’s unsurprising that he’s equally sardonic in person as he gently deadpans his way through the interview.

Fear not, Timmer is not about to abandon advertising for a life of playground politics. He’s well ensconced at Dutch production house Czar where he’s been for the last 10 years – he joined their young director stable CCCP straight from film school. In fact, Timmer is so happily in his groove as a commercials director that even he’s in no rush to journey down the well-trodden path to feature films.

But he wasn’t always a committed commercials director. During his teenage years, Timmer had musical aspirations, playing sax in a band. But the repetitive nature of live music performance and a lack of creative control drove him to directing. But his passion for music lives on in his filmmaking.

“Funnily enough, a lot of directors have this connection with music. It’s probably not that strange because it’s all about timing and wanting to perform,” he reflects. And Timmer does, from time to time, play in the Czar house band.

In the end, Timmer’s other passion, comedy, won out. He grew up with Monty Python and even directed a Dutch sketch show – and his obsession with perfectly crystallised comic ideas shines through in his simple, subtle spots. Many of Timmer’s comedy heroes are British or American (he name-checks Ricky Gervais and Larry David) but there is, nonetheless, a Dutch vibe to his work.

“In terms of comedy we are, as a culture or people, quite efficient in how we communicate. That’s what I hear when I work in France. They like the Dutch because they are straightforward, they don’t use lots of words to tell a story.

If I look at my own work and how I tell the story, I try to always be efficient in my shots and that’s something Dutch,” he theorises. “At least that’s what I hear from French people. It’s always difficult to comment on your own culture or way of communicating.”

And it’s not just his efficiency that marks Timmer out as a communicator. Personable and gregarious in conversation, Timmer enjoys working with actors. And it shows – in his VW Touareg spot, he coaxes a comic pathos from his lead. He’d rather invest time in fine-tuning performances than perfecting the packshot. Can’t get no love from a beer bottle.

“I really love playing around with the actors. Of course you always have things in mind but I love how they evolve in shooting,” he says. “A good actor knows exactly what the story’s about and if I direct them well then I always get little presents.”

And, just as he enjoys the spontaneity of working with actors, he also delights in the constant surprise and newness that comes from working in commercials. “When I watch commercials I still say ‘shit, I wish I’d shot that one’,” he says.

For Timmer, advertising is an obstacle course full of inviting challenges. “The funny thing is that I’ve been shooting more abroad the last few years, meeting other DPs who give me new input and ideas. I still feel like a little schoolboy learning from guys who are much bigger and more talented than me.”