ABOUT ME
My name is Dewald Brand and I’m a filmmaker (director | cinematographer | editor) specialising in documentary and commercial work. I’m a traveller at heart with a passion for telling stories and all things visual and cinematic– be it long format unscripted narratives, directing captivating television commercials, creating short form branded content, or anywhere in between and beyond.
Over the past few years I’ve been fortunate to have filmed in over 45 different countries for clients such as Nike, Red Bull, Tag Heuer, Oxfam, Amazon, The Guardian, Google and various others. I’ve had my work showcased on TV, published in magazines, displayed in museums, used for in-store advertising as well as online usage.
Currently, I am based between Lisbon, Portugal, and Cape Town, South Africa
Oh, and I’m a pretty chilled guy :)
If you care in knowing a little bit more about myself, please click below…
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Born and bred in South Africa till I was 15 years old, I finished my last years of high school in Paris, France, after which I went on to obtain a four year Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Boston University, MA, USA; majoring in Entrepreneurship and minoring in Hotel Management.
The next year and a half was spent mostly between Paris and India; starting a small clothing line, obtaining some cooking skills from the culinary institute Le Cordon Bleu, and doing some freelance photography amongst it all. Once visas ran out (and realising I neither had a real passion for clothing nor cooking) I returned to South Africa in 2010, more specifically Cape Town. After spending a couple months behind a desk doing mostly finance work, I decided to ‘quit it all’ and instead started a small rental photography studio out of my bedroom called Thelonious Studios (named after my dog, Thelonious aka Theelo aka Pooch)
A short while later, a business partner and I started a small production company called One.Dog.Chicken Productions. It was during this time that I first started to learn about filmmaking, editing, websites and coding (just the basics), digital media and everything else relevant regarding the ever changing digital landscape.
After three eventful years, my business partner and I decided to go our separate ways and pursue our own callings. This led to me starting a boutique creative agency called GKC (Grand Kids Collective) in early 2014.
For the next 5 years I got to direct, shoot, strategize, conceptualize, implement, and oversee various and vastly different projects, all the while gearing to get GKC known and respected as a world-class content creation agency.
And then in 2020 amongst the chaos of Covid, I had the opportunity to finally make the move to sunny Lisbon, Portugal where I now permanently reside and freelance as a director and/or cinematographer (with some occasional editing), with the plan to get GKC up and running again in the next couple months.
