Marko Klijn
"I was a kid of the seventies, so back then Punk was a very big influence on me. Music had always been my thing since I was 12 years old and it was something I really wanted to get into full time. I played bass guitar and was lead singer in a new wave band for awhile, until I dropped out of the music scene altogether when I was about 25 years old."
"Like my father, I went onto university to study history in Amsterdam. I lived in Amsterdam for about five years, before moving up to the north to this amazing university town called Groningen. This was a beautiful old Dutch town where you could walk everywhere without needing a car, which was cool."
"However, the thing that was really cool about Groningen, is it was a place where the students really owned that town. It was the final year of my degree when I arrived there, and like most students, I soon found myself working as a barman. After university, I stayed on where I ran a couple of classic old pubs and a ‘wanky' restaurant and club. Because there were no closing hours in Groningen, the hours you could say were incredible."
"It was about this time, that my brother decided to emigrate to New Zealand. We had both seen a couple of documentaries about the country, and figured that it would be a great place to live at some stage. When my brother arrived here, he wanted to get his own animation company going, but the bank interest rates then were incredibly high. Given that I was doing pretty well out of my pubs and clubs in Holland, I decided to invest in his animation company."
"This worked out really well for me, because now I could take 6 weeks leave from Holland each year and come to New Zealand to see how my brother’s animation business was going. I did this for many years, and every time I would come out, I found myself getting more and more into the animation business. Finally in 1997, I decided to leave my businesses in Holland and come to live in New Zealand as well."
"I just love this place. There are so many spectacular places here, and when you go for a drive the environment changes completely in the space of a couple of hours. There are not many countries in the world that you can say that about!"
"Travel has always been a part of my life and I been across Europe, Asia and South America, so I am used to being in different places. Living in two worlds like this is something that I am completely comfortable with. I still think of Holland as my old home and New Zealand as my new home."
"Where I live now and work, is down by the beaches of Takapuna. I live here on the north shore, so I can go for a walk on the beach or for a swim, whenever I want to. And it takes me only 10mins to ride my bike to work each day! I could never have had any of these things, being an animator in Holland."
"When I first arrived in New Zealand, I started working with my brother as a producer. I had a lot of experience managing businesses and people, so it seemed a good fit for me. Well, that was such big learning curve in terms of technology and what could and couldn’t be done at the time. But what I found very early on, is that I seemed to totally get what ideas worked from an advertising point of view. I seemed to understand what it takes to sell something in a 15sec, 30sec or in a 60 sec commercial."
"I really got into the whole selling proposition that comes with advertising work. The notion of keeping the idea simple and yet making it clever enough to communicate well, was something that I seemed to really get. All of these rules sound totally banal when you say them aloud, but it is incredible how many commercials don’t seem to get it these days. With the technology we have, it should make it easier to get the formula for these things right, but so often it doesn’t work out that way."
"Working in a bigger entity where I had little or no independence soon became a problem to me. So after that company finally combusted, I thought about how things could be done differently if I did it all again next time. Being independent and being in control of your own destiny, means more to me than anything. So when we started Cirkus about eight years ago, the main thing I wanted from it was to be fun."
"The name ‘Cirkus’ sounded so eclectic and seemed to fit with our feeling about ‘no rules’ applying to what we wanted from our lives. Cirkus to me, means ‘anything goes’ and I guess that it was what we do. Whether it’s 3D, studio shooting, stop motion miniatures or traditional 2D - anything goes!"
"I had no business plans for Cirkus, all I wanted us to do was great work everyday and to enjoy our craft as animators. Cirkus is not about business objectives at all, it has always been about creative ideals. My game plan has always been to maintain our creative independence and do interesting work. I wanted us to be able to do work equally with companies like The Mill, Passion or Psyops. I really think these days, we are right up there with them in terms of creativity; and I think that’s what really counts."
"We have to do things differently, because we don’t have the same level of resources and budget given to these companies, but that makes you work harder in the end. I am not interested in putting a bunch of Flames onto a job, I am more interested in using a bunch of people with bright creative minds who can makes thinks look good instead of using machinery."
"I think that is what Cirkus now stands for - doing things differently. As our reputation has grown internationally we are now finding a lot of really talented artists wanting to work with us. Simply because of the incredible variety of work we do! That really goes to the heart of our wanting to stay independent. If you want something a bit different that is also handcrafted, then you’ll ultimately come to Cirkus."
"For us, our magic really comes from our quirky sense of humor. We laugh all the time here, which really saves your sanity sometimes. I honestly believe that you need humor in everything you do, because that’s what will ultimately shine through in your projects. I just love coming in to work everyday and laughing along with a bunch of fun people. There is something very eclectic and cool about this company and that really means a lot to me."