Guten Tag from Recklinhausen (Ruhr Area) in Germany
 

Hello, my name is Michael Herzog and from the Ruhr Area in Germany... that's where the Love Parade was last year. I'm currently working in the IT department of an energy company near the dutch border and it was also the filming thing that made me leave my job in Corporate Communications in Berlin and move back to my hometown of Recklinghausen.

I've been working with moving images since the 1990ies, at work as well as in my free time. I have no formal training in shooting or editing video and like to learn as I go, but don't tell that the people who actually paid for what I did in the past. ;)

At the end of 2006 I bought a Canon HV20 for a first short movie project, because there was not much room creative expression left in my day job except for boring trade show animations. Of course in the middle of production I had to move to the other end of the republic, but I hope to finally finish it this year alongside with another short. There are plans for the future, but let's see how this step works out first.

I use Adobe CS on a Windows platform most of the time, especially since Adobe bought almost every other software I've been using for ages (like Cool Edit) and integrated it in the CS package. But I also love those small powerful tools like AVISynth and VirtualDub.

There is also a small website/blog at Studio Special Place: Amateure haben die Arche gebaut, Profis die Titanic (in german). The motto is "Amateurs build the Arc, professionals build the Titanic". I'm not sure where I stole this, but it's exactly what I have in mind when I sit in my cinema seat and watch a high-budget failure.