After graduating with a Masters from Elam School of Fine Arts, Tim Van Dammen showed at such prestigious galleries as Artspace and The Film Archive. His work A TENSION SPANNED opened the 2007 NZ Fashion Week for Lonely Hearts Club. In the meantime he self funded and shot two low budget feature films with good friend Thomas Sainsbury.
In 2008 his band Collapsing Cities was signed to London based management company Supervision Management (Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Crystal Castles, White Lies) and he toured major music festivals throughout the UK while at the same time used his skills as a visual artist to create music videos for his own and other bands.
Since arriving back in NZ in 2009 he became one of NZ’s most prolific music video directors working with almost every top New Zealand artist. He has produced and directed over 140 music videos to date through his production company Blur and Sharpen.
In 2009 he was nominated for best director for his video TURN AROUND for Sola Rosa. In 2010 Tim was nominated for 6 Juice TV Video Awards for which he won Best Electronic Video for the Kids Of 88 song Just A Little Bit. This video also went on to win Tim the best director ‘Tui’ that year at the Vodafone NZ Music Awards.
In 2010 Tim was approached to adapt 38 songs adapted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into a feature film. Tim adapted the songs into a screenplay and produced and directed the film now titled ROMEO AND JULIER: A LOVE SONG. An early cut of the film sparked the interest of legendary Oscar winning editor Jamie Selkirk (Lord Of The Rings, King Kong) who took Tim under his wing and mentored him through the post production of the film.
