International creative production company Couscous has signed two directors. Karim Huu Do comes aboard the U.S. roster for music video representation while Kim Geldenhuys will be handled for spots and music videos in the American market.
Huu Do’s body of work includes music videos for artists Miguel, Drake, Last Night In Paris in London, and The Shoes, whose music clip “Submarine” received a D&AD Award in cinematography.
Huu Do’s mix of backgrounds and cultures helped shape his outlook and inspired his boundary-pushing approach to directing. He attended art school, where he studied a broad scope of visual arts, including experimental cinema, photography and graphic design, among others. Cutting his teeth with commercial work in Switzerland, he earned accolades for his creative advertising and ultimately moved to Paris, where he signed with Caviar, then later with Object & Animal in London. Prior to Couscous, he signed with Anonymous Content, where he currently remains for U.S. commercial representation.
Huu Do’s work has been honored with awards from the Clios, D&AD, EDI, Epica, and UKMVA competitions for music videos and branded content alike, with brands including Converse, H&M, Adidas and Gillette. He currently resides in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Huu Do said that coming to Couscous feels like a “family reunion” of sorts in that he’s known the company’s co-founder and EP Salim El Arja for some time and the two have long talked about collaborating together.
Geldenhuys
Geldenhuys has directed for brands including Volkswagen, Telekom, Hyundai and Prudential. His heart-wrenching public service campaign “Selinah” for Topsy won South Africa’s first Grand LIA at the London International Advertising Awards, as well as Cannes Gold and numerous other international honors.
Couscous co-founder Bear Damen said of Geldenhuys, “With his vast experience in the field of concise storytelling, his rich, earnest sensibilities revealed themselves from our earliest conversations through the final products of his amazing creations. We can’t wait to help him continue his journey.”
Geldenhuys added, “Couscous caught my eye when they first signed Emilie Badenhorst. I was extremely impressed with the work they had accomplished and produced in a very short space of time. They have an amazing roster, and I am extremely excited and proud to be included amongst such talented directors and producers.”
Geldenhuys discovered a love of narrative and film following three years of working as a theater usher while still at school in his native South Africa. He spent his required military service time holed in the facility dark room, first experimenting with photography and printing as a creative outlet. Following service, he assisted fashion photographers, eventually earning a following for his own careful eye. Independently pursuing photography for five additional years, he segued to music video and commercial direction to further inform his creative lens, learning the ropes of the cinematic production he so adored.
Prior to joining Couscous, G4eldenhuys had a long tenure with Bob Industries in the U.S. market. During his stay there, back in 2014, he founded Cape Town-based production company 0307 which continues to rep him in South Africa.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More