How I tried to become a YouTuber, but instead became a Fashion Filmmaker, living the freelance traveller life

It’s been almost 6 years since I packed all my stuff and moved to Seoul, South Korea “for good”. Little did I know, was I going to pack my bags within less than a year, to move to London and become a freelance filmmaker working in the fashion industry.

November 2010, #Seoul
It's been a few days since I’ve graduated, and I’m unpacking my bags in South Korea. I was unpacking to stay.
Why did I move to Seoul, South Korea in the first place?
I was born and raised in Mauritius. My mom is South Korean and my dad is German, eventually we moved to Germany, it was my final university year studying Digital Media, I needed a big change, so here we are, in this sleepless city Seoul.

Here in Seoul I just knew of this girl, Paula (pictured in the middle), a Swedish student living in Seoul, whose blog I loved, I was a loyal reader and commenter of her blog.. She suggested meeting up at David's exhibition, a young British/Korean photographer at The Venue in Itaewon. Marco (pictured on the left) is a freelance filmmaker, he became a good friend, and he's also that Italian who everyone seems to know in Seoul. And David, the photographer would later become my boyfriend, and my partner in business.

In Seoul, I met people who most of all inspired me, we hung out together and had fun, I fell in love, and we made creative things happen..

NICISEOUL was born, a blog about #design, #photography, #films... I just documented "Life in Seoul", shared photos taken with my Nikon FM2 and uploaded iPhone videos on YouTube. I didn't grow a million subscriber base, but these amateurish videos somehow attracted event planners, who invited me to their parties to film it (with my iPhone!?). I'll do it 🙋🏻

We went to a lot of #fashion shoots and created backstage films, I begun thinking whether it would be possible to combine my passion for digital media and fashion, and make it a full-time job? 🙈

July 2011, London
Let’s become full-time #creatives! David and I moved to London, and we had to make some money.
Our first job was waiting tables, and then we did customer service, we answered angry phone calls during the week, and during the weekend we'd reinvest our salary in equipment and personal shoots.

We did all sorts of #shoots, shoots with horses, cosplayers, shoots in mansions or Thai restaurants, fashion, jewelry, catwalk, weddings, lingerie, music videos, beauty shoots, shoots with toy-dogs for a mini dog-wear designer.. For no pay, but for a lot of valuable experience!

About 6 months passed, I created some sort of portfolio, applied for a film-editing internship at Tank Magazine, and got in!

Through my film-editing internship at Tank Magazine, I got to learn fellow filmmakers, animators, fashion writers and photographers and so on. My internship was just for three months, but during that time I got to edit tons of films, and learnt so much.

My first big creative job came in September 2012, I had to create #London Fashion Week’s official ident animations!
Shortly after I started to study at London College of Fashion.

In 2013, I was doing a full-time master degree in Fashion #Media Production, working part-time as a graphic designer and freelancing as a fashion filmmaker, editor or animator. It was pretty busy!

In 2014, I directed my first fashion film for Schön Magazine, we shot it in Seoul, featuring South Korean Fashion Design.

Since then I freelance full-time making fashion-related films for the internet, I mostly work with various production agencies throughout London, but recently I also work with international clients. You'll find me at shoots, or at home editing. You'll also find us travelling a lot. Last year we visited over 6 destinations.. I was planning to add a travel blog to my portfolio: http://www.itsnicole.tv , but then my sister told me about Steemit.

I'm still trying to figure things out here, but right now, #Steemit sounds like some perfect internet utopia! I plan to use Steemit as my visual blog "#itsnicoletv". Follow to stay up to date!

While I work on my next #blog post... Let me know your thoughts!

Thanks so much for reading,

Nicole xx

Me on other social media channels:
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/nicolemarkhoff
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/itsnicoletv
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nicolemarkhoff
Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/nicolekathrin
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/nicolekathrinnn
Old YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/niciseoul