At the age of 15, Claas Ortmann was inspired to become a writer/director, by watching Tarantinos "Pulp Fiction" (1994) and several groundbreaking music-videos, including Spike Jonze's "Sabotage" for the Beastie Boys (1994). The first short films he shot and directed, were done using a Hi8 Videocamera and very basic editing system. They were gangster movies inspired by the works of Tarantino, Rodriguez, Jonze and others. Over the years, his work processed into music-videos and dramatic shorts using elaborate production and directing techniques. After Claas finished high school in 1998 he immediately started working as a production assistant at a local music video production company. This career step followed his still growing admiration for music clips and visual storytelling. During the first week at the production office, he started to write treatments and concepts for several music-videos, some of them were even produced by the company. In 2000 Claas switched companies and continued working as a production assistant and production manager at a commercial film production company in Hamburg - producing national and international adverts. In 2003 Claas turned the production office his back and moved to Munich to study film directing at the "Hochschule fuer Fernsehen und Film Muenchen" - the Munich film school. The film "Natuerliche Auslese 
* Natural Selection" is his movie during his first year.


See photos of celebrities before they hit the big-time.

Claas Ortmann

Director

Writer

Editor