ABOUTtheFilmmaker

Artists and art have always been central in my life. My parents were both amateur artists, with professional artists as friends.

In an unbroken chain from a Brownie Starflash and a borrowed Wollensak tape recorder, through Nikons, to state-of-the-art HD video, I’ve been photographing and recording people my whole life. Since 1985 it’s been my full-time work, and artists are some of my favorite subjects.

I graduated from Columbia College in NYC with a degree in English, having worked in the Journalism School and helped on student films.

Pencil sketch of me by Bo Bartlett
used with his kind permission.

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Since then, my work has been on the CBS Evening News, in front of US Congress committees, tabloid tv, film festivals, hip hop videos, American Bohemian (a nano-budget feature film, shot in Manhattan,) and arts documentaries. The backstage, fly-on-the-wall aspect of making documentaries is one of my greatest satisfactions. It’s always being on a field trip, never having to go to class.
Some of my subjects and clients: Chuck Close, ACLU, Chrysler, Kirkland Ellis, Abbott Labs, Montel Williams, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Dale Chihuly. For more information on my filmmaking experience and projects, please visit DougvanderHoof.com, Modern-Media.com (for litigation media), DougvanderHoof.tumblr.com.

STUDIO VISIT VIDEO is a Chicago-based organization I founded to document artists and their studio practices.
Some of these films are personal projects and some are paid commissions from the artist or their gallerists.
I treasure these studio visits, the contact with the artists and their work, and I want these films to matter, to be a contribution to the art history, the cultural memory of Chicago.