About Me-ILK

Mark Herpai

As long as I remember, I always had this visual addiction to motion pictures. I was doodling a lot in class and just couldn’t look away from a TV if one was there in the room.

After high school these activities led me to animation. It felt close to me because of the drawings and filmmaking is such a vast field with a lot of possible specializations to choose from. With cartoons I could try out all the different paths and when you make a world from scratch you do everything: writing, set design, lights, editing, sound… I feel like drawing is such a pure form of filmmaking, just focusing on the image in you and not getting bugged down so much with production. Pretty much every shot is possible from the get go. I’m quite happy I spent some time in that world. Maybe my love for scripted works and well thought out processes are coming from animation.

I knew my peak interest was in live action narratives and after 3 years I let go of the frame-by frame, the VJ-ing, went outside and started picking up photography. I always felt like new technology just makes it easier to create. It clears the channel from the mind’s idea to the real world. But as I got more comfortable with image creation, I started to find my way to the analogue techniques. With their clear set of principles, they can tone down a lot of possibly overwhelming noise and let you focus on the creative process.

As I mentioned before, the field of filmmaking is this a vast area so I tried to make every new job of mine to be different than the last one and slowly but surely started to narrow down my profession – from location management to VFX my plan was try and error – I started to realize that to me true filmmaking was when your ideas directly and unquestionably are shown on the screen.

A writer can write a novel, production designers work as decorators, producers organize concerts or festivals... but (only so in my opinion and broadly speaking) a cinematographer’s or director’s decision is so visible on the screen that they are undeniable. So, my choice was between these 2.

And honestly with the current stage of higher education anywhere I looked, I felt like cinematography is at least something worth going to school for. Its more technical, they could teach me more concrete and practical things, so that decided it. But my love for directing stayed with me and nowadays it is stronger than ever. In a nut shell, I would say I work as a DoP and create as a director.  And I feel like this is where my other past experiences come in handy, to understand the operation as whole. How to communicate with department heads, how the information channels through the whole system to arrive to the viewer. What different sectors add or take away from it.

I hope to do this measuring to many more years to come.

MILK

I remember the best house party I threw just after freshman year of collage. We got this spacious, typical inner-city Budapest, hanging corridor type apartment for a night and I decided that in one room won’t be any lights just a projection on a wall. Kind of like a cinema with all my favorite music videos. In that dimly lit room was such a high that I keep want to share it.

I hope someday this project might incorporate more and more people as partners and it becomes a sort of studio to push the conversation a little bit further.

I hope you will find something here either from me or from my recommendations that will spark curiosity inside you and will lead you to some adventures worth remembering.

Oh, and why milk? It’s my favorite drink, MK, and your dad doesn’t need to go get the milk, its at home.

And the logo?

Is it a lens? A boob, an eye or maybe a record? Who’s to say, I guess whatever you prefer.

M.