8 minute read
Bertus AKA The Bloody Butcher
Last issue Bertus generously gave us an insight into how he executes his photo shoots with his creative “right arm” photographer Jella Mollema. He passed this knowledge on primarily to give some inspiration to our Barbers submitting entries to our inaugural Australian Modern Barber Awards, I thank him for that, and I hope you enjoyed the piece.
Doing his photo shoots and projects may indeed be Bertus’ passion, but it’s not the aspect of his Barbering life that is closest to his heart.
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“The Old School” is a Barbering institution that attracts students world-wide. Some big talent Barbers from Australia have walked through its doors of course, Jono Tavita Goodwin and Don DeSanctis to name 2 recent alumni.
Let’s have a look at THE 5-DAY MEDIA COURSE
We talk to Bertus:
THE TEACHER - THE EDUCATOR – THE MASTER TO US BARBER NINJA’S
As international travel starts again are you getting students from abroad coming back to the Old School yet?
Oh yeah for sure, UK and Europe are back, we actually had a couple of American students coming in recently again too, it’s fantastic. I’m really, really happy. We’re attracting people from all around the world, of course, with The Old School, we got a lot of people from the UK. We got people from Germany, Poland, France, so slowly it’s coming back. So, let’s hope this is a positive. I really hope this is gonna’ continue because the school, at the moment, is really where all my heart is. You know, when it was closed, we did a lot of other work in the school. I just really love to teach. So, I’m very, very happy that we have a full classes again.
You mentioned you did other work during the height of the pandemic and lockdowns for you guy’s, did you do online education or just sort of wait it out a bit?
Yeah, no, we waited it out. I’m not a big fan of online classes. I don’t really enjoy them myself. So, if I don’t enjoy something myself, I find it hard to be genuine. If I have to do it and I’m not into it, it’s not going to be a good class. So, what I like to do is make my step-by-step, videos. I just kind of throw online for free, you know, so because you can watch a video and you can learn a lot and learn everything because there’s only one angle. (Roberts step by step videos are raw, unproduced and shot from the chair as if you were standing next to him on the shop floor)
When you teach a class (live), I want to look people in the eye and be like, hey… come closer.
I can say “What do you find hard about this part?” ask questions…. interact! Let me be more precise. I just really love the feeling of teaching a class even more, for me, it’s not like work, it’s definitely a job, don’t get me wrong, but if you ever come to one of my classes, you’ll see that I am really, really involved. I really love my classes. I like to meet the people and as it’s an intense class, I cannot do that online. In a way you are kind of selling out what makes you special, which might work, but it’s not for me. It’s like a hair show, when you get the energy from the audience, you can give it right back, that’s what you want. Online, it is very hard, I mean even with the zoom meetings. I’m just not really into it.
What’s your week like when you don’t have a full-time courses or photo commitments going?
Oh man, I read a lot, I read so much when I show you my library, there’s a ladder, a swing on a thing. (Robert flicks his computer around for me, he says he has around 10 000 titles) So this is my work library, these are just books about music, photography, everything. I read a lot and I call that work, because you know, it keeps me inspired all the time.
Are you on the floor at Schorem anymore taking clients?
No, not anymore, I spend time in the school wherever I can. I try to work as much as possible with Jella my photographer. Speaking of Jella, (Rob’s creative partner in crime), we are now looking for a studio, so we want to rent a place and build a headquarters. It’s kind of hard, I thought a lot of places would actually come free after the pandemic but no. I want something close to the shop, but once we do get a place there, we’re going to go full force.
Let’s talk about the courses but specifically, the five-day media course you just did. Walk us through that.
Well, we already had the two basic courses; the advanced class, and the shaving course and at a certain point, we decided to do this upgraded super intense five-day course. We thought about it and said ‘what are we really good at next to doing haircuts? Social Media!!’ Our social media combined is almost 2 million followers, so we apparently have done something good that we could share. This process includes Jella, of course, who talks and takes the photography but also Petra, who does our business socials, she is amazing. I do my own personal page. That’s what I do. I do my own Instagram, the bloody butcher and I interfere with all the other social media haha! Petra is not just about posting. She is about how to post, when to post, where are the posts going? Because she’s really super professional and knows what’s happening behind everything. So, with the five-day course, the first days are like, okay, so what do you find hard right now? There’s a lot of barbers, for example, that are very good in doing their fades, but find the longer haircuts harder, or maybe the sectioning part. I like drawing a map of the haircut, which can be very handy, especially when you want to do education or whatever. Angles, blah, blah, blah. So, the first few days we work on the mannequins, and we really go like, okay, what do you find hard?
We’re going to take that and then work on it on the mannequin until it’s fine. For example, flat tops or the longer trims, you know, there’s always something we can use and help them out with it. Then we have a day where I do my demo, really focussing on doing a photo shoot. I show them the difference, explaining this is not a client walking in, this is a model walking in, in the moment. When everyone knows it’s a real model, the whole way of working changes, because you learn to look in angles. What do you want to show? Do you want to sell a product? Do you want to sell a haircut? Do you want to get clients in? Who do you want to reach with this image? Make a plan and find your approach, I find that super interesting. Then I do a demo on how I do my haircut. I show with Jella exactly how I go from the moment that somebody walks into the door to that photo that they’re going to see on my screen. We show every step of the project, from model choice to working on screen with the photographer. We make sure that they get great models that work on photos and talk about how you can find them, explaining how I take my models from the street! I take them out of the Metro, out of the trains, anywhere in fact. I’m not afraid. I’m a professional barber, which I think is great. I have a flyer that says, “Congratulations you glorious bastard! Your mom and dad did a great job because I’ve picked you!” And people just laugh seeing how I have all these models with different haircuts and they could be one to! I’m like, “Hey man! you’re going to get whatever you want, but I’m going to make you famous… even more famous than you already are.” People laugh. I go to schools; I give the flyer to them. I see something amazing in everyone so there is always heaps of choice!
Back to the course…
Yeah. I talk about Jella and then the last two days work on their models, good looking models, you know, easy to take photos of. They get the photos when they’re done so they can use them for their social media. At the beginning of the course we give them a list of things they will have to do; take photos, make stories on socials, make sure they take photos of the other students in their group. All great practice! On the last day, that’s where Petra comes in and she shows them how to build their stories; what they can do with their models and how they can use them to get more followers, how the images can be repurposed etc. They leave the school with a so much information. Normally they go quiet for a couple of weeks. Then followers start to like and send them messages, and they are like…OMG, I cannot believe it, and I’m like, yeah, you know, it works well! I think it’s our best course. It is very intense, you walk away with photos that are so professional, made by Jella and a knowledge of how to use them through socials.
