Krog: the man behind ‘Ballade vir ‘n Enkeling’

IT is going to be one of the best South African films this country has seen in a long time!

These are the proud words of Kemptonian, Quentin Krog (31), director of the new Afrikaans movie, Ballade vir ‘n Enkeling.

It will be released countrywide on March 20.

Krog was one of five directors invited to do a directors pitch for the movie version of this popular television series. He had only one week to prepare and got the job.

“Condensing the story, which used to be a 13-hour long TV series, into a compact yet still entertaining story without losing the essence was quite a challenge. There were so many elements that had to be refined to fit into a feature length film,” Krog said.

Casting was also a big challenge.

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Krog, who never received formal film training as such, moved to Kempton Park in 2010. He spent his first primary school years in Benoni before moving to St John’s College in Houghton.

He matriculated at Woodbridge College in the Eastern Cape and got a degree in drama and theatre at Stellenbosch University.

He majored in theatre acting during his studies in Stellenbosch and film and video was offered only as a short project block. It was here that Quentin started experimenting in making his own short films.

During high school, Krog actually aspired to become a musician. He was a singer songwriter and guitarist for many years in several bands. For fun, he frequently participated in school plays and enjoyed acting but never considered it as a career.

“The idea of studying music was frowned upon by my parents who come from a strong business and entrepreneurial background. So I settled on the idea of a B Com marketing degree.”

To cut a long story short, Krog ended up changing his direction of studies to drama in the first week of him arriving in Stellenbosch. The gamble seemed to have paid off.

His film school was very much a DIY approach. He borrowed his dad’s digital video camera and downloaded some hacked video editing software off the web and started writing, directing and editing his own short films during university.

This led to him starting a small production company specialising in corporate videos and digital marketing in Cape Town, called Firestorm Productions. Wanting to move on to bigger things, Krog left the company in 2010 and moved up to Joburg, starting freelancing on TV and film sets as an assistant director.

Eventually this gave way to his TV directing debut with the drama series, Sterlopers, for kykNET.

Ballade vir ‘n Enkeling is his first big movie. “I am proud of it,” he said.

And what comes after Ballade?

Currently he is directing a 13-part drama series, Die Boekklub for kykNET in Stellenbosch until mid-June. Thereafter he will direct seasons 2 and 3 of Sterlopers.

Between all the work Krog also makes time for his young family. He has been married for just over four years and has a nine-month-old daughter with another baby on its way later this year.

And when there is a little more time left, he loves playing golf and doing photography.