From a young age , I knew I had a passion for film making.It took years to finally realize this is something I could actually study  and build a career out of.

I participated in a few film festivals on my home island Aruba and worked as a freelancer for while. My business is called GNC Visuals, it is short for my full name: Gabriela Natasha Croes.

In 2016 I left my home, Aruba, to follow my dreams and study film at Hogeschool voor de kunsten Utrecht (HKU)

I'm a film student who's passion lies in camera and editing. It's intriguing to me how an editor, director and camera man/woman can work together to create a mind blowing way to tell a story. But for me, aside from the technological side, I find it important to always have a reason behind your decisions. This way your choices when making a movie are made to improve or enrich the narrative or message of a film. I feel the happiest when I'm behind a camera or when I'm editing, but I am mostly an editor who is also interested in camera, because these two elements support each other.

Im constantly trying to learn new techniques for both editing and cameras. As an editor I find variation the most important. I find it important to be able to change your style and technique to fit a specific video or genre, that's why I like variety in my work. I have worked on short fiction films, but also documentaries, dance films and music videos.

 Aside from this, I am also a film maker with my own opinions, fascinations and ideas. I could sit with you and try to come up with a way to improve a narrative, or help you produce a video. I am very versatile and believe that an editor and camera person should be able to adapt their style and creativity to a specific video or movie. It also helps that I have always been interested in the arts, especially singing and dancing.

This interest in art helps me when it's time to produce, film or edit a dance video or music video. My versatility makes it possible to work on a commercial and then be able to work on a Horror movie. Because as it turns out, I am also a thriller and Horror fanatic and I love to create tension and suspense in the projects I work on.

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What fascinates me about Horrors and Thrillers is the way they incorporate archetypes and metaphors in their narratives. Horror especially, which is most times less realistic than Thrillers, have the space to hide metaphors and a bigger political message. Some examples are "US" (2019) by Jordan Peele, which aside from the main story line shows that if everyone had the same recourses we could all thrive and live a successful life.  Jordan Peele hides this political view of the U.S.A in metaphors in his movie. Another example would be the Netflix series "The haunting of hill house" (2018) which became my favourite tv series. The haunting off hill house is about a family of 7 members that experienced a haunted house when they were young. What intrigued me about this series is that, aside from the storyline, each one of the 7 family members represents a sin from the 7 deadly sins.

The use of metaphors and Archetypes give depth to a movie, it makes the message go much further than just the storyline and it also makes the audience think a little harder. I also realised that this is one of the reasons I am interested in music videos. Modern music videos use a lot of Easter eggs and metaphors which gives the viewers and fans something to think about. Some examples would be "The greatest" (2016) by Sia about the Orlando mass shooting and "Chained to the Rhythm" (2017) by Katy Perry about how we live our lives ignoring the real problems of the world and that we are being manipulated in our daily lives.

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Aside from filming, I still love photography and try to practice and learn more about it whenever I can.

I'm looking forward to working on more projects, both as an editor and as a camera woman or assistant. My goal to further develop my skills, gain more experience and get to know more people along the way!

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