Lieven Van Baelen (°1973) studied at the RITS filmschool in Brussels. He took up a job as telecine operator for postproduction company Ace Digital House in Brussels and quickly became one of Belgium’s leading colour graders.

The next logical step for him was to take on set lighting as well and he became a director of photography for a series of commercials and music videos. He occasionally works as a DOP for commercials and feature projects.

As far as directing goes he took his first steps with the production of his short feature film ‘The Thread’, in 1999. His decided views on images and image treating, his knowledge of post production techniques and his hunger to keep evolving in these matters made him a much sought after director in a very short range of time.

n 2002 he signed up with CZAR, and immediately won international prizes for the direction of the Dexia ‘Club Brugge’ commercial: an Eurobest award in London and a Gold CCB (Belgian Art Director’s Club) for best TV single.

He kept on evolving in his work and is now renowned for his state of the art visual directing style and his knowledge of post production keeping however the story and feel of the films he makes as the priority. He has worked for Heineken, Canon, Coca-Cola, Nissan (TBWA Paris), …

More recently he finished commercials for William Lawson’s Scotch, a European campaign for Renault (Publicis Madrid/Paris), a commercial for O2 and Ikea for the German market, a Decathlon commercial for the French market and the campaign for the Olympic Games 2012.

At the EFFIE Awards 2011 he won The Grand Effie and Gold Effie with his spot William Lawson Cannonball.

His last campaigns were Base Balloons for TBWA Brussels and Nissan Juke for France which was featured on Shots and was Ad of the Day on Campaign.