Mike Barkhoff

Mike Barkhoff is an American film director, scriptwriter, video editor, actor, musician, and distributor for the arts.

He is one half creator of the creative collaboration Barking Vans (alongside Jarrod Van Hauen), one half of the music duo QUINTOKOS (with Conner Paulsen), and is the inventor and curator of Live Free. In 2022, Barkhoff launched CreateMore.

## Career

### Early Years

Barkhoff began writing stories and conceiving plots for films at a young age. At thirteen, he created his first short film alongside Conner Paulsen for a Tech Class assignment in Middle School, entitled "Timeline".

2014 saw Barkhoff begin taking the craft more seriously. The same year he released "The Happy Murder Spree", "Mafia", "On The Run", and more, he also honed his editing skill and taught himself how to write a properly formatted screenplay.

In 2015, Barkhoff's artistic urge to try and remake "Timeline" as a longer film more akin to his initial idea and artistic practices manifested. Alongside this, him and Jarrod Van Hauen decided to take steps to secure their film vision, and created a film company entitled Barking Vans.

### Hiatus #1

Unfortunately, it all happened within the same timeframe of a Film Class in his Freshman year requiring him to focus on another sizable project. Working with four classmates, the most of any group in the class, Barkhoff created "Bond V Batman: Age Of Vengeance" and received an A+ and positive reviews from his teacher and peers. Following the film, he created the groups 5 Guys In A Film Class and Internet Bay.

Due to the stress on Barkhoff from creating so much in such a short period of time, his sole releases in 2016 were an incomplete sequel entitled "Bond P Batman" and a few comedy shorts.

In 2017, Barkhoff decided to return from his creative hiatus alongside Van Hauen to make a comedic version of "The Great Gatsby" when a Language Arts project called for it. Named "The Moderate Gatsby", the project received positive reviews from peers due to it's comedy, but landed the duo in After School Detention.

### Return To Normalcy

Because of this, Barkhoff momentarily decided to quit due to the "overseeing of films from those unaware of art". Shortly thereafter, however, the same class and same teacher allowed him and Van Hauen to team up yet again. This time, they made a trailer for "Into the Wild". They scored an above average score and their short premiered in theaters. Van Hauen delivered their speech, with Barkhoff stumbling on his words in front of the audience, simply saying: "We didn't think it was this good."

This reunited a flame in Barkhoff. He attributes it to being the reawakening of his dream. After that, he released "Candlelight", a horror short film which opened to massive success and is regarded, then and today, by many to be his magnum opus.

In 2018, Barkhoff co-created the web series "Chapters." with his former girlfriend. The series premiered to laud from an audience online. Thereafter, he announced his debut feature film "INFINITE.", which premiered later in the year to positive reception and a high audience retention.

The same year, he ventured into music distribution, meeting and signing Norff, Mcee Detox, Gee Mak, and UGK David.

### Hiatus #2

2019 again saw Barkhoff stumble to his second creative hiatus due to stress and depression, especially following a difficult breakup. All projects he had prepped for 2019 were delayed. This lead to him and Van Hauen eventually being on opposing ends, and the eventual deflation of Barking Vans content.

For a period, Barkhoff released solely under Live Free's imprint. The business, designed and catered by himself and Delfs, was his relaunch. After a truce between Van Hauen and him, he had a change of heart and re-welcomed Barking Vans as a production title for anything the duo collaborated on.

### Live Free

In this timeframe, Barkhoff released a series of oddities, including "Candlelight II", a 'sequel' with no connection, "Repres", a Breaking Bad fan film that confirmed his plan for an "INFINITE." sequel - "Patron", and a fan version of "Friday The 13th", which was the creative reuniting of him and Van Hauen. Thereafter, he released "Down", a 6 part web series, exclusive to Barking Vans. Barkhoff and Delfs also created "The Live Free Podcast". This Podcast was handled primarily by Barkhoff from November 2019 to the early summer of 2020 due to Delfs' hectic schedule; the podcast production halted due to COVID-19.

In 2020, Barkhoff continued "Chapters." with the second season, subtitled "Atrocity Exhibitions". It received acclaim, and each episode was written and directed by him. Notable, "Nightmarish", Episode 6, is considered to be one of his best short films. May 8th, 2020, saw him release his sophomoric film "Windfall" to positive reviews, also. Initially, Barkhoff wanted "I Give It A Year" to serve as his sophomoric film effort, but filming shut down about a third of the way through due to COVID-19. By the time it was even somewhat safe for the actors to regroup, it was too close to Election Season - the timeframe Barkhoff wanted it to release in - to finish filming and have the movie fully edited and marketed in time. Due to this, Barkhoff went back to the aforementioned proposed 2019 web series, "Windfall", which sat on his hard drive since completion of filming in late 2018. He had attempted to edit it two times prior to no avail due to his laptop's overabundance of the project. He purchased a new laptop and edited the film in a matter of days, releasing it by surprise. "Unscripted" also saw a rebranch due to COVID, where Barkhoff performed a miniseries variant called "Workout", where he parodied workout trainer videos. The aforementioned "Chapters" was also effected, forcing Barkhoff to approach episodes five to ten solo, as opposed to gaining actors, filming, and editing what he originally sought to. In the ninth episode of Chapters, the short film variant of "Doppelgang" (more on that in paragraph below), Barkhoff became the youngest filmmaker to introduce audiences to a new type of filmmaking with 4D, a formula for which he concocted at the age of 15 and finally enlisted in film - originally, he wanted to use this formula in 2015's "Timeline". The aforementioned "I Give It A Year" ended up being a short film released in November to try and convince an audience to vote.

In 2021, Barkhoff wrote and starred in Van Hauen's debut feature film, "Death, My Darling", took a step back to enjoy a more collaborative approach for "Chapters." third season, "Chapters. (Season 3)|Bad Things Happen At Noon", and he revealed his third film "Doppelgang" was set to release in May. Doppelgang appeared as a short film in Chapters' second season, but was originally intended to be a feature length film and to release in the same year as his second film, thus seeing him release two films in one year. This plan fell through when Barkhoff was unhappy with the end product of Doppelgang; he had a change of heart after seeing Zack Snyder's Justice League Director's Cut and decided to revisit the film. After showing his girlfriend the fully edited film and seeing her reaction to its "raw truth", he decided to release it. Due to this, much of the first four stages of production of Barkhoff's third feature film was completed during times of drunkenness. Barkhoff also began working closely with Drakoloid and appeared in series such as "ARTic", "Men of the House", "The Vox's", and more. In 2021, he helped Dylan Van Hauen plot his forthcoming debut feature film and he adapted his first script from recent co-worker and scribe Ron Gomes' "Limbo". He also added to Live Free's music imprint with the signings of 12Digits and 69ERRAS, as well as producer Bayden Records. Lastly, he debuted a new web series, "Living Free" to acclaim from an online community.

2022 saw Barkhoff take a step back once more from being in the limelight, handing over the director rights to "Living Free"'s second season to other artists. The season, which debuted in March, followed a light February and January's "The Live Free Sketch Show", which he co-created with Delfs. He started the aforementioned Live Free Podcast once more, which saw two episodes in 2021, and held it out fairly regularly from January to March 2021, featuring several Drakoloid actors. Here, he met new contributors. Sarah Kellysen, for example, took interest in Barkhoff's work and pursued a starring role in the upcoming second film from Van Hauen, entitled "Knock". For 2022, Barkhoff took the year off with "Chapters." and debuted the new series "Inanimate". Meanwhile, the second season of his series "Living Free" was met with critical acclaim. In November, he released his fourth film "My Brain at 11:37pm: Visceral Visions.

Barkhoff has also executive produced every released album from all Live Free musicians as of 2023. That same year, he continued "Living Free" and "Chapters." while perfecting finishing touches on "Clown Act" and "Bent Edges". He announced he was working on his next three films back-to-back-to-back, before, less than a month later, taking on a fourth film after receiving an email from a script supervisor who suggested Barkhoff's main genre was comedy. Frustrated with this email, Barkhoff replied "you'll get my version of a comedy. "Uddowomba" is entering production." The other three films are "American Pie", "Night Of Terrors", and "A Midnight's Walk Home".

### Sort-Of Hiatus #3

A third type of hiatus occurred in 2023. Barkhoff worked on four films simultaneously and became exhausted of film work. He took time off before returning to work on the fourth season of Living Free. Against his plans, he was still needing time off, so enjoyed further time off for an unknown period of time before being inspired to make his fifth film, which is expected to be released in 2024, and was not one of the four he began filming. The four he started filming are still going to be finished but are all slowly getting back into production at different times for different time periods. Uddowomba, now his sixth film instead of fifth, was delayed to Feb 2025, but only to release as a commemoration to Jim Varney 25 years after his death, with the film described as needing "very little" done. American Pie is being added to and "slowly sorted out" while Night Of Terror's "format is being finalized before continuing". As for "A Midnight's Walk Home", which received the least amount of production in 2023, it is going to be worked on after the aforementioned films complete production. Barkhoff returned to make films slowly with the second season of Clown Act, which, while filming, was decicded to be considered the final season "if we don't want to go back to it", citing it as "non-priority compared to what's on the to-do." Barkhoff slowly filmed "Chapters." fifth season, spending a chunk of time debating on if he wanted it to be a thematic season or not. Barkhoff procrastinated in 2023 with editing, too, citing it also due to his creation of a new business. Near the end of this phase, Barkhoff coined the next phase to be "the build up to a magnum opus", as he spent his time rewatching some of his favorite films and series as well as new films, studying their setup and trying to think of unique ideas. Bent Edges remained unfinished, so Barkhoff delayed it in ahead of it's promised release in September denying that the series was incomplete (which was untrue). This made the series delayed for the numerous time, but he promised it would play April 6th, 2024, on the 10th anniversary of Silicon Valley, the show that inspired it most.

### Build-Up

Coined by Barkhoff himself as "The Build-Up To A Magnum Opus" phase, Barkhoff began releasing what new content he prepared on January 12th, 2024, with the second season of "Clown Act", which was reviewed as a "ratcheted down improvement over the first season" by Clarke Accloades. He has confirmed the release of "Chapters."' fifth season and "Bent Edges"' first 4 episodes, as well as announced a new series finishing filming called "Nitrate". He also has stated "if all goes to plan" his fifth film will be released in 2024 also. To prevent burnout from films, Barkhoff has changed his style to be even less of a business approach, stating "that makes things feel forced, and I was feeling like some of my things were getting forced. So now it's what I'm inspired to do that I'm gonna work on. There might be more breaks in-between stuff as I try to summon inspiration sometimes, but I'm trying to make it to the end of the to-do list. That's my goal, to see me complete that thing."

## Feature Filmography

2018 - INFINITE.

2020 - Windfall

2021 - Doppelgang

2022 - My Brain at 11:37pm: Visceral Visions

? - Uddowomba

? - American Pie

? - Night Of Terrors

? - A Midnight's Walk Home

## Notable Created Series

2015 - Timeline (2015)

2015 - Bond V Batman: Age Of Vengeance

2016 - 2019 - Bond P Batman

2017 - 2018, 2022 - Present - Horror Fest

2018 - Present - Chapters.

2019 - Down

2021 - Present - Living Free

2022 [as co-creator] - Present - The Live Free Sketch Show

## Discography

2018 - Science Labs

2018 - INFINITE. (OST)

2020 - Denitrify

2020 - Okay!

2020 - UnSymmetrical

2020 - Windfall (Soundtrack)

2021 - Death, My Darling (Soundtrack)

2021 - Barkhoff

2021 - Esotic

## Future Works

Barkhoff has expressed interest in an "album film" based off of Mac Miller's fourth studio album, "The Divine Feminine". In 2020, he released the names of his four next films, which were, as follows: I Give It A Year (changed to a short film due to COVID-19), Doppelgang, The Great Escape, and A Midnight's Walk Home. Later that year, he expressed plans to change The Great Escape's placement on his lineup to make it "more impactful". He is currently working on the latter.

Since 2019, him and Zach Delfs have been working on a new series based on the James Bond novels, but both have differing on ideas with how to approach the character, so it has been on indefinite display. In 2023, Barkhoff confirmed that he was "done" playing Bond and stating he "completely forgot" about the potential projects.

Also in 2019, Barkhoff expressed interest in a follow-up to Timeline (2015), which would be of "anthological nature", saying "there's a lot to work with there. So many stories in so many different particles of the idea of it (time)." In 2023, Barkhoff stated he'd "still love to" do this.

In June 2021, he tweeted then deleted an announcement he was working on a comic book entitled Deathray. He has also announced several unreleased books.