Hoogeveen and the Dwingelderveld in the Canadian Christmas film Coupled Up for Christmas. It sounds like a joke, but it’s actually true. The filmmakers did not travel to Drenthe to shoot the images. They used an image of Matthias Groeneveld from Hoogeveen.
The images were taken from the largest online platform for free images, Pexels. “It makes no sense at all, Hoogeveen in such a film,” says hobby videographer Matthias Groeneveld (41).
Five years ago he started capturing Drenthe in images. “Ten years ago I took a photography course, which eventually developed into video. I started it simply because I wanted to get better at making videos. That has gotten a bit out of hand in recent years,” says Groeneveld.
And that’s an understatement. Groeneveld is now one of the largest and best filmmakers on the platform, which has more than 700,000 creators. His videos have been viewed more than 1.2 billion times and he ranks 39th in terms of viewership and downloads.
The video platform focuses on so-called stock material. These are photos and videos from image makers who release their material into the digital ether for free. “You put them online, just like on Instagram,” Groeneveld explains. “A video is then given a number of tags, automatically. This allows others to search for them on the site. Everyone is then able to download them free of charge.”
This happens en masse with Groeneveld’s videos. Wouldn’t it be better if he started charging money for his images? “You can donate on Pexels, that happens regularly,” he says. Although it’s not fat. Not every user donates after downloading an image. And the donations are usually between five and fifty euros.
“The largest donation I have ever received is a thousand euros. Professionals, such as production houses, often donate a little more. But I cannot see whether the filmmakers also gave me money for the images of Hoogeveen,” says the Hoogeveen resident who received it through a comment on YouTube found out his videos were in the 2023 film.
Text continues below Instagram post.