EMILY MENZIES

Two enterprising Mount Aspiring College students have taken to the skies, forming their own aerial photography and video businesses in Wanaka.

Finn Mueller and Ollie Larkin, both 16, have been busy taking on clients for their burgeoning businesses, The Collaborative Project (Finn) and Vision Workshops (Ollie), which work with local companies to supply them with aerial photography and videography.

Finn has been busy building relationships with real estate companies, creating eye catching photo and video presentations for house sales. "The Collaborative Project does aerial photography for different companies. I can do basically anything that you want me to do, aerial shots, make an advertisement, or film you doing [an activity]". It's been a challenge building a business from the ground up, but Finn has enjoyed the whole process. "It has been a lot of fun, getting business cards … emailing the companies, and working with the companies."

He chose to get into aerial photography and videography because he thinks it’s the future. "Soon they are going to stop using helicopters because they're too expensive, so hopefully I can get into the niche of [aerial photography] before it gets too hard."

Looking forward to continuing to build his business overseas once he is finished with school, Finn is excited at the prospect of moving back to Germany, where he was born, with ideas of expanding into the adventure tourism market.

Finn's family and friends have been supportive of his ambitions. "They think it's quite inspiring that I'm making a start at such a young age," he said.

Ollie came up with the idea of starting his business after getting into filmmaking a couple of years ago. "It's progressed into specialising in drone videos for people and working with other filmmakers, which is cool."

Ollie Larkin

Vision Workshops has been involved in a number of projects, from fly-fishing promotional videos, to assisting with a recent video featuring rally driver Haydon Paddon.With John-Jo Ritson of Flashworks Media as his mentor, Ollie has been developing his talent for crafting stories, learning the skills needed to take a project from inception through to final delivery. He is excited about the possibilities opening up to him through his new business and plans to head to Invercargill's Southern Institute of Technology after graduation, with the aim of being accepted into their film programme.

MAC has been supportive of the ambitious teens and their filmmaking aspirations. Ollie was asked to work with the school on a recent project, putting together a video for the school’s language centre showing the experiences available to foreign students.

Forging their way in a notoriously competitive industry, Ollie and Finn are taking the work as it comes and are grateful to have been able to turn their love of filmmaking into flourishing small businesses.

PHOTOS: Wanaka App