Director Mark Strydom joins Robot

For director Mark Strydom, a film should be felt before it is understood.

Now joining Robot in South Africa after years working across Africa, India, the Middle East and Europe, Strydom returns with a sharpened sense of emotional intention, cultural fluency and a cinematic instinct built on rhythm, movement and human truth.

“A Mark Strydom film is designed to be felt before it’s understood,” he says. “I’m driven by emotion, movement, rhythm and presence.”

His work is often defined by kinetic camera language, perspectives that don’t simply observe a scene but participate in it. The camera becomes an active presence, carrying the audience through transitions that flow rather than cut, building momentum that feels immersive rather than assembled.

“I like placing the camera in unexpected perspectives and treating it less as an observer and more as a participant,” he explains. “There’s usually a strong sense of momentum and flow, with scenes transitioning into one another rather than feeling stitched together.”

But scale alone doesn’t interest him. Even in stylised, high-energy worlds, performance comes first. “I’m drawn to cinematic scale, but only when it’s grounded in human behaviour. Even in bold worlds, the emotion needs to feel lived-in.”

That balance, ambition anchored in authenticity, runs through his commercial work across sport, tech, lifestyle, automotive and beverage categories. The through-line, he says, isn’t aesthetic. It’s experiential. “Categories change, but people don’t. I start with what the moment should feel like in someone’s life and build the visual language around that.”

Whether shooting tactile liquid work, performance-driven sport, or digital products that require selling experience rather than interface, Strydom returns to ritual, transformation and human momentum. The product is never an afterthought. “I’m interested in how the product lives inside the story. It should feel like a character in the world rather than something placed on top of the narrative.”

That thinking extends beyond traditional formats. His creative approach is inherently platform-aware. “I’m always asking: what makes someone stop scrolling? What makes it feel worth watching? How does it behave in 9:16 versus 16:9? That thinking is baked into the creative from the start.”

Working across continents has reshaped his visual language in subtler ways. “Different cultures have different rhythms, humour, body language and relationships to the camera,” he says. “It’s taught me to let people and environment lead the visual language rather than imposing a fixed style.”

From fashion and street energy to humour and hierarchy on set, Strydom describes himself as highly responsive to context,  not only creatively, but interpersonally. “Trust is built differently everywhere. In some places it’s built through decisiveness and speed, in others through patience and listening. Reading the room is a creative skill.”

That sensitivity informs his leadership style, which he describes through two guiding philosophies: Ubuntu “I am because we are” and the Afrikaner mindset of “Boer maak ’n plan.”

“I’m not precious about ideas. I don’t feel threatened by young talent. The best ideas in the room win. When people feel ownership over the work, the work becomes stronger.” It’s an ethos that aligns with his move to Robot, where he reconnects with trusted collaborators and production teams. “That trust allows me to move faster and take bigger creative risks, because there’s a shared language and confidence in each other’s instincts.”

For Shots readers who care as much about execution as emotion, Strydom is clear: technology is a tool, not a centrepiece.

“The technical design exists to protect the human moment,” he says. “Slow motion, motion-control, bolt systems, 360 cameras, I love how technology expands visual language. But all of that only matters if it supports performance.”

Sound, too, plays a central role. “Often the feeling of a scene is shaped as much by what you hear as what you see. Sound design and music are emotional engines for me.” His process begins not with shot lists but with intention. “Before I think about references, I want to understand what the audience should experience emotionally. That feeling becomes the spine of every decision.”

From there, he builds films in beats, tension, release, rhythm, thinking not in isolated shots but in how the edit will breathe. “The clearer the intention, the stronger the film. The most challenging projects taught me restraint. It’s easy to over-design when you have scale and technology. The real discipline is knowing when to simplify.”