Gerard Saan

Biography

Gerard Saan was one of the contributors to the Filmtechnische Leergang (FTL), which was a film education program set up by Willem Bon and Willem van der Hoog; it relied heavily on the ideas of the Filmliga. Saan was a teacher in sound engineering.

For the FTL, he made the short avant-garde film Botsingen, which is an associative collage of images on the theme of collisions, and which gives a good picture of the FTL’s main ideas. He then worked on Willem van der Hoog’s feature film Blokkade (1934), which was produced by the FTL. For this film, Saan was in charge of the sound, and was also a co-financier. Saan then worked as a sound engineer at Frans Dupont’s Studio Dupont.

During the war, Saan worked as a sound technician for the Nazified film company Nederland Film. After the war, he joined Joop Geesink’s animation studio.