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.

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.

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.

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, "Bad Things Happen At Noon", and he revealed his third film "Doppelgang" is scheduled for a May 27th, 2021 release. He is also working on a new web series as creative director, entitled "Living Free", and he is working as a voiceover actor and major actor for three Drakoloid web series. 2021 has seen him help Dylan Van Hauen and Ron Gomes specifically with projects. He also announced the addition of members Era, Square Lee, and Bayden Records to the Live Free roster.

Feature Filmography
2018 - INFINITE.

2020 - Windfall

2021 - Doppelgang

Notable Created Series
2015 - Timeline (2015)

2015 - Bond V Batman: Age Of Vengeance

2016 - 2019 - Bond P Batman

2017 - 2018 - Horror Fest

2018 - Present - Chapters.

2019 - Down

2021 - Living Free

2022 [as co-creator] - 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 also initially announced his third film as Night Of Terrors, even releasing fragments of the script. It remains to be seen what has come of this project.

He has expressed interest in a lyric based rap album, declaring his eventual goal to make what is considered "one of the best rap albums of all time", but has revealed that he wants to wait to be older, better, and continue studying and practicing the craft.

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.

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)."

Barkhoff has also been working on a short film entitled Scarecrow since 2018 when he went shopping for fake blood and saw a mask that spoke to him, immediately purchasing it.

In 2021, he announced his plans for a fourth film were to upgrade some equipments and go through scripts to decide what to tackle. He then revealed he had an idea for a fourth film but wanted to avoid it due to the similarities between it, Doppelgang, and Death, My Darling.

In June 2021, he tweeted then deleted an announcement he was working on a comic book entitled Deathray.