Camera Crew Germany Blog

The benefits of working with our bilingual producers

When you’re organising a shoot from abroad, the last thing you want to deal with are language barriers and complicated bureaucracy! That’s why we have a wide network of English-speaking producers and production coordinators spread throughout Europe. With their local lingo and connections, they’ll seek out the best deals, navigate any annoying paperwork, fill out the appropriate filming permits, and find the right talent to make your shoot smooth sailing.

camera crewProduction services include many elements that all contribute to the smooth running of your shoot. We have, after all, been trading successfully for over 30 years now for most major international broadcasters, production houses and blue chip corporations and therefore have a wealth of experience.

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The benefits of using Still Photography

behind the scenesWith the moving image ever on the rise, still photography still hasn’t lost any of its value. Especially when it comes to complementing any kind of video shoot – whether it’s a corporate shoot, coverage of an event or a behind-the-scenes shoot for a large documentary – stills photography offers a valuable addition to our video footage.

Besides offering all kinds of video production services, we are also proud to offer still photography. Whether you need corporate photography, portraits, trade fair coverage, press photography, product pictures or behind the scenes shots, our team of highly skilled and creative professionals has you covered!

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30 Years of Camera Crew Germany

We are very proud to be able to say that 2023 marked CAMERA CREW GERMANY’s 30th anniversary in the film industry!

We would like to take this as an opportunity to express our deepest gratitude and warmest wishes to all of you – our valued clients, esteemed colleagues, and dear friends – for making 2023 an exciting and busy year for us at Camera Crew Germany.

 

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How to create a more sustainable film shoot?

Sustainable film shoots are an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way to create films. By taking measures to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials, shoots can be produced with a lower impact on the environment and a smaller budget. Having everything in one place allows you to reduce your ecological footprint by minimising the need for transportation. Sustainable film shoots also create a positive working environment for everyone involved, promoting a culture of social responsibility and awareness.

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What is a call sheet and what information should be included in one?

We have been producing and coordinating shoots for many years now for corporate clients world wide and have a wealth of experience in all things call sheets. We have seen them all: call sheets ranging from a few lines with very little information to elaborate and comprehensive call sheets which provide all the necessary information and cover days or weeks of a production.camera crew

The information needed has invariably been gathered in advance through multiple emails and phone calls with the clients. This process can take weeks sometimes so it’s vital that all details are recorded before they’re forgotten.

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How long is a typical production day?

You’re planning on shooting your next project in Germany or another European country but are not sure how to plan your production days? You have a lot of content that needs to be covered and are wondering “How many hours can we shoot in a day?” This is a valid question which we’re going to answer in this post!

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How long does a typical video production take?

We at CCG have been shooting and producing films for many years now and have coordinated a wide variety of shoots!

There are no hard and fast rules which dictate the length of any production. However, there is one universal truth which all producers agree on: Advance preparation and organisation is paramount and the key to any successful production.

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Reach for the skies – the latest drone technologies

droneDrones have been an essential part of film production for several years now and have offered spectacular and affordable aerial imagery compared with the expense of hiring helicopters with camera mounts which used to be the only solution.

There is a wide variety of drones on the market with features that cater to all tastes. Filming possibilities have increased immensely and so has the the drone technology itself.

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What can I do with my footage after the shoot?

Whether you are contacting us for production support for your documentary, need us to shoot interviews and b-roll for a corporate film or require creative footage to enhance your social media presence or other marketing purposes – the possibilities are manifold and therefore it’s crucial to decide what the footage will be used for and how you want to receive it after the shoot.

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How much does a camera crew cost?

tv crewYou may have guessed… the answer is quite simple: it depends!

When you’re interested in hiring a camera crew it’s similar to buying a car. Whether you need a simple hatchback or a fancy sportscar, whether you want leather seats or a navigation system – it can make a big difference price-wise when you add more and more features!

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Brave New World

The New Year has brought lots of changes in the film production business and we have embraced all things streaming to accommodate our clients demands.
We are now in a position to film your projects with the latest streaming tools so you can interact remotely in the safety of your own environment. Our streaming packages include hotspot links so we can assure stable connectivity.
Its easy, efficient and affordable. Give it a whirl:))

The Times They Are A Changin’

At long last new projects are now coming in and we have decided to offer online solutions to our overseas clients who are not able to travel due to lockdown restrictions.

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Season’s Greetings!

This year has been an exciting one full of interesting shoots! Thank you all for making 2019 such an enjoyable, memorable and highly successful year!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year from Camera Crew Germany!

Crewing up the Frankfurt Motor Show

frankfurt motor show

Every two years the Frankfurt Motor Show is keeping us busy with plenty of camera crews roaming around the fairgrounds.

frankfurt motor showThe Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA ) is one of the largest trade fairs and we shot for some major car brands!

 

Our Panaura in action!

lighting cameraman

On one of our recent high end corporate shoots we used our Panaura Octodome again. It is a great light source, which is powerful and soft and gives a very pleasing circular reflection in the eyes.

It’s not always convenient to use it because of its size but when there’s room it’s well worth going for it. We shot interviews and testimonials in Walldorf near Frankfurt for an ongoing corporate project with two Sony FS7 crews including the handy and versatile Ronin S with a Fuji DSLR for plenty of smooth moves.

Our clients were more than pleased with the footage and we thank our camera crews for doing such a great job!

Cowboys, Smoke and Flamingos

frankfurt design shoot red helium…a very stylised, funky designer led film set in Frankfurt!

 

We’ve just completed shooting a funky commercial in a new, modern, fun loving hotel downtown Frankfurt. It was a major logistical challenge preparing and implementing the shoot due to the unusual and ever changing requirements.

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How to create 360 Degree Videos

360 degree video camera set up.jpeg360° filming is a complex affair and needs careful planning, camera placement, lighting and talent rehearsals. It is is typically recorded with a multiple camera rig or a dedicated camera that includes multiple lenses embedded into the camera. During post production the recorded footage is merged into one spherical video through a method called stitching. The colour and contrast of each shot has to be calibrated and synched with the others. The result is an impressive video similar to virtual reality set ups.

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Have sound, will travel!

One of our Frankfurt based sound recordists, Michel Klöfkorn, just sent us this fantastic image of him in action. Wild stuff… Probably windy too 🙂

Corporate shoots, Studio shoots, Documentaries, Webcasts, SNGs, drones and drama

director of photography
After a fairly slow moving July when most people are on holiday things started hotting up mid August with a wide range of shoots throughout Europe.

We crewed and shot a wealth of corporate films and documentaries with small crews, like fixers, drivers and PAs to full blown production crews with all the bells and whistles: production managers, DOPs, additional camera operators, sound recordists, DIT experts, make up artists, gaffers, grips, set designers, translators, autocue operators, photographers and trucks full of state of the art camera kit!

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Cars, cars, cars!

We’ve just completed an exciting shoot at Germany’s famous Hockenheim race track near Frankfurt. Our UK clients came at short notice requesting crew and kit for this unusual car racing shoot.

Being as we only had a couple of days prep we were scrambling to get exactly the right crew members with the appropriate skills. We ended up providing a top crew all ex Frankfurt with the necessary experience and knowledge for specialised car shoots.

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Fixer in Bavaria

For several years now we have been providing fixers, translators and drivers for US based House Hunters International.
Our guy’s tasks are to clear shooting permits, translate from German into English and to ferry around the client’s crew. We have a wide network of fixers and their local knowledge is invaluable for overseas clients.
Our latest shoots took us to Munich and Eging am See in picturesque Bavaria.

Fixer in Germany

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We had a request for a fixer/translator near Frankfurt to help a UK based crew to film some wacky Germans called “The Real Life Guys”.
They come up with unusual outrageous acts of science and this time they showed us their Fyling Bathtub Drone 🙂

Fujinon lenses in Munich

We just completed a corporate shoot in Munich with our local DOPs, FS7 kits, AC, Soundie, Teleprompter Operator, Make up artist and talent. We were pleased to be using the relatively new and affordable Fujinon Cine Zooms. Lenses which are not only optically top notch but are parfocal too. Hooray!

Tarantino’s favourite clapper/loader Geraldine Brezca

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We just happened across this amusing clip about Quentin Tarantino’s favourite clapper/loader, camera angel Geraldine Brezca. Enjoy! 🙂

Camera crew near Nice for Clint Eastwood

We are approved suppliers for the BBC and they just approached us with a cool and unusual request for a camera crew in Southern France. Its filming Clint Eastwood’s Jazz musician son, Kyle Eastwood.
We have a couple of designated camera crews on the Cote d’Azur who regularly shoot showbiz and glamour stories for us. After the interview they’ll wetransfer the footage back to the BBC for a speedy turnaround.

Red Epic Dragon crew in Munich

We are in the midst of a corporate shoot in Munich at the moment shooting with two REDs with EyeDirects for one of our old clients in the USA.
We are providing cameras, lighting, grip and sound kit and local support crew (production coordinator, assistant cameraman, DIT, gaffer, grip, sound recordist and make up artist) for the core team from USA. Good luck guys and have a great shoot!

Webcast in Brno, Czech Republic

We enjoy an ongoing relationship producing webcasts for the American communications giant AT&T. This time we were in the picturesque and historical city of Brno in the Czech Republic.

Setting up webcasts abroad is always full of surprises and challenges, particularly when you are dealing with people from a different culture speaking an unknown language. Our core technical team, consisting of cameramen, vision mixer, sound recordist, technical assistants and all the necessary kit came from Berlin, the production crew from Texas. Communicating in English and German works very well but in the Czech Republic the major foreign language is Russian.

However, with a little practice, language barriers can be overcome using hand signals and body language. We even managed to hire some additional technical equipment from a Brno based AV specialist using hands and feet to explain our needs and hard cash to clinch the deal.

As in so many areas of professional film production it’s expected we command the highest levels of technical expertise, creativity, friendliness and reliability. In order to complete the picture though the ability to think on your feet, trouble shoot and improvise are paramount.

After weeks of planning and preparations we transformed the Brno AT&T facility into an attractive „Town Hall“ venue and the live stream reached a large international audience without a glitch. Key speakers reached out to the AT&T workforce with a variety of presentations and individual awards. To round it all off a traditional Czech folk music trio performed rousing and colorful dance acts.

Paris & Amsterdam shoot for PBS

A few weeks ago we were approached by PBS Chicago to provide a support crew for their upcoming shoot in Europe. They we planning to shoot a story about the renowned architects Nada and Marc Breitman – living and working in Paris and Amsterdam. We were more than happy to offer our production services. We supplied PBS with a sound recordist, fixer, driver and gaffer with a ton of lights 🙂 They were happy to have local support in both locations!

Watch the full show here.

Image: screenshot © PBS / Talk of the Town

Cameraman in Riga, Latvia

Last week, Bloomberg TV requested their favourite cameraman from Frankfurt to fly to Riga for an important financial conference. It was all done last minute – but our camera operator was available and up for it! He didn’t only do a great job filming conferences and interviews but also got a day’s worth of sightseeing out of it! 🙂

Shooting all over Europe and Germany

image © David Prötzel

It’s the same old story which I’m sure many of our colleagues can identify with.

Camera Crew Germany is a dedicated camera crewing and production services company and we are coordinating camera crews all over Europe on a daily basis. It’s a time intensive process and things like social media get left behind in favour of more pressing issues…

However, we all know that blogging and social media updates have to be done, unfortunately ours isn’t a daily update and becomes kind of general with many shoots covered in one article as below.

Since our last update about our snowed in crew in Switzerland and our legal videographer in Amsterdam we’ve been travelling to drier locations throughout the land and beyond.

Discovery Canada got us to interview a Munich based expert whose agenda was glowing chameleons. We knew chameleons changed colour to adapt to their surroundings, but who knew they glowed in UV light?! We then covered another shoot for them in Amsterdam, one of our Swiss clients had us filming an operation in Berlin, Bloomberg had us shooting financial news in and around Frankfurt, DHL kept us busy with corporate interviews in Bonn, one of our regular London based clients had us shooting corporate footage in Frankfurt and last but not least we had a large pharmaceutical shoot in London.

Legal videography in Amsterdam

Our legal videographer spent last week in Amsterdam working as always for US based lawyers involved in civil litigation court proceedings.
Legal videography is one of our niche specialities and takes us all over Europe. Amsterdam is understandably one of our favourites with plenty to do and see during down time.

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Bloomberg LiveU shoot in Munich

Bloomberg TV is keeping us on our toes again for a shoot in Munich last week. They requested their favourite cameraman from Frankfurt to travel to Bavaria to interview the Telekom CEO at the “Digital Live Design Conference”. We shot on the ever so popular Sony PMW200 and used the very handy Live Unit for streaming.

Amsterdam shoot

 
The PBS broadcaster out of Chicago requested we send one of our Amsterdam camera crews and equipment to shoot part of a documentary on alternative architecture. Its part of an ongoing shoot which is focusing on Nada and Marc Breitman, 2 architects living and working in Paris. We crewed the Paris shoot, too.

Amsterdam and Frankfurt film crews

After a well earned break the year kickstarted with some lively shoots in Germany and the Netherlands. Our Cologne and Frankfurt crews have been busy shooting corporates and one of our Amsterdam crews just shot for Rolex in Weerselo (Netherlands). We’re currently shooting in Paris for Chicago based PBS and preparing for a long shoot in Davos (Switzerland).
Here’s looking forward to another great year!

Looking back to a spectacular year 2017!

Before the holiday season comes to an end we would like to extend our warmest wishes and heartfelt thanks to you, our clients, our colleagues and our friends for making 2017 such a spectacular year for us at CCG.

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Panaura Octodome for Christmas

panaura octodome
Christmas is around the corner and we decided to give ourselves a great Christmas present: The one and only PanAura Octodome! It’s by far the best light we’ve got and is high up on most cinematographer’s wish list. Simply the best!

Shooting Santa

camera crew for hire
The last couple of weeks have been very busy again. We were on our way to Amsterdam for a shoot and heard that it had been cancelled at very short notice. This was followed by a series of 3 corporate shoots in Düsseldorf which were all cancelled the day beforehand. Apart from that we have had corporate and broadcast shoots in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Cologne and last but not least the whacky Santa Claus Championships in snowy Samnaun Switzerland. Our camera kits have ranged between Sony FS7, Sony A7s and Sony F800 with a few GoPros thrown in for good luck. 🙂

Crewing in Augsburg for IMG

The media giant IMG requested support crew for a week long international Ice Hockey spectacular in Augsburg, Southern Germany. Getting PAs and runners  for them was no problem but the much sought after DITs wasn’t that easy… Most productions now require a dedicated person to manage the media, its often neglected but highly recommended.
Its a relatively new job title on the film set, where film meets IT, requiring more technically savvy people to whom you can entrust all your footage. DITs are few and far between and command pretty high day rates.

Filming with the Lensbaby for ESA in the Netherlands

The History Channel requested we use the amazing Lensbaby and Dji Osmo to enhance imagery on our recent shoot in the Netherlands entitled “Return to the Moon”. The programme is exploring the very real prospects of colonising the Moon. We interviewed various experts from the ESA (European Space Agency).

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Words of Praise for our Amsterdam Camera Crew


We’re always pleased when we receive client feedback, particularly when its good:)) Our Amsterdam Camera Crew received the following from one our USA clients:
“We have received such positive feedback and I just want to extend a special thanks to you and your crews. Four two-camera shoots in three countries, interviews ranging from 20-70 minutes individually, text graphics created, edited to under 5 min and launched today. It was a great team effort and I just wanted to recognize your energy and talents. We couldn’t have pulled it off without you.”

Camera crews in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxemburg and Switzerland

 
After all the car madness at the Frankfurt Motor Show we have been busy shooting for a wide variety of clients.
For Discovery Canada we crewed in Nuremberg, Austria and Bavaria shooting crazy inventions and field tests for their technology show “The Daily Planet”.
Our corporate clients kept us busy too shooting in Berlin, Brussels, Luxemburg, Cologne and Zurich.
A great mix of camera systems ranging from the Sony FS7, Sony PDW 700, DSLRs, Canon C300 and GoPros.

Camera Crews for the Frankfurt Motor Show

The Frankfurt Motor Show is a mega press event and we joined the media pack shooting for all and sundry car brands. Apart from regular camera crews we also provided a crane operator for Lamborghini.

Camera crews in Bonn

We regularly shoot corporate films for DHL in Bonn. Our trusted crews always come from nearby Cologne shooting on the ever so popular Sony FS7.

Camera crew in Linz, Austria

Discovery Channel Canada produces a daily show which focuses on all things unusual in the technical, scientific world. Last week they requested we send a camera crew from Vienna to Linz (Austria) to film the eccentric inventor of wild and useless machines, Joseph Herscher. All very tongue in cheek stuff and highly amusing.
Have a look at one of his youtube videos:
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Camera crews galore

Since our mega shoots in Cologne at Gamescom we have been very busy crewing for all and sundry in Berlin, Bonn, Weinheim, Düsseldorf and Switzerland.
Happy summer days as you can see from our Morris Dancers image!