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After weeks of preparation, finding locations, organising shoot permits, blocking off roads, gathering a small army of extras and providing support equipment and manpower, we finally got round to shooting part of an international thriller at some exciting locations downtown Frankfurt. We were proud to play host to our guests from Copenhagen and wish them every success with the rest of the shoot!

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A US-based agency requested a DOP and soundman with Sony FS7 kit in Jülich, near Cologne, recently. They shot high end footage as well as interviews at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre including their server and research rooms.

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Last week a client requested our services in Frankfurt to film timelapse footage of prominent buildings and sights around town. We shot some high-end 4K with our Sony FS7, Sony a7s various, strategically placed gopros 🙂

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We recently provided multi camera, streaming and webcast facilities for a new California based client at an event in Munich. A totally different ball game from regular corporate and documentary shoots. Needless to say when you’re streaming all depends on a reliable and stable upload connection which can sometimes be tricky at remote locations. However, our end client was IBM and they made sure that the streaming connection was top notch.

 

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We spent a busy week crewing for Discovery Channel Canada throughout the whole of Germany. We travelled North to South and Eat to West shooting a variety of topics ranging from solar energy which powers lights 10.000 times stronger than the sun, solar energy powered aeroplanes, a supersonic aeroplane and a good old gigantic trebuchet.

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We regularly provide English speaking fixers/translators for the US based TV show “House Hunters International” , which airs on HGTV. This time we “fixed” for a couple of weeks for an equally international crew from the USA, England and Germany, following couples in both Heidelberg and Nuremberg searching for new homes.

Every year Frankfurt hosts IMEX, a somewhat exotic business trade fair and we’re shooting regular XDCam there for The Fred Production Company from the UK. A colourful and lively show!
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We had a couple of requests for crewing in Hamburg earlier this week. As so often, testimonials, interviews and b roll for corporate CEO awards. 2 crews shooting with Sony FS7 kits along with fixers and translators.

We have an ongoing relationship with Discovery Channel Canada supplying crews for their daily technology show The Daily Planet. We’re always covering whacky, unusual topics and inventions and this time we shot Mr. Un Yong Park with his underwater jet device Scubadec in Denzingen, Southern Germany.

The wonderful Jill Woo from EyeMagic recently requested we crew a shoot for her in London. We supplied two FS7 crews travelling around London for 5 days filming patient testimonials and b roll for the US based mega online publisher for healthcare, WebMD.

Its frightening how good the quality is on the Sony Alpha 7s, making run and gun stuff much easier. This time our DOP preferred the handling and imagery of the C300 mkII for the main camera and matching the Sony footage is no big deal.

This isn’t bionic man but our Steadicam Ace just warming up 🙂 Just one of the many highlights of our recent Arri mega shoot with all the bells and whistles in Southern Germany!

One of our UK clients needed to record just audio with a participant from the Vienna Philharmonic and we set up the recording with one of our preferred sound studios there!

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Once again Daily Planet Canada asked us to shoot a weird and wonderful invention for their daily science programme. We sent one of our Cologne based crews to shoot the inventor and scientist Olaf Winkler with an FS7, a GoPro and the good old Dji Osmo while he was whizzing around on his “Üo Scooter” – motorised ball. Strange but true…

One of our regular clients, Deutsche Bank, requested a camera crew in London shooting testimonials and b-roll. As you can see, the good old British stiff upper lip can still handle anything!

Green screen interviews are part of our corporate daily bread. We often get requests for them and this time we sent our local crew in Munich to shoot it on the Canon C300 Mk II.

We’ve been shooting almost non stop recently for all manner of corporate clients from mainly the USA and the UK.
Adidas in Munich and Dortmund, WebMD in Hannover, Jack Morton and World Media Rights in Berlin, Renegade in Hamburg, Discovery Canada in Stuttgart, TVC in Frankfurt, North One TV in Cologne etc etc
Not to forget of course our TV clients Bloomberg who have been shooting in Frankfurt, Berlin, Wolfsburg, Baden Baden, Munich and Düsseldorf.
Keep ’em coming :)))

A C-47 is the film industry term for a wooden clothes pin which is used to attach a sheet of gel to the barn doors of a light. The term came about when a cameraman billed a major network in the 70’s for clothes pins. That network said “you can’t bill us for clothes pins” to which the cameraman replied “…but I used them on your shoot.” So he changed the name to C-47 and the expense item was approved.
A C-47 is always wooden, never plastic.

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“C’était un rendez-vous” is a 1976 French short film directed by Claude Lelouch, showing a high-speed drive through Paris. It was shot in a single take as an example of cinéma-vérité. The film runs for eight minutes which is nearly the maximum running time of a 1000 foot 35mm film magazine. The camera was mounted on the bumper of a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9.

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Another day shooting stand ups for Bloomberg at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

images by 쾰른 카니발 공식 홈페이지 and RitaE

Yet another 2 man FS7 crew and producer shooting testimonials and b-roll at Standard Life in Frankfurt for our UK clients!

“Porsche: Decades of Disruption” is a cinematic, documentary-style television special that takes us through the company’s legendary history of its iconic cars from the 356 and 550 Spyder to the 911 and the 959 to the Carrera GT and 918 and leading up to the Panamera Turbos S hybrid plug-in that features the many technologies transferred from the 918.

We sent a largish support camera crew from Frankfurt to Stuttgart shooting this feature for one of our California based clients that specialises in filmmaking for the automative industry. It was all highly secret and we supplied a gaffer, grip, sound recordist, AC and a ton of lights and grip.

“Porsche: Decades of Disruption” will air this Saturday, February 25^th and Sunday, February 26^th on CNBC 3:30pm PST / 6:30pm EST. Have a look at the 30 sec promo: https://wdrv.it/0d0599271

We just assembled this collage of recent instagram images and want to give our sincere thanks to all our great crews out there!
You guys are simply the best, you’re doing a great job and we love you all!!

Follow us on IG: @cameracrewgermany

Canada’s Discovery Channel runs a daily show which looks at off beat scientific innovations all over the world. We regularly shoot these stories for them all over Europe. This time we sent our Munich crew to report on BMW’s involvement in all things automation and robots. Our Cologne crew had a stranger mission shooting a report about paper planes.
These are all fast turnaround stories that have to be uploaded immediately…but that’s happening everywhere these days. Dropbox is heavy competition now for Fedex 🙂

We worked for a US based client recently on a biggish shoot for Cisco in Berlin. We provided fixers, a sound recordist, an assistant cameraman, a grip and a couple of trucks of gear.

Requests from China are rare but not unknown to us. This time we negotiated with a company in Shanghai who requested technical support from us for a video conference in Paris. Our local partners there were able to get the system up and running without a hitch and everyone was pleased with the result. It can be challenging and often very amusing negotiating between cultures which are so diverse… Almost like those 3 men in a boat jokes… A German, a Frenchman and a Chineseman… 🙂

(photo by North sea deamer)

We regularly provide crews throughout Europe for doctors round table discussions. This time our Hamburg crew incl. videographer and sound recordist travelled to Kiel on Germany’s northern coastline and set up a Sony FS7 camera studio with telepromter at a local hotel there.

(photo source: German Barque Gorch Fock at Kiel Week 2004 by RThiele)

We have an ongoing relationship with a UK production house that provides young and innovative programming for Adidas and last week our crew braved freezing temperatures while shooting staged scenes outside the Adidas headquarters in Bavaria. Our make up artist had a challenging time too trying to powder away the the thinly clad talent’s blue noses. 🙂 On top of that at very short notice (and most of the shoots are short notice) our art department and grips had to acquire 5 life size frameless mirrors and install them (invisibly) across the local terrain outside Adidas HQ. A bizarre scenario trying to capture the talent and their reflections. We also provided the full kit for both video and stills.

Most of our DHL crewing requests are for Bonn and Leipzig, this time though we used a local Sony FS7 crew incl. videographer and soundman for a corporate shoot shoot in Hanover and Münster. It’s great to know we have talented and reliable crews there even if Hanover and Münster are a bit off the beaten track. 🙂

(photo source: “DHL Rail Freight” by Deutsche Post DHL on Flickr)

Inspired by the painter Jackson Pollock a funky group in Hamburg – called Cooper Copter – devised a way of creating similar paintings using small drones to throw the paint. We sent our Hamburg based camera crew to shoot a report for Discovery Channel in Canada and were happy to provide production services for such an interesting shoot!

(image: www.coopercopter.com)

Every year in December we get our local videographer to shoot the whacky Swiss Santa Claus Championships in Samnaun and its always a real hoot!