Budding Filmmakers and Professional Training in Germany

Wolfgang Jahnke and    Rolf von der Heydt

All cinema fans know their photographs. Even before a film flickers onto the screen, they are to be found in film magazines, feuilletons, display boxes at cinemas and on posters. Often, these pictures become synonyms of the films they represent. Sometimes, they are all that is left of them.

The experienced photographers who shoot on the film set usually remain in the background, however. The Goethe-Institut asked two experienced still photographers to stand in front of the camera for a change.

Slide Show: Rolf von der Heydt

They have known each others' photographs and names for many years, but they have never met. Wolfgang Jahnke, who usually works as a still photographer for films being made by Berlin producers such as Rialto-Film or Boje/ Buck, and Rolf von der Heydt, who is on set for the Munich film producer Bavaria, are meeting face to face for the first time in von der Heydt's Munich kitchen. Yet it is like a meeting of old friends. "What, they call you Wolli on the set? They call me Rolli." Laughter. The guest discovers the photographs on the walls: "Oh, you like cats? Me too." And more similarities are found within a few minutes. Both of them are 59 years of age, were born in December, are originally from Berlin and have worked as photographers in the film business for some 30 years.

Herr Lehmann

Von der Heydt was a fashion photographer before establishing himself in the film industry with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Satan's Brew (Satansbraten). Jahnke was working for Tobis Film Verleih in Berlin and was often annoyed by the inadequate advertising material for the productions. When comedian Otto Waalkes made his first film, Jahnke reflected on his photographic training and reached for his camera himself. Since then the two photographers have been carrying their technical equipment through the sets of films such as Sun Alley (Sonnenallee ), Berlin Blues (Herr Lehmann), Momo, (Jahnke), Schtonk!, Luther, Just a Gigolo (Schöner Gigolo - Armer Gigolo) and Marlene (von der Heydt).

Craftsmen on set

Kim Frank in NVA

Both of them see themselves as craftsmen rather than artists. "Which is an honourable thing," says Rolf von der Heydt, adding, "You could also call us artisans." Their craft consists in focusing precisely on the film's key scenes during filming. The art is to capture them in precisely the light i.e. the mood that the director and cameraman have envisaged.

"We produce the material that is ultimately used to advertise the film," says Wolfgang Jahnke. Press material, posters and books all contain still photographs. Portfolios of photographs are also made, for example, for film trade fairs or in order to attract more money for the production, reports Rolf von der Heydt. There is a simple reason why no film pictures can be used for this purpose. "In a film, the frame rate is 24 frames per second and they appear to our slow eyes to be just one picture," explains Wolfgang Jahnke. "If you select one frame, every movement is blurred. Also, the proportions between the height and the width are completely different to those produced on a small picture with a camera due to the different film formats."

Always there, but don't you dare get in the way

Luther

While photographic technology has changed over the decades, the situation for still photographers on set has remained largely unchanged. They are still the only "one-man department" in the team, as Wolfgang Jahnke points out. That means they have to find their niche in each production among a motley group that often works together for more than 10 hours a day for weeks or months on end. The action must not be disturbed. That means suppressing the clicking of the camera by a sound-proof cover, the blimp. And "you have to get by with light that is available," says Wolfgang Jahnke.

Slide Show: Wolfgang Jahnke

Unlike Wolfgang Jahnke, Rolf von der Heydt does not always take the cameraman's position, but also works from other perspectives. "We use the pictures to tell the story of the film," he says, "and I discover during a rehearsal, for example, that this or that motif might make the situation clearer." In spite of the great flexibility with which both of them set to work, it is not always possible to capture key moments straight away during the filming. That means that the scenes have to be redone for the photographs. On a lengthy day of filming, that leads to some complaints. Professionals like Joseph Fiennes playing Luther, or Burt Lancaster take this in their stride. They know "it is for a good cause", for the product the photographs are used to advertise.

Marlene Dietrich

Sometimes "the cause" takes up the whole of the lunch-break, something that is treated as holy on the set, recalls Wolfgang Jahnke. Like when filming Sun Alley, for example, when he congregated all the young protagonists in front of a piece of the wall at lunchtime because there was no other way of doing so. It was worth the effort, as that was how the photograph was taken that is still a synonym for that story set in the GDR in the seventies.

Whether films are made at night, in the cold or in the small space on a sailing yacht, still photographers are always present everywhere and keep themselves as inconspicuous as possible. "Sometimes you count the days," says Wolfgang Jahnke, like he did when photographing Kill Cruise (Der Skipper) with Jürgen Prochnow and Elisabeth Hurley, when he spent most of the time hanging soaking wet on an outboard platform. But when it goes well, it is "like splitting up from a girl-friend when filming comes to an end."

Falke, Huntgeburth, Schütte, Nensel (ed.): Fotografierte Geschichten. Filmfotografie. Saarländisches Künstlerhaus, 1998, ISBN 3932294157.