Budding Filmmakers and Professional Training in Germany

No screenplay, no film. This applies to the silver-screen epic as well as to the never-ending series on television. Nevertheless, screenwriters in Germany usually lead a shadowy existence, in contrast to actors and directors. Their profession is indispensable. Yet, even now, there is no prescribed course of training for them.

"Screenwriters have the most difficult position in the creation process of a film", says Peter Stertz from the agency "Funke und Stertz" in Hamburg, "for the further the process advances, the less they are needed." About 12 years ago, Peter Stertz, until then responsible for the exploitation of novel rights for theatre and TV, decided to represent screenwriters, along with actors and directors, in his media agency. "At that time this was still unusual in Germany", he says. "In the USA it was already a given for screenwriters to have an agent and it was the precondition for getting an assignment. In Germany it tended to be regarded as a stigma." For it indicated that an author was not able to make a name for himself on his own.

Peter Stertz, whose regular "clients" now include renowned authors such as Ulrich Plenzdorf and Daniel Nocke, who won the Grimme Award several times, does not market screenplays. His job is to advise and supervise the authors. A "very person-related task", he says. For this involves both the selection of suitable material as well as the communication between authors and editors.

"Simply mastering the craft of writing is not enough", say Cornelia Hermann who, for fourteen years, has been lecturing on script-writing at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin, the Ludwigsburg Film Academy in Baden-Württemberg and the Academy for Film and Television in Munich. "What is important is the spark, the enthusiasm for a story, which the authors have to sustain. And that’s why I try not only to teach the skills, but also to support the personality of the authors. This is important so that they stay the course - from the idea to the granting of subsidies and on to the final realization of the film."

Training is no guarantee of success

Even though almost all Film Academies have meanwhile introduced screenwriting courses – there is still no prescribed course of training in Germany. Screenwriters usually emerge from related professions; they are, for example, journalists or novelists. What they need above all is a large portion of idealism.

"The training course is no guarantee of later success", says Cornelia Hermann. "And who is a good author? The one who earns a lot of money with his work, or the one whose projects are actually realized?" She and Peter Stertz both agree that success in this profession is not necessarily synonymous with the quality of the work." It’s not as if German films have once again become so successful because the skills of the screenwriters have improved, but because with films like Sun Alley (Sonnenallee), Good bye, Lenin! or Head On (Gegen die Wand) they have been concentrating again on their own stories." For this reason Cornelia Hermann also holds seminars for authors on subjects such as "character development", "archetypes" or "film analysis". She estimates the success quota in finding good screenplays as still "one in a hundred." Yet even the quality of the screenplay is no guarantee that it will actually be filmed. It is necessary to win over financiers. "The idea is all-important", according to Cornelia Hermann. And for this an author has to "catch fire".

Stars without a public

Apart from the armies of authors, who make ends meet by writing the plots and storylines of the TV soaps, there are, of course, also in Germany a few stars among the screenwriters. Yet unless their profession is coupled with the much more prominent position as director, as for example Helmut Dietl, Rossini, Fatih Akin, Head On (Gegen die Wand) or Doris Dörrie, Naked (Nackt), or as with novelists such as Patrick Süsskind, Perfume (Das Parfüm) or Thomas Brussig, Heroes Like Us (Helden wie wir), their names are mostly unknown even in Germany. This applies, for example, to the journalist Felix Huby, born in 1938, who has written numerous TV films, and to Holger Karsten Schmidt, born in 1965, a graduate of the Ludwigsburg Academy, who is also very much in demand as a screenwriter for film and TV (e.g. Sass). "It doesn’t actually matter where you come from" says Cornelia Hermann. No matter whether a graduate of theatre studies, of German literature or philosophy, "you can learn the skills." But the success stories are usually written by those who show great personal commitment and staying power. For "a half-hearted approach gets you nowhere."