Back to the roots
At the end of September, after a long, long time, I unpacked my good old yellow lighting gloves, which were last used about 15 years ago. My friend, the cameraman Jan Fehse, called me and told me that he was currently preparing a small cinema film with Veronica Ferres: “Short Term Memory Loss” by Andreas Arnstedt. Finally, Jan said he was going to ask me something totally crazy, but I could also say “no”. There were no more lighting technicians in the whole of Berlin. Could I stand in for four days? I didn’t think twice and spontaneously agreed. After all the script drudgery of the past year, I was glad for a little change. Finally away from my desk, back on the lighting lorry, rocking again.
So three days later, after a long time, I found myself back in the CineMobil light warehouse in Berlin, packing lamps into a lorry, none of which I knew any more. The first realisation: progress is unstoppable, the lamps are actually getting lighter and more powerful, LED rechargeable lamps were not even dreamt of in the 90s. The second realisation: technical progress has apparently completely bypassed the good old Manfrotto crank tripod. The fucking thing still weighs 25kg. And the lighting technician is expected to carry the thing with the lamp head around with ease and, ideally, look good doing it.
The next day I was back on set wearing gloves. It was like throwing a fish back into the water. I immediately felt at ease again and soon had a third realisation: I can still do it. Lighting is still the same as it was 15 years ago: Set up the tripods, put the lamp head on, connect the converter, connect the power, put the frame in front of it, make it harder, make it softer, lift it up a bit, put a cutter in from above, and a Kinoflo on a Polecat under the ceiling inside. Shooting, shot died, conversion, Jan, how long do you need? 10 minutes, now the lamps at the front all have to go, because we’re looking through the shop window, are the two two-and-a-halfs at the back already in the courtyard? And in the evening you have a quick bite to eat, fall into bed, get up at half past five the next day and then it’s back to work. Great.
The four days eventually turned into four weeks, as it quickly became clear that without me there was actually one man short in the lighting team. And I really enjoyed doing it. By the way, after two weeks the crank tripods had already become much lighter and in the end they were as light as a feather…
The applications for next year are already underway…