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Mission statement
Camera13 keeps production processes simple. Clear documentation shall be provided before, during and after a Production. Focus on Communication, providing a set of tools, ensuring that you can make informed decisions, at any given point of the production, thus positively impacting on the outcome of your video. We want the client to own the process.
Emotional Evergreens
- FIFA WORLD CUP South Africa 2010
- Fall of the Berlin Wall and standing right on top of it, just before.
- Meeting Mandela. Confirming that his hands are soft- but the hands of a boxer. Long Live!
- The long and friendly arms of a Silverback Gorilla in the mountains of the DRC
- Tsunami, Eastern Sri Lanka.
“How to touch the FIFA World Cup trophy – without attempting to tackle it.”
Working as a Cameraman for FIFA films, Game 64 of the Soccer World Cup, alias “the final”. One of my filming tasks on that night was to film the arrival of the Trophy, drop off by limousine and entourage cars. The exact position for off loading wasn’t even given to my FIFA liaison. Whilst busy recording some “far distance, nice looking long lens shots” along the service and VIP road within the inner Calabash, I was told that this is where we needed to be. Well, good that I just filmed the arrival by accident, but we couldn’t really claim to be were we should have been. The next 5 min were handheld camerawork following the Louis Vuitton Case through various passages and stairs, deep into the stadium. The camera used, plus its nice fat zoom – wide angle lens is not a handycam in terms of size. The short adrenalin rush came to end when the trophy disappeared behind a small door and the room was then locked. The fun only started here, as , when I thought this thing was done, I was asked, : “ if I have everything, or do I need anything else?”. Well, I didn’t need to be asked twice. Quickly we stopped some waiters from moving stuff around, as it was now important to keep the scene looking the same, as I wanted to rein-act the World Cup Trophy’s arrival of the last 13 meters before the case was placed in the small room.
Here, I need to say that my encounters with FIFA towards the way I was allowed to conduct myself had been surprisingly open; leaving me with a maximum of freedom of movement and innovative approaches to my camera moves. Up-to-date, I am uncertain if this was by design or if my style of work was granted, because people thought, that’s how it has to be. A big Up for that to everybody at FiFA films, including those who had to occasionally carry the nice but heavy tripod.
We re-positioned the team bringing the trophy around the corner; double checked in thumbnail player for matters of continuity, moved some flowers into the aligned tripod shot. Good thinking of camera13′s Soundman and Camera Assistant Keith Bennett to chase after the truss of people.
Now we worked ourselves towards the room; filming it from two different angles, with partial resizing of the chosen frame. Final shots were Close up shots of trophy being put on to table. Here I cheated a bit, moving one bearer of the Louis Vuitton Case out of frame, in order to get longs shots over table through the door. I combined those with some over shoulder work and close ups of trophy. And yes, I allowed myself to graze the golden thing gently, accidentally.
The mentioned footage was viewed by us only once before given to FIFA. camera13 agreed to provide dvd rushes of down converted HD-SD of ongoing filming. Maybe one day, we catch a glimpse of it on an airport, or at some petrol station.
FIFA entrusted camera13 with some “Transition through time shots, before and during Games”. Furthermore we were engaged with filming around the Football for Hope Festival in Alexandra Township, including solo camera access for interview statements regarding the opening of the event by President ZUMA and BLATTER.
“Brain bite” of this period. Our Political Science Teacher, Dr. Karl-Heinz Eckardt (RIP) made us buy his book „Die DDR im Systemvergleich“. (“East Germany’s system compared”)
How is that for Capitalism, for a man of great integrity with socio-conscious approach? Maybe he wanted to prepare us for a reunited Germany; we still had to write our Matric exam about “why BRDeutschland better was than DDR.”
Regardless, we had a good time standing on top of Berlin Wall in front of Branderburger Tor .
Camera13 was founded in 2004 by tv all-rounder Boris Friedel, who grew up in Germany, Berlin. He claims that “the best party ever” were the days the Berliner Mauer fell.
Slowly grasping the magnitude of the event coincided with a center fold picture in Germany’s renowned magazine “Der Stern” of class mate Roland Roethlin, hammering away at the wall.
Commemorating “10 years of no wall”, Boris Friedel used his position as an insert producer for South Africas’ Public Broadcaster SABC, to produce a mini-feature about the event and its impact on Southern Africa. The item strongly highlighted the point that the chances for Madiba to get out of prison could have been different, if it wouldn’t have been for the disappearance of the “iron curtain” and its cold war policies. The item featured the then German Ambassador Harald Ganns to South Africa, among others. Unfortunately, camera13 has no access to the produced item.
To Honour the event of 1989, the Goethe Institute Johannesburg has decided to break down their wall, to open up. Brave thing to do in Jo’burg, but well done.
Meeting Mandela
Although I had been lucky to bump into the “old man”, or Tata – as many South Africans refer to him respectfully, on various occasions, I never had the pleasure of actually meeting the icon. Meeting Mandela finally took place, when I received a phone call from Nonhlanlha of Mntungwa Communications, who had been contacted by a European Broadcaster to record a statement of Mandela.
Well, it nearly didn’t happen, as my assistant at the time decided to take the car – with checked gear – on a party spree. He overslept, but we got hold of the car and took somebody else to the shoot instead. Not sure how he will explain this to his grandkids? All went well. Madiba came in house slippers, told as a joke about his underwear, we did his piece to camera and used the opportunity to get a picture with the former President.
Silverback Gorilla
Did you ever schlep a heavy tripod through the jungle, only to notice that you cant use it, as the ground is just a wobbly mix of mud and vegetation? Well, it happened to me during the course of a trip through Rwanda and the eastern part of the DRC. The Gorilla story was one in three stories for Suisse TV. Rewarding memories, to finally see a clan of Silverback Gorillas, with one big daddy in the middle. I knew nothing about Gorillas and I didn’t know, that this particular Gorilla was a famous one, as he had lost a part of his enormous hand due to a poaching attempt. Apparently, it is some sort of ritual meal to eat the hand of a gorilla. Pretty dumb, if you ask me. But then I also would eat chicken feet.
We came closer and closer, the camera recording hand-held, sweat dripping, ignoring the mosquitoes. The daddy looked at us, but was all sunken in to the lush green bed he made for himself. During our 10 minutes of filming he once stretched his arms and yawned with all teeth out, plus sound effects. It felt like, that his arm extended over my lens. Suddenly we felt that he was very close to us and the gorilla looked much bigger than before. But all mellow. Our guides indicated to pack up.
Christina Karrer, the brilliant Suisse Journalist I traveled with, made some nice pictures of the whole thing and the gorilla, but refuses to hand them over to me. Maybe I get them one day. Who knows?
Tsunami, Sri Lanka
To make it short. Its difficult to believe of what water is capable of. No doubt that the weather is changing towards a more unpredictable pattern. We went to areas, where no human life was to be found. Only dogs who had started to operate in packs. Nature wins.
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