Filmmaker in conversation

Director Florian Arndt talks about his current project and the upheaval of the television series.

Born in 1992, the founder of SONS OF MOTION PICTURES GmbH is making films since the age of twelve. He founded the “Filmfabrik Mühlhausen” during his school years, was named “Germany’s best young director” in 2012, “Leipzig’s most successful young entrepreneur” in 2018 and is currently Germany’s youngest senator. His company’s documentary and advertising films have already won over 40 national and international film awards. Amongst others, the FBW seal of approval “Highly recommended” and the “Golden Dolphin” of Cannes.

I meet the production team of more than 30 people at their headquarters in Leipzig’s bohemian Southside. Bente, the production manager, leads me through the sacred halls. I visit the recording studio, the grey workroom for colour grading, and meet collaborators in animation technology, sound, and visual effects. Only the props room stays hidden from me, with the excuse that it is too messy. Finally, I enter the technical area with bated breath and see the RED Epic W 8K film camera. Wow, a piece of Hollywood in Leipzig! The concierge costume of German actor Bernhard Bettermann (As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me, Tatort) reinforces the impression. It hangs in the hallway, ready to be returned to the lender.

Florian Arndt, Managing Director
SONS OF MOTION PICTURES

Questions to Florian Arndt

The interview was conducted by Sarah Barnert on 20 June 2019.

In June, the SONS OF MOTION PICTURES production team shot the pilot for the web series Fool Service at the Felsenkeller in Leipzig. It is Florian’s first large-scale production and he can be seen in the photo in the second row, middle, with natty bow-tie. The project will continue to stir up the series landscape in Germany.

Hi Florian, thanks for the nice reception. How did the Fool Service shoot go last weekend?
Awesome! It was incredibly big. I’ve never before worked with 40 people just behind the camera! It was a huge team in a feature film format (shows photo). That’s the whole team plus actors and extras in the location. We also shot the party scenes there.

The production looks high-quality.
That was precisely the goal. It shouldn’t look “German”, like an early-evening series. Netflix and Amazon are — quite rightly — destroying everything in the German TV series market. The approach is to reposition ourselves there with the same quality. The idea came from me and Katharina Stoll wrote the script on our behalf. She is experienced in TV comedy formats like Knallerfrauen and Knallerkerle.

I’m really looking forward to the result! Where will the web series be published?
Plan A is to offer the pilot to streaming services and other producers. We’ve already written the whole season. There are also screenplays for 12 episodes at a time. In the best case we will produce the whole first season right away. Plan B is to finance the production via advertising partners and Plan C is to release it on YouTube.

Fool Service is a comedy series about two opposing employees in a hostel threatened with insolvency. Albert, played by actor Bernhard Bettermann, adheres to the principles of a 5-star concierge. He is forced to work with the young egocentric Oskar, who doesn’t think much of old school service. An hilarious clash of cultures and generations is inevitable.

How many hours did you shoot on the Fool Service pilot in total?
(Pulls out a calculator) 14 plus 13 plus 15 plus 14 … We produced a good 55 hours for about 10 minutes. If you extrapolate this to a season, it’s totally clear that this is either only possible at a very high price or with some cutbacks. But with the pilot we wanted to put everything into it and show what we can do. I just wanted to do the best that was possible in the given time. If the team were even bigger, e.g. with 50 people, it would certainly be even faster. Or if you shoot in the studio, there’s still room for improvement. For organisational reasons we had to completely dismantle the whole set three times after each shooting day because the location was still booked with a concert. We also learned a lot in the process. I think that with our current experience the shooting would be possible with 10 hours less today. It was also the first time for us on this scale. Now everything is in place, the roles have been developed, the locations have been created.

You were born in 1992 and you had an incredible career, already at a young age.
Yes, I don’t know how that could happen, and above all so quickly. I can’t do anything else, except make movies (laughs). In my case, my little brother encouraged me to make radio plays of The Three Investigators. Of course, we thought big and made a 90-minute film out of it. It was supposed to be a feature-length film. These 90 minutes were shot in 25 days during the summer holidays. Totally wacky, retrospectively. We didn’t even have a driver’s license and received support from many sides in our project. The film premiered in an amateur theatre with 120 spectators who had even paid admission. Looking back on it, the film was a real catastrophe, an audience member even fell asleep! Quite rightly, one must say. You couldn’t actually watch the film for more than five minutes. I am very grateful to the adults, because the number of viewers motivated me a lot to continue. Our films became shorter and shorter. At 16 years there was my first short film Mindbreak, which was 10 minutes long. The first young talent awards in London and also in Germany soon followed. And then, in 2012 The Test Driver (Der Testfahrer) was produced, which was the breakthrough to make a living from it.

To be honest, in the first years of founding the company, I was always asked if I was doing an internship here. When I was at trade shows, I’d get asked whether I was in training. I’d reply “Yes, I also offer training.”

Our sound designer is 15 years older than me and one nice thing is that he is blessed with a thick beard. During the first years he acted as if he was the managing director and I was his intern. So, we never introduced ourselves with the position, always only with names. Of course, when asked, we answered honestly, but people mostly thought he was the boss. And we played the game to the full – as a confidence-building measure. I never answered the phone in the office, we took extra photos of me looking older for the website. That worked out really well during the first two years. I was quite unpretentious, because of course it also helped for the production.

So, for two or three years I’ve been allowed to get out as myself (laughs), now that we are the biggest advertising film company in eastern Germany, outside of Berlin. If you have 7-digit sales that of course helps in the business world, then suddenly the world is in order again. But a lot has changed since YouTube also advertises on the Internet and some TV spots are no longer broadcast on TV, but on YouTube. In addition, the Internet is young, that’s where young people are active. That’s my happy ending with this story.

I never wondered what I wanted to be. At the age of 11 it was clear: something with film. With 14 it was clear: direction.

What’s your favourite movie?
My favourite movie is Forrest Gump, because it has all genres in it, from war drama to comedy, love film – everything is included. My own films are always funny under the surface. I also watch a lot of comedy, but what I watch and what I do are sometimes two different pairs of shoes. I also like very epic films, with great drama and visual power. In the web series Fool Service everything comes together, the whole team has participated and there are chic pictures of a Netflix cameraman.

What influence do you experience on film production through new forms of media such as VoD, YouTube or computer games?
YouTube offers the world’s film knowledge free of charge. There are portals like slashCAM or American blogs where you read new things every day. That’s why I have the theory that in 10 years you don’t have to study film to be a filmmaker. You just gotta make a lot of bad movies yourself, make every mistake once and read about other people’s experiences on the internet. I am of the opinion that hard work beats talent. If you do that long enough and have a desire for it, and it’s intrinsically motivated. In principle, you only need a mobile phone today and maybe a computer to cut. Whereby – meanwhile you can cut even on mobile phones and tablets. It’s getting more and more professional. The fact that YouTuber is a profession and you can also do “quality television” on the Internet yourself is a great thing about digitization. Everything is going in the right direction. At least from the perspective of a young filmmaker. Digital work is everyday life for us.

I believe that social skills are much more important to a director than a talent for pictures. That was certainly different in the 70s, since you got this knowledge only at the film academy. Nevertheless, I still think it’s good when people study film, it’s just not like it was.

To pick up on what’s crazy about computer games, check out this real-time engine in computer game animation. This is already being used in some animated films. What used to days or weeks to render can now be done in real time with a mouse click. It’s totally fascinating that reality becomes more and more blurred with the animation. It will still take a year or two, but it is foreseeable for the mainstream.

Will the aesthetic expectations of the audience also change?
Streaming services, especially from America, are very destructively changing viewing habits here in Germany, and Europe in general. The audience now expects high-quality, large images. It’s no longer enough to film something documentary-style with an OB camera. I’m not crying over that either, because I think that’s good for the films. The films get more love, more time and budget and ultimately more viewers. And that makes it better overall. Especially with productions like How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) or Dark, they don’t look German. But that’s what German filmmakers did at German film locations. This simply proves that the excuse can’t be “That’s only possible in Hollywood”.

Apart from that, we also own the camera with which The Hobbit was shot, for example. It’s no longer as if a Leipzig company couldn’t afford it. Also, the technology, the programs are the same. So, it obviously has to be more than just the country or the money. It’s probably not so efficient, as the Germans would say. In the web series, we shot only two minutes of finished film a day. Big stations produce 12-17 minutes a day. They have to, for weekly series. The question now is whether it will stay that way, since it is no longer necessary to broadcast weekly and everything is available in the archives and the episodes can be retrieved at any time. I think that certain formats like dailies are dying out and I think that’s good – in favour of the quality of the film. And it is my hope, since the EU negotiated a deal, that 30% of the revenues generated here will be invested in the film industry. Netflix wants to produce more and more originals in the individual countries. This creates jobs and should lead to a significant change in the situation for the film industry. I can understand that film producers don’t find what I’m saying here funny, but that’s life. If that were the case, we’d all still be shooting on film.

I’m really only interested in telling stories and touching people. It doesn’t matter whether it’s about humour or emotions. The story is everything.

You also give lectures on topics such as “How do I produce a film (not)”. Do you have an example?
For spots that only last three minutes, it doesn’t help if the story begins with getting up and brushing your teeth and the product only appears halfway through. The script has to be right, otherwise you can’t get any success even with a lot of money. From my point of view, it’s always the story that counts, not the budget. Of course, it should be done professionally, but you can forgive a camera shake more than a bad twist. Everyone can judge that; the former, only the cameramen. This applies to advertising as well as to feature films and all other productions from my point of view.

What you also notice is that Edeka (editor’s note: a large German retailer), for example, has revolutionized the industry by suddenly making short advertising films and storytelling important. It doesn’t feel like advertising anymore, e.g. in the Christmas commercials. A spot can also be a music video with 26 million views. That’s clever, that’s where we want to go and we think that’s where the trend is going, especially with younger viewers. It feels like a short film to us, we would have had to apply for film funding in the past. That satisfies us as artists and service providers alike. That’s why we no longer distinguish between in-house and third-party production. The aim is to make beautiful films that you watch even though they are commercials.

Many thanks to Florian for the exciting insight into the movie industry!

About the author Sarah Barnert

Sarah oversees our social media channels and writes about industry trends.

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