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The studio building

An exciting day begins: I‘m gonna meet Bernd, Chili and Briegel! I‘m going to meet these three guys and watch them how they shoot an episode for the new season of Chili TV. I‘m there when they sing a song, I‘m live on it how Bernd says his famous „CRAP!“. With a thrill of anticipation according to this I went to the studio grounds in Berlin-Adlershof and what I expected was a state-of-the-art, gigantic building with all the studios. But no bit of it! No such house was seen anywhere there. After a while of searching I discovered a place with the studios D and E like a simple sign tells me. Except for a big flag at the entrance there is nothing you can see of Bernd and Co outside. I happily ask the gateman where „Bernd“ can be found - this makes him pretty surprised. I go into it and ask if Bernd owns his studio here. „Bernd who?“. His reaction turns into looking through the list of employees after a „Mister Bernd“. I‘m lucky that in this moment somebody enters the place who‘s informed about the building and takes me with him. I wind up in an extremely long hallway where the studio is.

The cafeteria

The first thing in this hallway which catches my eye is a small cafeteria with seats inside and in the hallway. Obviously this is the studio‘s „nerves‘ center“ because several people scurry here and there, drink coffee, eat something or just chat. Because it‘s early in the morning I am in the mood for a delicous breakfast. Later there‘s also a lunch. Something I notice is that noone pushes on the front, everybody gets in line - the „little“ extra the same way as the director or the prominent guests - like a big family. Only Bernd, Briegel and Chili were the ones I never see in the cafeteria - but I believe that they have their own dressing room where they have a meal or (concerning Bernd) slurp their flour soup...

After this bracing breakfast I look at some Chili TV decorations which stand in hallway in front of the studio - suddenly someone talks behind my back and says „One more crazy guy in the studio?“. I turn around - I‘m as if struck by lightning - there HE is! He looks at me very cool, his short arms hardly move, his eyes stare at me. I think I blushed out of excitement and babbled just anything which obviously didn‘t mind Bernd. Maybe he is used to such a behaviour, who knows? Anyway he just said „If you want to be on it while a tin loaf is forced to become the laughing stock for half a TV nation then just walk this way“, then he turned around and went to the studio with a deep sigh. Of course I didn‘t need to be told twice (especially when Bernd told me) so I followed him and entered the holiest place:

The studio

First everything‘s dark when I enter the studio through a gigantic heavy door. Later I get to know that is has to be this way: If there‘s a light out of control in the studio it can highly damage the camera shots. Also the door gets closed when there‘s a shot made in the studio. Outside in the hallway a red light flashes so everyone knows that noone can enter the studio now. It‘s necessary so Bernd and the other can fully concentrate on the shooting but it‘s also necessary that no noise and sounds from the hallway or the cafeteria can be heard in the studio because while the shooting the dialogues are already spoken like it‘ll be heard on TV later. So clackering plates or saucers out of the cafeteria wouldn‘t be nice when Bernd is exploding or singing again...

Once in the studio you can only be flabbergasted. I imagined the studio larger than it is but it‘s just 635 quarter meters big, this is the size of the fooball‘s penalty box. But it‘s high, nearly 7 meters! Almost all of the space is filled with decoration. Today a scene of the movie „Rock the Bread 2“ will be shot in a football pub. You see a (real!) bar, bar tables for the fans and a stage on which Bernd is going to perform with his band. Everything looks like the imagination of a typical football club - even ashtrays and a sign saying „regular‘s reserved table“ were put on the tables. But the big difference between this and a real pub is the light: about 104 spot lights shine in this small studio - so it becomes bright (and hot!) there. Here no real football fan would feel comfortable with so many spot lights shining on him...however here it‘s necessary to avoid ugly shadows in the movie.

Besides the decoration stand two cameras and edgeways stand two chairs with screens in front of them, one of the chairs says „DIRECTOR“. Aha, I think, while approaching it, there would be sitting the most important person, in particular

The director

Somehow I have imagined directors always with a full beard, running anxiously anywhere and shouting senseless stuff through one of these loudhailers all the time. The guy sitting on the director‘s chair is the exact opposite: no full beard, no loudhailer, just calmness himself. My first thought was that one of the actors just took a seat here but as I discovered it is really Tommy the director. And he immediately put me right: not only for imaging a director‘s look so wrong but also for my opinion that the director would be the most important person in the studio. According to Tommy not a single director in the whole world is able to make a movie on his own - for this he needs his actors, light board operators, soundmen, designers, editors etc. etc.... And every single director depends on the good work all these people do, without them a good movie can‘t be produced. It‘s right - in the studio a bunch of people run around, everyone with different tasks: a young woman is making up an extra, a young man is carrying a drum onto the stage, another man adjusts a spot light with a very long stick and again another young man is sitting next to the director and is reading some machine typed pages. This, so Tommy tells me, is Daniel an he is

The editor

Daniel tells me that the editor is the medium between the client and the movie staff. Talking about Bernd it means that KIKA gave the job to Tommy and his colleagues to shoot a new episode of Chili TV. They sat together a long time before the shooting started and developed a skript. There‘s not only the story written in the skript that will be filmed but also lots of instructions for the actors. Whenever there is Bernd in the skript standing on the stage saying „CRAP!“ the skript says „Bernd goes on stage, stops and looks to the camera. Then he says „CRAP!“. Each actor and the director receive such a skript and everyboys has to follow these instructions. In the studio Daniel watches over the skript, interferes whenever somebody accidentaly isn‘t following the skript and the director isn‘t noticing all this in the heat of the moment.

The film shooting

can finally begin. I always thought the actors would act, the cameras take all this - finished - but this opinion was all wrong. Every scene (and this is each play part in the movie) was repeated again and again until the director finally is satisfied. It made me wonder - because in the theater no actor is allowed to repeat such a scene - here the audience would leave immediately. So in a break I ask Tommy. According to him the difference between theater and a movie is that in a theater everything‘s rehearsed day by day, hour by hour and many weeks before the first performance until they even know in their sleep where they have to stand when and what to say to whom. In the movie industry it‘s not like that: here the actors can‘t rehearse and often see each other for the first time on the shooting day. Especially in Chili TV it‘s the same because a lot of guests like Dirk Bach, Oli P. or Ruth Moschner perform who have only one day to act with Bernd and were performing in some other movie the day before.

One scene shows how a later performance of Bernd and his band on the pub‘s stage is prepared. Two landlords are standing behind the bar and clean glasses, the waitress is wiping the tables and is putting ashtrays on them and some people are preparing the technical stuff for the performance. Just simple, you might think. But not a bit of it - this scene had to be repeated six times until the director was satisfied. One time the waitress was wiping too fast, then the landlords weren‘t properly on screen, then again the cable carrier was holding the cable too deep - I was very surprised how much has to be controlled until the director‘s satisfied. One minute of Bernd you can see on KIKA requires 60 minutes of shooting! Just imagine that and work it out for yourself how long these guys worked so you can watch Chili TV on Sunday at 11:55 a.m. for 25 minutes!!!

And it's correct - Tommy, Daniel and all the other staff need the time from 9 o‘clock in the morning until 6 o‘clock in the evening only for this performance of Bernd and his band. I was completely exhausted when the shooting was over and the director shouted „Have a nice evening!“. But it was worth it: I finally met Bernd, Chili and Briegel, I know now how exhausting such a movie can be at the shooting - and I even got to start my acting career. Because I have a leading part in a short scene which you can see in November 12th 2005 at 11:55 a.m. on KIKA...