When Barriers Come Down: Throwback89, iPhone Filmmaker Interview

For the first time, Switzerland’s Mobile Motion Film Festival – a festival dedicated to films shot on smartphones – received a submission produced by a TV company. The company is NDR Fernsehen, a German free-to-air regional television channel targeting northern Germany.

Throwback89 comes in 3 parts and was released as an Instagram story. With a real budget and some professional cast and crew like Hanna Binke, known for Ostwind 2 (2015), Ostwind (2013) and Windstorm and the Wild Horses (2017) , it’s perhaps not surprising the films have made it through to the final of the festival. But a great story is a great story.

Here, we talk to the filmmakers Ricarda Saleh and Nil Idil Çakmak about the production.

What is the story behind your Instagram series?

Throwback89 tells the story of 17-year old Nora who recounts the events of autumn 1989 in Rostock – a city in former East Germany. Our project is an Instagram diary on the fall of the Berlin Wall. The series deals with topics of friendship – problems you have as a teenager with parents, school, your first love – and of course the historical momentum which is symbolised by historical footage of GDR’s former news show Aktuelle Kamera, West German newscast Tagesschau and former GDR youth programme Elf99.

From 21st October to 9th November 2019 Germany’s most trusted newscast Tagesschau – and biggest German news outlet on Instagram (1.3 Mio Follower) – published new episodes of the fictional series on a daily basis. Our goal was to reach a young audience with insights and a new approach into the historical, societal and personal dimensions of this turning point in German history.

What were the steps which led you to make it?

Both at public TV NDR and at the Tagesschau team, the editorial department was looking for ideas for innovative content on the topic of reunification and the fall of the Berlin Wall as in November 2019 we celebrated 30 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany.

After the core idea was found, the screenplay development took place with a small team made up of Nil Idil Çakmak, Ricarda Saleh and Ira Wedel. Screenwriter Ira Wedel, born in 1974, grew up in the GDR and brought her own experiences and memories of daily life at that time into the script development. After the screenplay development, the preproduction started which included in depth research for costumes and locations as we had to recreate 1989 in our series.

From the beginning of the concept development through to the production and post-production the process was closely followed by the editors (Redakteure) of NDR and Tagesschau. As Throwback89 is an Instagram series planning a social media campaign for the launch was needed. Furthermore, additional content such as historical video posts on @Tagesschau´s Instagram feed was created. These video posts put events of the fictional story in a historical context. In total a big team of journalists, filmmakers and media creators made Throwback89 possible.

How did you approach the historical topic for the script development?

Research is key for historical topics! We did over ten in depth interviews with contemporary witnesses. We also went to the archives of the University Library in Rostock to read local newspapers from the exact time period the series portrays (autumn 1989). Ira enriched the script development with a lot of knowledge and expertise on GDR and her own personal experiences. When the screenplay was at a final stage, we double checked some passages with contemporary witnesses and also historians.

Why did you choose a smartphone to film with?

For Throwback89 it was essential to use a smartphone. As a visual element we work a lot with the “Selfie shot”. Nora invites the viewers directly into her daily life in former East Germany. She holds the phone in her hand or she puts it in front of her on her desk and gives an update.

This meant that in several scenes (especially in selfie shots) our main actress Hanna Binke had to operate the camera. This camera angle generates intimacy. We deliberately worked with visual storytelling tools typical of Insta Stories. The young audience knows this visual vocabulary to tell a story on Instagram. We reached our target group by using their language.

In conclusion, it was a dramaturgical decision to shoot with a smartphone to generate as much authenticity in the “Selfie camera angle” as possible.

In addition, we were aiming for a high visual quality but also open for some “quick and dirty” aspects of spontaneous scenes shot on a Smartphone and uploaded on Social Media. If we had shot with a cinematic Red Camera and created a cinematic grading in the post production we would have lost the intimacy and authenticity of Nora’s Instagram diary.

What equipment did you use?

We shot on iPhone 8 and we worked with the video app FiLMiC Pro. FiLMiC Pro was an essential tool for our production. By using this app we were able to manually control a lot more than the iPhone 8 offers – such as exposure, colour and focus.

During the production we worked with DoP Alexander Pfalzgraf, who tested the capacity of the iPhone and FiLMiC pro’s options in the pre production phase. We edited the project on Adobe Premiere.

The workflow for Instagram is extremely impractical, especially if you use the In-App typing and GIFs as one step of the workflow. So we were very happy that our editor Aaron Moser created a good technical plan within Premiere to navigate all these small video snippets and was open-minded for this unorthodox web series workflow.

How much did you know about filmmaking before you made this film?

Ricarda is a graduate of Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. She brought experience in documentary, fictional film and advertisement directing into the team. Nil, who did her journalistic training at NDR TV station, has expertise on Instagram storytelling. Nil also has some experience with short film production.

The entire team of Throwback89 has diverse backgrounds and every member brought their perspective and experience to the project.

What did you like/not like about filming with a phone?

Ricarda: I think Nil and I have different opinions on this matter.

Nil: We do?

Ricarda: From my perspective it was the right decision to shoot Throwback89 with a smartphone. As explained before we chose this camera for a dramaturgical purpose. However, I did not like any aspect of shooting with a smartphone compared to a professional camera such as an Alexa or Red. My reasoning is that with these cameras you can control the light, the colours, the frame better and the postpro workflow is easier.

Nil: Do you really think that?

Ricarda: Yes!! But, I also have to admit that the chance of shooting with a smartphone is that you can use it as a technical limitation to boost creativity. Cinematic films shot on smartphones are absolutely fascinating! Also, if you work in the field of investigative documentary it is a great tool as the phone is so small and easy to “smuggle” in areas where you can’t film.

Nil: Well, I would say there are some practical aspects of shooting with a smartphone. It is a small camera. You can start recording relatively quickly. For some projects it is the ideal camera. However, I also agree that it has limits. One limit is the image section. It is difficult to tell stories in wide shot. Shooting with limited lights for example at night is another challenge. You need a lot of external lights. A third limitation is the sound quality and the difficulty to sync the recorded video on the phone with external sound.

Ricarda: Oh, so actually we have a similar opinion on this?!

Nil: Yes, I guess so!

How successful was the film, personally and in gaining an audience for your work?

Throwback89 was a great success. 4 million users watched until the last story element and 165.000 viewers experienced the series on a daily basis. Every day 3.000 new followers were gained.

70 % of the followers of the Instagram account @Tagesschau are under 30. It was our goal to reach a young audience with Nora’s story and we are extremely happy that we were able to create this experience and a new approach for this historical topic.

We also got a lot of positive user feedback from young people (but also teachers and parents). They told us they had tried to explain to their children about their life in GDR. However, with the help of the series they felt that for the first time their children were able to imagine day to day life in GDR. The instagram format was a connecting part.

On a personal level we learned a lot throughout the production process and we were able to work with amazing and very talented people of NDR and Tagesschau.

How important are film festivals that give these kind of films a platform for you?

Film Festivals showing series and films shot on smartphone are extremely important. They foster innovation. Shooting on smartphone creates limitations but it also creates new forms of cinematic storytelling and as said before limitations also boost creativity. We are honoured that Throwback89 is celebrating its festival premier at MoMo Festival in Zürich! Thank you for including our project in the international competition!

Cast:

Nora Sommerfeld – Hanna Binke

“Mutti” Sylvia Sommerfeld – Laura Leyh

“Vati” Ingo Sommerfeld – Marco Wittorf

Anton Schneider – Olaf Meyer

Falk Schwitzkowski – Bill Becker

Johanna Fuchs – Ella Dittmann

Peggy Schmidt – Laila Richter

Hannes Jakobsen – Jonas David

“Basti” Sebastian-Ole Bauer – Belá Weimar-Dittmar

Denise Sommerfeld – Lara-Maria Wichels

Crew:

Series Idea & Directed: Nil Idil Çakmak und Ricarda Saleh

Screenplay: Nil Idil Çakmak, Ricarda Saleh, Ira Wedel

Editorial department NDR (Redaktion): Svenja Freise, Katharina Fuxius, Philipp Goewe

Editorial department Tagesschau (Redaktion): Timo Spieß, André Steins, Patrick Weinhold

Productions supervision (Produktionsleitung): Oliver Gebhard, Nora Wehrhahn

DoP: Alexander Pfalzgraf

Set Sound: Thomas Schimmack

Costume design: Anna Greta Klein, Christian Roehrs

Editing: Aaron Moser

Throwback89 is a project of Tagesschau and NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk).

Further information on throwback89.de

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