 |
| |
 |
10/13/08
Interview with Michael Ballhaus at the so-called “Portal 24” of the German Film Academy
A presentation of the virtual film school will take place during the 60th Frankfurt Book Fair, October 15 – 19, 2008
For more than two decades, the great cameraman Michael Ballhaus has been collaborating with such famous Hollywood directors as Martin Scorsese, Wolfgang Petersen, Francis Ford Coppola and Volker Schlöndorff with whom he realized a cinematic adaptation of DEATH OF A SALESMAN in 1985 that was based on the Arthur Miller's play. His creative teamwork with Rainer Werner Fassbinder lasted from 1970 until 1978. Although the worldwide success of the film THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1978/79) was the highpoint of this productive cooperation, it also marked its end.
In an interview, the cosmopolitan Ballhaus, who resides in Berlin, among other places, talks about the 360 degree shot he developed together with RWF when they filmed MARTHA (1973). Their tracking shot of the protagonists (Margit Carstensen and Karlheinz Böhm) is a stylistic invention that – as a dramatic means of camera expression – has since become standard within the curricula of film academies. As a guest professor at the German Film and TV Academy (dffb) in Berlin, Michael Ballhaus frequently teaches the younger generation of filmmakers.
Together with the German Federal Agency for Political Education, the German Film Academy (DFA) has postulated its goal to incorporate film, “the mother of all audiovisual media,” more prominently into the high-school curricula. In its new portal entitled 24, the DFA provides practical information about classical film professions: Götz George and Martina Gedeck talk about themselves and their jobs as actors, Simone Bär describes the casting process, producer Bernd Eichinger explains his view of things, and Andreas Veiel describes documentary film work. The portal takes its name from the frequency of 24 frames per second for films.
This virtual course caters both to interested amateurs and emerging filmmakers. Its presentation from October 15 to 19, 2008 will be part of the specialist program entitled "Forum Film & TV" at Frankfurt’s Book Fair, where licenses for new book adaptations into movies will also be sold.
The portal 24 can be reached if you go to: www.vierundzwanzig.de
For the interview with Michael Ballhaus click here:
|
|
|
 |
|
