Location Managers Guild International

LMGI COMPASS | Summer 2021 • 29 Babylon. The city is changing at a fast pace, and there are several locations which are not available anymore. While making it a little bit more diffi cult to fi nd a fi t, this is what makes our job so interesting: You fi nd out a location where you have fi lmed before is not available anymore, so you have to dig deeper in the more obscure parts of the city. Nothing is cookie-cutter, and neither we, nor production designer Uli Hanisch, nor the directors would want it to be. Sometimes, you have to be creative. The wildest idea might turn out to be the winner. A lot of the locations you might have wanted were destroyed by the end of WW2. How did you handle that? Did you rebuild any of them? Even a larger production by German standards like Babylon Berlin is limited in what can be built—especially if you are talking about places that will only be used for one or two shooting days. A stage build is usually very expensive. With a real location, you can help set the mood for the actors and the crew in a way that is not possible onstage. The city is still changing. Not only was a lot destroyed during WW2, but buildings are modernized or demolished or have changed owners. Some locations might be gone, but others become available. A place that was too dangerous to enter before might be renovated now, or an owner who was opposed to fi lm shoots sold his property to the biggest fan of Babylon Berlin. We just have to keep our eyes open. Even though we know a lot of the city and its historic places after what will soon be four seasons of Babylon Berlin, there is always something new to be found! Of course, you need great collaborators for that to work. The art department of Babylon Berlin is one of the most creative you can imagine. Production designer Uli Hanisch and his supervising art director Kai Karla Koch are extremely creative and fast. They are always looking outside the box and can transform a location in very different ways. While having very high standards, they are also willing to change their ideas of what location to use and how they can transform it into what tells the story if something we had initially set our eyes on doesn't work out. The foundation for this workfl ow are three location scouts: Nick Hertwig and Stefan Wöhleke in Berlin and Brandenburg and Frank Meter in North Rhine-Westphalia. Everything starts with this little task force. One example is the stock exchange from the opening scene of the third season. It does not exist anymore. It quickly became clear that we actually have nothing in town which fi ts the dimensions of the historical stock exchange. Everything that fi rst came to mind and was of a size comparable to the original stock exchange was destroyed or renovated in such modern ways that it didn't work for us. Moving to another city for a missing location is quite unpopular and not the idea of Babylon Berlin. But as so often happens, Uli had a great idea. He was thinking about presenting the "Bärensaal" (Bear Hall) in the Altes Stadthaus, an administrative building from the early 20th century, as a stock exchange. The dimensions are not correct, but the architecture is astonishing and fi ts the period. There is a massive bear on a pedestal on one side. His idea was to set up an identical sculpture with a bull on the other side of the room. Bear and bull, stock market, bang, brilliant! We had found the perfect location for this important opening scene. After all these years, it's still amazing to work with creative people like Uli and Kai. These guys have incredible ideas and a clear view to fi nd the best solutions for the show. "Locations are the heart and soul of almost any fi lm show," Babylon Berlin production designer Uli Hanisch says. "There's no production without locations. We depend on them. We did build a huge backlot set where we did a lot of street scenes. Also, we had one small apartment onstage, but everything else was locations." Babylon Berlin shot mostly in Berlin. "On one hand, we know that about 90 percent of the city was destroyed after World War 2," Hanisch says. "But it's amazing how much period architecture Berlin still has, especially town halls and public places. We have an enormous amount of those representing the history of Berlin, although it's very hard to use them. It's a city, and they're already in use, so we have to deal with that. I've lived and worked here for over 20 years, and I'm always discovering something new. I usually know many of these public places, but I´m not considering them for a particular concept before I have a specifi c request for a show." Hanisch has worked with LM David Pieper/LMGI and KALM Mario Wittman/LMGI for nearly a decade. "I feel they are part of the art department," he says. "I hope they feel the same. I feel super- connected to them. It's thrilling how we always come up with something great together. When they reach out, they don't take NO for an answer. "They really think about everything and deal with all the problems. If you're working in this fi eld, you cannot succeed unless you are polite, kind, honest and truthful. Many times you're dependent on other people's good will. During the fi rst two seasons of Babylon Berlin, we shot at 250 locations. The sheer amount was overwhelming. "Because our crew has a good reputation, we sometimes get access to locations others don't. Whenever I have to work with someone else, I miss David and his crew. I'm addicted to their work. I can't praise them highly enough." PRODUCTION DESIGNER ULI HANISCH Photo courtesy of Uli Hanisch

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• 24-35 Cover-Story_Babylon Berlin
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• 52-59 NEXT GEN
• 62-63 Martini shot