Elf Fotocollagen von Steffen Mühle setzen Signale für die Wandboxen.Merken

From 1912 onwards castles and circuses sprout up around the studios. Film architects, effects innovators and craftsmen create new worlds - expressionist spaces, German forests, METROPOLIS’s upper and lower city. That’s why Babelsberg becomes the Mecca for film professionals from all over the world in the 1920s. Around 1950 the young DEFA scenographers take on the heritage of the Ufa while searching for their own way. Today, international productions combine traditional set-construction techniques with computer-generated marvels.

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Lights! Camera! Action!’ Actors and extras begin to move. The cinematographer focuses in on a pair of eyes or pulls back for a long shot. The director has already made countless decisions together with dozens of experts. But the final recorded product remains unpredictable. The team follows the scene with the utmost concentration. So is it back to the drawing board? That’s a wrap? The heart of a film beats on-set.

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In einem Film mitzuwirken und berühmt zu werden, ist ein weit verbreiteter Teenagertraum. Schauspieler stehen im Fokus des öffentlichen Rummels um Kino- und TV-Filme.

15 Männer und 15 Frauen stehen für die Vielzahl der Stars, deren Gesichter Babelsberg
berühmt gemacht haben. Neben Marlene Dietrich oder Angelica Domröse sind das heute auch David Kross, Christoph Waltz und Kate Winslet.

Bislang unerzählte oder vergessene Geschichten über die Entdeckung von Unbekannten und Berühmtheiten findet man in drei Casting-Geschichtensammlungen von Ufa, DEFA und Studio Babelsberg.

Gäste können in einer Casting-Box selbst vorsprechen und sich in Filmausschnitte von
Sonnenallee (1999), Die Söhne der großen Bärin (1966) oder Emil und die Detektive (1931) einkopieren, die ihnen per E-Mail geschickt werden können.

Von Marlene Dietrich sieht man die sensationelle Probeaufnahme für Der blaue Engel (1930), die Maskenkunst wird u.a. durch Handwerkszeug und eine Fotoserie über die Verwandlung von Katrin Sass dokumentiert.

Im dreimonatigen Wechsel werden Kostüme ausgestellt. Aktuell kann ein Gewand aus dem Andreas Dresen Film Timm Thaler oder das verkaufte Lachen (2017) betrachtet werden.

Film is rhythm. Certain combinations of materials can make or break everything. A film takes shape on the editing table. What’s cut and what stays? How should a scene be established? Director and editor assemble new versions. The Babelsberg staff have been learning from the Russians and Americans about the power of editing since the 1920s. The passing of time is fixed on film and informed by film - stiff, long takes in 1912, daring, fast cuts a hundred years later.

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And the band plays on! From 1929 music is rarely heard live in cinemas anymore. But in the brand-new Ufa ‘Tonkreuz’ studio the Ufa Orchestra is playing film compositions that will become popular songs listened to by millions. The record business is born. The DEFA Symphony Orchestra, sound engineers, and Foley artists all add their own flourishes, but the popularity of earlier film music remains. Digital sound systems in the 1990s revolutionised sound mixing. Spring waltzes? A passing jet? Each tone will change the tone of a scene.

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This is it. Months or even years have passed since the original idea. Advertising has been running for weeks. Interviews, trailers, websites, posters. Photographers and autograph hunters throng around the red carpet as the diva and the director sweep past. Excitement builds. Films need to circulate, bring in the cash and remain memorable. Curtain up! Roll film. How does the audience react? Are they shaken? Do they laugh at the right moments? Emotions in a dark cinema determine everything.

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