21.-22.04.12 . Paris en trente-deuxs heures

/ Paris/

For obvious reasons, I couldn't title this post One Night in Paris. Although we did actually spend one night in Paris. Hm. Anyhow, this is what we saw:

Magnifique!: you spend beaucoups d'Euros and type a 128 digit-long code into this machine and POUF! You get un bicyclette! For 30 minutes!

This year's Fantasy Tour de France winner, just about to cross the finishing line (Alex - not the bus driver):

French dinner with all trimmings. Alex ordered Rognon de Veau Moutarde à L'ancienne (good old kidney with mustard sauce) thanks to some English/French translation error. But he said, he really liked it (*vom*). I would never eat innards. They're disgusting. Unlike slimy snails with garlic butter, which I could have every day for breakfast. Don't argue with me - it's culinary logic.

Wot?​!

Adventures in Producing . Part 2

/ Barcelona/

15.03.12 . Barcelona

Yeah well, weather forecasts. I just learned to give a ... We had been on location, ready to shoot since 5:45 a.m. 14 people standing in the dark, staring at the horizon, waiting for the glistening sun to rise at precisely 5:59 a.m. But nothing happened. At 7 a.m. it finally got a tiny bit lighter and we could see why there was nothing to see: the sun had risen behind a massive wall of black clouds. It was freezing cold and the beach looked awful. We decided to wait until the sky would open up. Couldn't be that long, right?

Wrong. For the next 8 hours we shared blankets, life stories and incredulous stares at weather apps. At one point we acutually tried to shoot, but once stripped off their blankets, our models' lips would turn blue and their uncontrollable shivering (unalluringly amplified by shooting in slow motion) was something the client probably didn't think he payed for.

Around 2 p.m. panic set in: there would be no sunbeams on this beach today. Location scout Xavi ventured out and reported: only 10 minutes away, he had found a bright blue sky and the sun (I put this down to a meteorological mystery). We raced over, rolled the camera and suddenly it was 4 p.m. - which is, of course, Spanish lunch time. 8 hours waiting, one hour shooting, one hour lunch.  If you don't tell, I won't :-)

Adventures in Producing . Part 1

/

14.03.12 . Barcelona

Our client had accepted a film concept which featured a young couple, loveingly teasing each other, in slow-motion on a beach. To avoid weather problems, we suggested to shoot this in Barcelona. Yes, it would cost a little more, but it would also be safer. Sounded smart to us. During location inspection, the sun was blazing. Even better: the forecast predicted the same conditions for the next day - the day of our shoot. Oh, we had a really good feeling about this Barcelona-thing.

02.-03.03.12 . Oberstdorf

/

Wot?!​

Nothing fancy. Just skiing, Schnaps and Dampfnudeln. And the best was saved for last. Welcome to the Gramlich family's children prison:

A place where you must finish your meals, ski without lift and wash yourselves only with a cloth and cold water. Probably a recreational highlight in the Schicklgruber days. Not so much for us kids from the 80s. Janni, Paddy, Belli, Frederik, Viktoria: They've closed it. We're safe now.