Museum of Film Archives

While in Berlin one of our tutors had managed to get us into the archives for the “Museum Of Film” where everything is kept when not on show in the museum itself. It was a bit of a mission to find the archive building but when we got there we found it was worth the wait. When we got there we were able to look around the 3 large rooms. The first had the opportunity to see some of the original artworks for a large range of films exhibited at the museum. We saw some of the original concept art from the film Metropolis that was filmed a Studio Babelsberg. These charcoal and pen drawings were beautiful and you could see exactly why the film ended up looking the way it did. These photo’s really don’t do them justice.

After these we saw some costume designs before some real surprises were shown to us. We saw and oscar that had been donated, the actual hook used in the film Hook and to finish with they showed us one of the model Gremlins used in the films.

After we saw these were entered the next room where there was reels upon reels of film. After these though was the real treat from the archives, which was all the cameras used in years gone by. The guides told us that there wasn’t a camera in there from post 1960’s.

To finish with we got the opportunity to see an original Lotte Reiniger piece of art with the silhouettes that made her famous. I couldn't believe how so much of this was in storage and not on show. We were so lucky to get the opportunity to go and see these but it seems a shame that it is all there behind lock and key. There are some priceless pieces of art there that should be really appreciated rather than hidden. We were convinced that some of the stuff we saw should have been in the museum instead of some of the things we saw but this just show how opinion driven our field is. Someone's love for a piece could be outweighed by someone's hate of it. I just hope this isn't the last seen of these pieces and more people get to be as lucky as we were.