Studio Babelsberg

When we arrived at the worlds oldest large scale studio Babelsberg we were greated by our guide and given a bit of information about the studio itself. It has been producing films and working as studio space since 1912. It has been the set for huge films such as Metropolis, Inglorious Bastards, Valkyrie and The Bourne Ultimatum. It offers services such as a replica Boeing plane with removable walls and cockpit as well as the worlds larges indoor water tank.

After we met our guide she took us to see all the separate areas of the studio. The studio is vast and the size of a town itself. Even the streets were names after famous directors and producers. We started by looking around the prop houses. It when you see all these behind the scenes workings you can truly respect the amount of work that goes into these huge productions. These prop houses were unbelievable, I have never seen anything like it. There was row after row of catalogued objects that could create or recreate any scenario you could think of. I couldn’t believe the work went into making the scenes.

After this we were shown the costume department and the rows upon rows of clothes and costumes such as military outfits all the way to cabaret. After spending our time trying some costumes on and looking through the vast collection we entered a room with the famous costumes in that the celebrities had worn. We saw costumes from Inglorious Basterds and Jude Law’s outfit from Enemy At The Gates. From here we went on to see the carpentry department and the plastering departments that created everything from huge ships to the mask used in V For Vendetta.

The last 2 areas we saw were the most impressive. First we went into the second of the 3 large filming studios where there was the some of the set left from the filming of The 3 Musketeers that had taken place there the week previous. This was by far the best part of the whole trip to Berlin! I cannot go into much detail as to what was inside the studio until the film is released as we said we would not reveal details but the set we got to walk around was unbelievable and the fact they had built it all from scratch. After seeing the rest of the studio I think I could finally understand what effort had gone into building it.

The last section we saw was at the other side of the studio and was a complete street that had been created on the side of huge containers that were stacked over 3 stories high. The street resembled a typical street and could be changed to directors wishes. It had been used in films such as Inglorious Basterds and the Pioanist.

All of this made me think of earlier in the year when I really wanted to get involved with film. Looking around all these separate warehouses showed that there are many areas in which you could get into the film industry. This just shows the amount of opportunities this studio has as well as showing the true scale of the place. I could be quite easy to get lost in the huge teams working together to create these scenarios but that is what this studio is all about. Everyone, every department are working with all the others to create one final outcome.

I am so happy I got the opportunity to see this studio. I made me think a lot of where I wanted to end up as it brought back thoughts of wanting to go into the film industry. The whole studio was fascinating but when I sit back and look I realised thatyet again it would be easy to get lost in the movie business and end up just doing the same thing over and over. I want to work on projects that I can see through until the end as well as working on the ideas rather than just being a production boy. This is the reason why I feel I would be best suited going into the advertising industry.