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BLACK
SHEEP (first working
title was "Goodbye Reagan") is an anarchist German comedy, sharp
and ironic, but full of love for its characters. It is about Berlin people
without money, five groups of people searching for all kind of cheap
tricks and mad ideas to find money, become rich and famous or get laid.
They all fail tragically in a funny way, but win in another way. The
producers of BLACK SHEEP are breaking taboos in many ways, but have
nevertheless high ambitions: Oliver Rihs and Olivier Kolb want to
entertain in style, the same way they would like to be entertained
themselves.
OLIVER
RIHS
Courage?
It was mainly fun that lead us to this project. The fun to really work
without film subsidies or any other industry support and to be free to do
what you like, fully on your own. To do a film again like in the times
when we started, when we did our first movies – with chutzpe, sometimes
naïve, playful or bold. The courage part was to invest all our savings
for the joy of making it.
OLIVIER
KOLB
Well,
that was one reason to risk a completely independent project. From the
idea, the look, the approach of the heads of each production department,
the efficient, closely connected crew to the story, the actors. I believe
that you need a clear vision that leaves the rest open, if you want to
inspire people’s enthusiasm. The most exciting for people is the promise
to be able to do something that you always wanted to do - and to do it in
your own way. And that is the center of our project. The collective joy of
making something in an unrestricted way.
OLIVER
RIHS
We
all know that – from the first line there is always the question: will
the producer, the commissioning editor, the subsidy commission or whoever
decides about money, like it? I call it the inner censorship from the
start. I just wanted to do for a change something that I would love to see
-with the firm belief that one can find in this way an enthusiastic
audience more directly and honestly.
OLIVIER
KOLB
Absolutely.
But this would mean that we would need to re-create a similar situation
and stories that give a lot room for characters, grotesque and play with
style…
OLIVER
RIHS
I
want to continue experimenting. There are so many alternatives to shooting
a film with a big, fat crew from a storyboard in an industrial way in 5 or
6 weeks. To trigger a creative process off, in the moment when you are at
the location, and let it grow from there, is so much closer to real life.
Another benefit of independent production was that we could stop and start
whenever we wanted. The intermissions were not dictated by the production
process, but by the creative flow. |
OLIVER
RIHS
I
wanted to have some of the actors in our movie, before the actual script
was written. All of them loved the characters from the first beginning
-especially Robert Stadlober, Tom Schilling, Marc Hosemann, Jule Böwe,
Bruno Cathomas, Frank Giering, Milan Peschel. Their cool acting style
carries the whole project along and is an integral part of the movie. It
would have been much more difficult to get them through the conventional
channels. But we just came along and said "Hey, we think you’re
cool , what do you think about your project, because we can’t pay you.
Would you still like to be part?" and they liked that. The promise
was that I wouldn’t try to keep total control, but instead let them put
something of themselves or their favourite characters into the film. The
set design was, for example, different to my idea, but I thought, "I
want to utilise that". If they all love the spirit of what we do, I
want to go with the creative flow, not keep everything under my thumb. The
potential of all people working on a film can enrich the project
enormously, I wanted to use that.
OLIVIER
KOLB
As
a photographer I started with b/w. In black&white you can
"read" the characters better, the set disappears to a background
– and you can use any light source, no matter what colour the light has.
We sometimes used neon or builder’s lamps for certain scenes. I gave
most of my light budget to the set design department. Instead I tried
classical b/w (plus some colour effects) with all sort of light sources. I
like to light up the whole set so that I can shoot without set changes
into any direction. That leaves the actors a much bigger variety of
spontaneous acting options.
OLIVIER
KOLB
These
are all little stories that you can experience live, every day in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
We just developed the absurd, grotesque elements in our neighbourhood a
bit more.
OLIVER
RIHS
I
liked the subversive element in it. This is an area that has been
neglected for too long and seems to be hardly existing anymore, especially
in the German cinema. But not subversion just for its own sake, rather as
a way to change perception a bit, showing visuals that you don’t see
everyday in the cinema or on TV. Challenging people’s perception…
OLIVIER
KOLB
Our
first aim and largest audience potential is still the cinema. The film is
highly entertaining. But there is interest of TV and video, too. We will
see. We just feel that we somehow owe this picture to the theatrical
audience. So we will try to get it there in the best possible way.
HOW
BLACK
SHEEP WAS MADE
THE
IDEA |
