DOCUMENTARY FILMING AS AN ADVENTURE

How did the notion of your film arise?

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: We had long been considering how music may be presented and made a vital experience in films. How can a work like 'Le Sacre du Printemps' for instance be combined with a story, be it fact or fiction, in such a way that the story is made more thrilling and emotional and viewers have a greater access to the music? In the early summer of 2002 we had the specific notion of making a film about the new era of the 'Berliner Philharmoniker' under its new chief conductor, Sir Simon Rattle. On doing the research, we soon realised that the orchestra's educational project revealed much more than did changes in the concert hall about the direction in which this eminent orchestra was moving under new guidance. It revealed that this cultural institution was keen to take over social responsibility actively. The choice of the Sacre-project was then easy. With 250 participants it was the biggest and, thanks to the coming together of the dancers with the 'Berliner Philharmoniker' in the actual performance, the most thrilling and visual project of the first season.

THOMAS GRUBE: What captured our imagination was the contrast. On the one hand there was the work of Royston Maldoom, who for the last 30 years has been travelling in a red post-office van round the world and undertaking dance-projects, mostly with street urchins, and on the other hand there was the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, this lighthouse of high culture - and all this was happening between the Berlin boroughs of Weissensee and Märkisches Viertel. We wished to see what would happen when Stravinsky's violently vigorous rite worked on street urchins ignorant of both the 'Berliner Philharmoniker' and classical music. We wished to experience for ourselves what this process, which was also a physical rapprochement, would lead to. We wished to see onto what soil the seeds of this orchestra's educational project would fall and what would spring up. The Sacre-project was the first of its kind in Berlin, so the outcome was uncertain. This was the basis of our film-notion.

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: We knew before filming that we wished to follow the preparations of the youngsters on the one hand and the preparations of the Philharmonic Orchestra on the other. Among the young participants we wished to portray several in more detail, to show what music can change. We also knew that we wished to show the stages of Sir Simon's life, to show which personal experiences can convince someone so fully of the use of musical education and communication. Then four weeks before the start of the workshops we got to know Royston Maldoom. It soon became clear that with his fascinating life and personality he would play a similar role in the film to Sir Simon.

THOMAS GRUBE: There was an agreement that all participants would work under the same conditions. The 250 youngsters, the choreographer and the 'Berliner Philharmoniker' would first get to know one another in the course of rehearsals. This agreement applied to us too, which meant that we could interview no essential protagonists in advance. The script itself had to be developed as part of the process. The filming, especially during the workshops, was thrilling and involved all members of the team in a three-month marathon. In a room with 50 youngsters during a dance-rehearsal, something is always bound to happen. Owing to the disparate demands of the situations, we did the filming with two different formats, which had hardly ever been combined up to that time. The portraits of the youngsters and the takes of the orchestral rehearsals were recorded on HD (High Definition) 25p, which is presently the clearest and most vivid digital format, whereas during the workshops we used DVcam, which allows more takes to be made and can be moved around more easily and discretely in the midst of dancers and choreographers. At the end we had 200 hours of raw materials, which we then viewed, transcribed and sieved for three months. Only after we had familiarised ourselves with all the material did we start cutting, which then took us another half a year.

How did you choose your protagonists from among the youngsters?

THOMAS GRUBE: From the start we had attended all workshops. We belonged to the team and were viewed as such by the youngsters, though it took some time to be fully trusted. Before we portrayed the particular protagonists, we visited them and, if they wished, chatted with their parents. After each day of filming, the whole film-team sat together and discussed our experiences with the youngsters. Gradually the narrative threads took form through this continual exchange.

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: It varied. Martin, for instance, captured our attention during the first rehearsal, and from then on we continually paid attention to him. In the case of younger dancers, it was seldom as easy. On viewing takes at the end of filming, we realised that many youngsters to whom dropped out, which had happened especially often during the first two weeks.

How did you get on with the professional projec partners - Sir Simon Rattle, members of the 'Berliner Philharmoniker', and Royston Maldoom and his team?

THOMAS GRUBE: The project could work only with trust on all sides. There had to be faith in a project without a shooting script, in a process with an open end. The orchestra had to have faith in Royston Maldoom, who was supposed to present to 3000 spectators an artistically memorable production. All members of the production - the orchestra, the youngsters, Sir Simon Rattle and Royston Maldoom - had to have faith in us as filmmakers, as indeed we had to have faith in ourselves. We had got to know the Philharmonic Orchestra already during a Falstaff production with Claudio Abbado, and we had heard a lot about Royston. We met each other properly for the first time only four weeks before the project's start.

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: At any rate the members of the 'Berliner Philharmoniker' had first to be convinced that we should be allowed to use cameras during all orchestral rehearsals, so as to record the process in full. This had never been done before in the history of the orchestra. A crucial factor was the ample faith shown in us by Sir Simon Rattle.

Again and again you leave the rehearsal and workshop rooms to wander through the city. What role does Berlin play in your film?

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: We deliberately showed the city from its raw, rough, unsociable side. Our protagonists have not grown up in the postcard city but in sobering surroundings. It is here that they go to school or spend their spare time. But the film shows beauty even here, like the blossoming of the Sacre-performance in the Arena, a former bus-depot on industrial riverside land. Surprisingly these images of the city make it in some sense more universal. It might be London, Paris or New York.

You spoke about the relationship between music and film. How does RHYTHM IS IT! try to present music in the film and make it an experience?

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: In the scenes of orchestral rehearsal we were keen to show music-makers in their everyday clothes and with a feeling of the provisional in the work-situation. At the same time we used the possibilities of various perspectives and the quick rhythm of cutting to decipher Stravinsky's music and make it more accessible. Sacre has a great range of scenes and emotions which we tried to use as the film's cornerstones, so the music is in counterpoint to documentary details like key events in Sir Simon's life, Martin's confrontation with the place of his childhood, and Royston Maldoom's first experience of dancing. I think that only music can really express the emotional importance of this moment for the further course of his life.

THOMAS GRUBE: Another important thing is the recording technique. The sound in the workshops was recorded on four soundtracks, and we also had 6.1 surround atmos in all rooms. The takes with the 'Berliner Philharmoniker' and the score had 5.1 surround quality, and the film as a whole was mixed in Dolby Digital. This is a very timeconsuming but effective process, since it makes the music in the cinema sound like it does in the concert hall and takes viewers into the heart of events.

Is there a relationship between the subject of Sacre and that of your film?

THOMAS GRUBE: On first thinking about the use of this music, we were rather worried, since the Sacre is brusque and powerful. While working on the film we came to realise that this music reflects in a certain sense the youngsters' experience of life. Our society sacrifices the education of children to mainly financial ends and thus imperils our future. Our film is meant to be a statement about that.

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: ‘Sacre’ is about education and the transmission of knowledge. It is about helping the young generation to grow up by initiating it into the secrets of communal life and nature, through the practice of rites, of cult dances. There is a clear relationship to the course of the workshops and to the theme of our film. Moreover the harsh environment, to which the youngsters in Stravinsky's ballet are exposed and which is expressed by the music, is related to the harsh environment familiar to many youngsters in the Sacre project.

THOMAS GRUBE: We have tried to find a film language of our own. In doing so we were not afraid to let genres mingle. I was concerned to make the story emotionally appealing and for this sake I often used the devices of feature films. Even a documentary film can be an adventure, a seduction and indeed even subjective. Yet I do like the term 'musical'. Music is much more that what is simply audible. I believe in the future of the musical which not only shows beautiful music but also tells emotional tales - about music and what it can mean to listeners.

In the case of documentaries a critical detachment is expected to what is documented. Is this not incompatible to the intimacy which you developed towards the Sacre project?

ENRIQUE SÁNCHEZ LANSCH: Without being close to the participants we would not have been able to share in this process. The necessary detachment came between the takes and the editing. The process of choice and reflection before the actual cutting took a long time, due mainly to our need to re-establish a critical distance. The process of cutting was then always a return to what we had experienced in the course of events with the various participants.

THOMAS GRUBE: I see my role as being different to that of a critically detached filmmaker. I want to be involved in the situations and the persons. I want to overcome the distance and at times become a friend and participant. Our film does not want to be critical but to observe with open eyes, to make this experience, this many facetted process of preparing Sacre, apparent and appealing to cinema viewers.