Blog: Lights, Camera, Achtung! The Berlin Talent Campus 2010
BERLIN: Talent Campus 2010Eamonn O'Neill is a director and animator based in Dublin who got a chance to take part in the Berlin Talent Campus during the Berlin International Film Festival. This is his blog of his experience of the Campus and the festival.
Thursday 18th and Friday19th of Feburary
Thursday was the last day of the Talent Campus and there was several talks held in relation to life and work after the campus. Many things were discussed such as initiatives available to the alumni (that's what they're calling us!) and other services related to the talent campus.
One of the last talks I attended was "Say it With a Score". This was a presentation of the work of three finalists of the Talent Campus Score Competition. Each finalist took on the challenge to re-score a 4 minute excerpt of David O'Reilly's animated short "Please Say Something", the winner of last years Golden Bear at the Berlinale festival. Each composer's score was recorded with the Berlin orchestra and the results sparked quite an interesting debate about music in film.
The later that evening I attended the closing ceremony of the Talent Campus which was followed a long night of partying!
The next morning there was a sadness about the hostel as people began to part ways. I arrived back in Ireland Friday evening and am now catching up with all the contacts I made online. I really recommend the Talent Campus to anyone interested in and excited about filmmaking. I'm feeling refreshed and excited to get working on projects and I'm already looking forward to the next trip to Berlin!
Thanks to everyone involved for making it such a great week.
Over and out!
Eamonn
Monday 15th, Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th February
On Monday I had the very special opportunity to chat to Mr. Merlin Crossingham (Creative Director of Wallace & Gromit) from Aardman Animation and attend an informative panel discussion on animation in which he took part.
Later that evening I attended a very entertaining screening of the Banksy documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop" and I recommend checking it out!
Tuesday's most interesting talk was a Masterclass with cinematographer Christian Berger who has worked very closely with Michael Haneke. He discussed the emotional content of Haneke's work and also discussed in depth his working process. Later that night I attended the world premiere of French animation director Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist. The film is beautifully crafted and everyone involved should be very proud.
Wednesday consisted of exploring some more of West Berlin's neighbourhoods and was quite shocked that night to bump into Werner Herzog at the screening of his very first feature film, Signs of Life. I'm still meeting new people everyday and the stack of business cards is progressively getting smaller.
I don't think I'll be able to fully comprehend the importance of this week until I'm back home!
Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th February
Guten Tag!
So the Berlinale Talent Campus really kicked off its week of events on Saturday morning with an introductory talk which consisted of meeting the organizers of the event which was followed by an interesting hour long "Global Speed Matching" event.
Basically a take on speed dating, the event consisted of all 350 talents chatting for 3 minutes and then quickly moving one space to their right and meeting the next person. It was a great ice breaker and many business cards and web addresses were swapped. It was a strange and interesting experience!
This was later followed by the opening ceremony of the Campus and the screening of the 5 Berlin Today Award Film Finalists. There's loads of information about the award here: http://www.berlinale-talentcampus.de/story/29/2529.html
Later there was party for the whole Talent Campus at the Hostel and then eventually got to bed in the wee hours!
Things kicked off early on Sunday morning with queuing for tickets followed byan informative panel discussion entitled "Cinema Needs Talent - Looking for the Right People". The panel consisted of director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, The Hours, Billy Elliott); producer Mike Medavoy (Shutter Island, The Thin Red Line, Zodiac and many more!) and director Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me, The Secret Life of Words).
The talk covered how each panelist finds the right people to work with the their working relationships which is the focus of this years campus.
Later in the day I attended a ‘Meet the Expert' session with German production designer Christian Goldbeck (The Edukators, The Reader). This was a much more intimate round table discussion in which Christian discussed his working processes and his thoughts on art direction and production design. I found this really informative from an animation point of view.
I had a free schedule for the rest of the day so I explored West Berlin and wandered around the impressive European Film Market and Berlinale Festival Center and was really blown away by the scale of the whole festival.
The evening ended with the Dine and Shine Dinner event which provided top notch food and again a chance to meet professionals attending the Berlinale!
So far there's been great food, late nights and early mornings.
And still loads more to come!
Guten Tag!
So the Berlinale Talent Campus really kicked off its week of events on Saturday morning with an introductory talk which consisted of meeting the organizers of the event which was followed by an interesting hour long "Global Speed Matching" event.
Basically a take on speed dating, the event consisted of all 350 talents chatting for 3 minutes and then quickly moving one space to their right and meeting the next person. It was a great ice breaker and many business cards and web addresses were swapped. It was a strange and interesting experience!
This was later followed by the opening ceremony of the Campus and the screening of the 5 Berlin Today Award Film Finalists. There's loads of information about the award here: http://www.berlinale-talentcampus.de/story/29/2529.html
Later there was party for the whole Talent Campus at the Hostel and then eventually got to bed in the wee hours!
Things kicked off early on Sunday morning with queuing for tickets followed byan informative panel discussion entitled "Cinema Needs Talent - Looking for the Right People". The panel consisted of director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, The Hours, Billy Elliott); producer Mike Medavoy (Shutter Island, The Thin Red Line, Zodiac and many more!) and director Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me, The Secret Life of Words).
The talk covered how each panelist finds the right people to work with the their working relationships which is the focus of this years campus.
Later in the day I attended a ‘Meet the Expert' session with German production designer Christian Goldbeck (The Edukators, The Reader). This was a much more intimate round table discussion in which Christian discussed his working processes and his thoughts on art direction and production design. I found this really informative from an animation point of view.
I had a free schedule for the rest of the day so I explored West Berlin and wandered around the impressive European Film Market and Berlinale Festival Center and was really blown away by the scale of the whole festival.
The evening ended with the Dine and Shine Dinner event which provided top notch food and again a chance to meet professionals attending the Berlinale!
So far there's been great food, late nights and early mornings.
And still loads more to come!
Friday 12th February
My name is Eamonn O'Neill and I'm a director and animator based in Dublin. Back in September 2009 I came across an article promoting the Berlinale Talent Campus. It seemed like an interesting event so I did some further research into it an applied to the campus. Low and behold I got in!
So, fast forward six months and here I am blogging about my experience at the campus for the Irish Film Board and over looking the snow covered river Spree.
So what exactly is the Berlinale Talent Campus??
It's a week-long event, which runs as part of the Berlinale Film Festival for professionals working in all areas of film: directors, writers, producers, composers, editors, cinematographers etc!
The week will include talks, workshops, masterclasses and screenings with various people from the filmmaking industry the world over. This year there are 350 people taking part from over 100 different countries.
So I arrived in Berlin Friday evening and have never seen so much snow! I checked in at the campus accommodation, the great Wombats City Hostel. Everyone attending the campus is staying at Wombats so the first night was a great chance to start meeting other people attending the campus.
After picking up my accreditation, various badges and other Berlinale swag I'm now planning out the events I want to go along to.. There's definitely some very exciting and interesting talks and screenings so it looks like it's going to be a very busy week indeed!
Nevertheless I will attempt to update the blog day by day. So wish me luck!
Till next time,
Eamonn