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Cameraman Gruber in Berlin: “Until the director says ‘thank you,’ there is no excuse for canceling a scene.”

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Private

Starting your working life is exciting, exhausting – and often completely different than planned. In the series “My First Year in the Job,” young professionals talk about how they experienced this time. This time: Alexander Gruber, 31, works as a cameraman and, among other things, films landscapes and corpses for a northern German crime series.

»After a year as a cameraman, I got used to crazy filming. I will never forget a lot of things from those first few months, such as shooting a film scene for the ZDF crime series 'Stralsund'. I stood on a beach with my team and was supposed to film seagulls pecking at a dummy corpse. We tried to attract the birds with canned herrings, chips and milk rolls. We hid for over four hours while the cameras continued filming - but the seagulls only got the food after we had dismantled without taking a picture.

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Cameraman Gruber: “The pressure for young professionals is enormous”

Photo: Private

I received my first camera as a gift from my parents for my twelfth birthday. Even back then, I made a little film series with my little brother for fun, it was called 'Snowball Fight - Parts One to Three'. Later, while studying theater studies, I often sat in the cinema and was amazed by cameramen like Roger Deakins. I wanted to understand how he created the atmosphere in the western film The Assassination of Jesse James. My passion, I felt, was less about acting and more about filming. So I exmatriculated and started studying film and television in Munich.

Like many people, I thought for a long time that a cameraman simply pointed a lens at faces. But the profession is a craft. Feature films are about creating a mood that is transmitted to the audience.

I learned how to do this in seminars on lighting, focal length and color theory. A feeling of intimacy can be created with a long focal length. For example, an actress's face can be seen clearly while the space around her blurs.

After my bachelor's degree in Munich, I completed my master's degree in film at the Hamburg Media School. We made short films in a class with 23 fellow students. Our final project was called “Followers”. The film tells the story of a young police officer who comes across a right-wing extremist chat group in his SEK unit. In 2023 he made it into the top ten at the Student Oscars. This was a success for our year group. The industry immediately became aware of us.

From college to the film set

At the beginning of 2023 I started working as a freelance cameraman. I quickly realized: I can't get a job without networking. So I wrote to cameramen I had met during my studies. An acquaintance got me my first job at ›Stralsund‹ as a second cameraman.

For the eight days of filming and two days of travel per episode, I receive a gross daily rate of 700 euros. That sounds like a lot of money at first, but I always have to plan for months without filming. During the corona pandemic, for example, there were fewer film projects in Germany than usual. In these economically tense times, starting a career as a cameraman was difficult. Some months I earned my living by shooting commercials or music videos.

As the second cameraman on ›Stralsund‹, I now film scenes that have a lot of action and dialogue - for example, cutaway images of the inspector's car ride, a fight or a shootout. I was also behind the camera when a protagonist slumped to the ground on a wall after being shot. As a cameraman you have to follow such movements synchronously, which requires a lot of concentration. A wrong camera movement can cost many thousands of euros. There are no plans for repetitions due to technical errors; every minute on a film set costs a lot of money. The pressure for career starters is enormous, also because we know that if you make mistakes, you won't be booked anymore.

A real film set is much larger than I knew from my studies. At 29 years old, I suddenly had to give instructions to lighting technicians and assistants, some of whom were over 20 years older and had significantly more experience on set. I quickly learned that you have to communicate with the team confidently and in a good mood, otherwise the intensive days of filming become very difficult.

In addition to working on sets, train in the gym twice a week. Because as a cameraman you need a lot of strength to hold the heavy camera for a long time, even in an uncomfortable position. Until the director says 'Thank you', there is no excuse to cancel a scene. If you want to do this job for many years, you have to be fit.

I have never regretted my decision to pursue this career path. I love the people on set and the catering. When I'm filming I feel like I'm in a crazy circus traveling through the country. That makes me go to sleep happy every night.«

Have you just started your career and would like to tell us about it? Then write to us at SPIEGEL-Start@spiegel.de.