I was born in Cologne in 1966.
After graduating from school and working as a lumberjack
in Cologne for about seven years, I thought it was now time for an occupational
change at 22. With young enthusiasm I opted for a professional retraining at
ARRI-Contrast (Berlin) to become a film
and video operator. Thereby I got closer to my - in addition to the woods
second - passion "movies" and had a reason to move to Berlin. No more
than being there for one month the wall fell down, exciting times back then.
It was a fortunate cirumstance for my present occupation
that the class at vocational school in
Berlin, that I attended for two years, actually was intended for training
photographers. Because of the small number of operator trainees and the mutual
technical basics we were two operators being trained in that class. That way I obtained
profound knowledge of motion picture technology as well as sharpened the expert
eye of a photographer.
After graduating successfully I realized very soon that I
could not stay in the narrowing bustle of such a "movie factory": I
had to get nearer to the set. An American production was about to shoot a TV-show in Berlin
an still looking for drivers. That was a welcome option, because I like being on
the road and was able to get close to the shooting. Varying contact to most
different people, talking English and good payment for 18 months - I was
contended. For more than 10 years I worked as a production driver subsequently,
got to know Berlin and the surrounding regions from every angle, toured foreign
countries and was occupied with constructing and lighting stage sets of a
Berlin independent theatre, rest of the time i was photographing with super8, analog cams, zeiss and leica lenses on different systems,
Eventually a unit manager and friend of mine asked me if I
could sub and scout for a movie, everyone else was not available and I would
take pictures anyway and know the region well. That was 2001 and for me the
start-up as a location scout. By being reliable and providing solid and
successful work I got better known amongst Berlin advertising productions
expeditiously and was able to focus on solely scouting locations very soon.
Nowadays both TV-productions and international movie productions belong to my activities.