How the ‘September 5’ Filmmakers Created an Authentic Experience
In “September 5,” which Paramount plans to release on Nov. 29, the tense hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics unfolds with painstaking detail from the point of view of the ABC Sports team covering the games. To do this, director Tim Fehlbaum and the team went to great lengths to give what cinematographer Markus Förderer describes as a “historic thriller” its authentic look and feel, including finding and using meticulously researched period broadcast equipment and filming techniques.
This included a faithful re-creation of the ABC Sports broadcast facility control room, where much of the story unfolds. The sets were built at Bavaria Studios in Munich, and additional filming took place at the actual locations in the German city.
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“Tim always wanted to have it as realistic as possible, and I wanted to have it designed in a way that fits to the drama and the thriller,” production designer Julian R. Wagner explains, adding that this was a challenge. “We had to create a space that captured the confines of the TV studio and entrap the cast within it, [and it] needed to be visually designed in such a way that it could carry the plot over 90 minutes.” It was decided that they would take some creative license in designing the space itself but be specific in the use of the period production gear.
One major search was finding the period broadcast equipment (some from museums) as well as technology pros who worked on them during the period. “Most of these old machines didn’t work any- more, so we had to bring in all the experts, [who were] working on these machines … constructing and rebuilding, because we wanted the machines to work.”
Actual archival footage was used of the Olympics and crisis that the broadcasters view on the period monitors in their tight confines, as well as new footage lensed to match the archival material with an analog look, including some shot on 16mm film. All of this played on the monitors in the control room, giving the actors something to react to in real time while also serving as a practical light source. The flicker created subtly upped the tension by design.
Further creating the sensation of live coverage from the ’70s, the movie was shot mainly in long takes, handheld, with the intention to compress time in the edit. It was shot with two cameras — one operated by Förderer and the other by camera operator Stefan Sosna. “Our intention was always [that] we shoot this as if we have only one take, and as if we wouldn’t know what’s going to happen, like in a docu- mentary,” Förderer explains. “We didn’t rehearse; Tim would maybe roughly tell actors, ‘Look over here and then just follow the story’ to create this energy.”
The majority of the movie was lensed with the compact Red V-Raptor camera system and old, detuned lenses — included carefully researched period Zoomar and Apollo anamorphic lenses — to create a “film look in camera as much as possible.” To complete the look, a film emulation Look Up Table (a sort of image blueprint) was created.
Of the anamorphic lens choice, Förderer notes that they “have this two-time stretch so that the background — what’s out of focus — is stretched. And I feel, subconsciously, this creates a tension in the image. So even while you’re focusing on the dialogue and looking into the actor’s eyes, 80% of the background is out of focus, and that has this tension in the image. I feel like this is a great visual storytelling tool.”
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