Vom Set · Company film · Opinion
Rolls on your plate
The farmer stands in his wheat. Yesterday, he says, a trailer of his wheat went into the mill.
Any day now, you'll have it as rolls on your plate.
He says he can't imagine anything more fulfilling. That's the moment that stays from a documentary I made for Biokaiser, an organic bakery.
Follow the grain, find the people
Biokaiser wanted people to see they're more than an organic bread maker with a café. So the film follows a group of guests through one day, from the bakery to the mill to the field. Just under 18 minutes. And at every stop there are people explaining their work.
In the bakery, the baker says “careful, hot” and opens the oven. He talks about a wheat dough that proofs for over 48 hours and is then shaped by hand. And about two tonnes of sourdough they go through every day from autumn on.
What the people in the film tell you
2 t
of sourdough go into the bakery every day from autumn on
48 h
the wheat dough proofs before it's shaped by hand
400
active mills are left, down from 50,000 in 1950
8 to 10 hours of footage
We shot this film in German. So I went through 8 to 10 hours of footage and transcribed it into English, just to understand the message.
Then you're in the edit. You're looking at the words, watching the takes, pulling pieces and developing your story. What's going to be interesting? What isn't? Why did I take that shot? Where did I wobble?
Walk with them
There are scenes in this documentary where I'm moving with the people, just like the grain moves through the machines. For that I shoot with a heavy rig, and people joke that I got my workout for the day. But the weight stabilises the shot, and on the field monitor I see exactly what I'm getting.
Ask everyone
In the bakery, the bakers kept baking while we walked around. Everybody has to give permission, and some people don't want to be filmed. That's fine. You plan for it from the start.
Who made it
Biokaiser was one of the first big clients of the agency I started with my best friends: nomad.iv. We started with short vertical videos, recipes for example. Then came the bakery.
Fabian Annich and Toan Nguyen directed the documentary, Fabian wrote the scripts and looked after the client, and I shot and edited. Projects like this remind me how much the work and the friendship belonged together.
Why the film held up
This film has held up. Over the years, clients have reached out in all sorts of ways to say how much they love it, and that they want their own story told like this, from behind the scenes.
Start with the people
If you film your company, start with the people, and ask them first.
Planning a company film in Frankfurt or the Rhine-Main area? Tell me who you'd like to show. I'll come back with an idea.