Liebe Freunde der AIB und des Films,

die Akademie für Internationale Bildung (AIB) lädt Sie im Rahmen des
4. BONNER KURZFILMFESTS herzlich zur Abschlussveranstaltung ihrer Semesterprogramme

• Loyola Marymount University New Europe
• Loyola Marymount University Engineering
• Loyola Marymount University Film&TV
• Penn State University Landscape Architecture

ein. Wir verabschieden unsere StudentInnen und DozentInnen und beginnen den Abend mit der Premiere der Dokumentarfilme der amerikanischen Filmstudierenden aus Los Angeles.
Die Filmpremiere findet statt am:
Freitag, 13. Dezember 2013
um 19:30 Uhr
im Rheinischen Landesmuseum Bonn (Colmantstraße 14-16, 53115 Bonn)
Die von einer internationalen Fachjury ausgewählten Filme sind von jungen Talenten der School of Film & Television der Loyola Marymount University während ihres Auslandssemesters und Studiums an der AIB in Bonn produziert worden.
Jeder der Regisseure hat sich mit einem unterschiedlichen Themengebiet beschäftigt und es auf kunstfertige, individuelle Art und Weise verwirklicht. So wird es sportlich spannend in Dänemark, wo eine Gruppe von Kindern durch das Einüben von Fußballtricks zu Freunden wird oder auch in Irland, wo ein junges Segelteam bei der Titelverteidigung begleitet wird.
Weitere Dokumentationen beleuchten das seltsame Leben und Werken eines französischen Tätowierungskünstlers, den faszinierenden Entstehungsprozess von selbst-gemachten Pop-Up Papierobjekten oder gehen der spannenden Frage nach, worin noch heute der Reiz von Grimm's Märchen besteht.
Während einige Dokumentationen lokal im Raum Köln/Bonn gedreht wurden, führte die Arbeit an den Filmen einzelne Regisseure auch in andere europäische Länder wie etwa Dänemark, Belgien, Irland oder Italien.
Lernen Sie mit uns Deutschland und Europa aus der Perspektive unserer amerikanischen FilmstudentInnen kennen!
Programm:
19:30 Uhr
Begrüßung der Teilnehmer der Programme Film&TV, Engineering, New Europe und Landscape Architecture durch den Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Bonn, Jürgen Nimptsch
19:45 Uhr
Vorführung von sechs dokumentarischen Kurzfilmen (á 10 Minuten)
anschließend
After-Show-Empfang mit Verabschiedung der Semesterprogramme und Verleihung des Publikumspreises in der Akademie für Internationale Bildung (Wilhelmstr. 27, 53111 Bonn)
Anmeldung:
Wir würden uns sehr freuen, Sie am 13. Dezember 2013 zur Filmpremiere im LVR Rheinischen Landesmuseum begrüßen zu dürfen. Bitte wenden Sie sich zur Anmeldung unter Angabe der Anzahl zu reservierender Tickets bis zum 11. Dezember 2013 sowie bei Rückfragen per E-mail an: tickets@aib-studyabroad.org. Sie erreichen uns außerdem telefonisch unter 0228 / 33 88 39 20. Gerne dürfen Sie diese Einladung an Freunde und Bekannte weiterleiten.
Wir hoffen auf Ihr zahlreiches Erscheinen und auf einen gelungenen Abend!
Mit herzlichen Grüßen,
Olivia Schäfer & Olaf Brodersen, Programmkoordinatoren Film

Rhine Cruise

On Friday, September 13th, the AIB took us to a small village about an hour and a half away from Bonn where we boarded a ship on the Rhine River. We all rushed to the front of the line in order to secure the prime spots on the top level of the ship, only to get up there and see there's a built in slide and playground for us to enjoy!!! So, being the mature college students that we are, we instantly lined up to slide down over and over. The cruise took us about 2 hours up river and we were able to see all the beautiful landscapes that Germany has to offer. We passed by a famous rock, Lorelei, which is about 120 meters above water. Folklore states that a beautiful mermaid once sat upon that rock and sailors would get distracted by her beauty and crash their ships into the rock, when in reality it was simply the strong currents in that area that took the ships by surprise right into the rock. Once we left the ship, we walked through a small village full of beautiful medieval looking houses and buildings, and ate lunch at a delicious restaurant.

After lunch, we hiked up about 20 minutes to a castle named Marksburg. We were given a tour of the castle, which was extremely interesting. This particular castle was structured very similarly to other medieval castles, but was unique in that it lines the Rhine River and therefore had access to many more opportunities to attack intruders who were coming in ships. They would shoot huge cannon balls from the top level of the castle into the river which became a huge advantage for them. We ended the tour in the torture chamber where we were given some of the torture devices to try on for size…. it was unpleasant but awesome at the same time. After the tour we were brought to a winery where we were given a tour of the wine cellars and told the basics of how the wine is made. We learned that the wooden barrels that people believe that wine is left in to age have become outdated because they cannot hold enough wine to keep up with demand. Wine is now aged in huge stainless steel containers, which is not as romantic looking but equally tasty. The winery then gave us a traditional dinner of bread, cheese and meats to eat along with five different grape juices to taste. They taught us how to properly taste the grape juice to get the most out of the flavors. We then got back on the bus to Bonn where we performed a classic "Bohemian Rhapsody" karaoke sing along which I'm positive the bus driver enjoyed more than anyone else… Overall, it was an amazing day filled with beautiful German sites and delicious German food!
Written by Ryan Alkire

Narrative Shoot

Every filmmaker knows how much work it takes to turn a script into a film, at least to turn it into a good film. The process of creating our narrative films began over the summer. Every one of us had to write a 3-5 minute script that had the potential of being turned into a short film; those scripts were due upon arrival in Bonn. In Eifel, our first weekend, we each read the other 15 scripts, we voted for our favorites and we narrowed it down to 8. The 8 screenplays chosen then had a corresponding pitch by the writer, and after those pitches, we narrowed them down to 4, the final 4. One about a breakup, one to ask the question of where we go when we die, one to show that a love story can be told with a live action Pixar short and the last to show that friends can fight but always come back in the end. We got our crews together, four people for each film, and we started going into pre-production.

We rewrote our scripts, got props together, wrote up shot lists and storyboards, casted our actors, sent a ton of emails and had a lot of late nights, especially the days right before the shoot. Every director was freaking out the day before and the morning of the shoot, we were running around the classroom, calling our actors, getting equipment together and we finally left to start our shoots. My film was one being made and I was really nervous to see how our actors were going to do, and how the shots were going to end up looking, but in the end every crew came out with amazing shots, great acting, and every person I talked to had a lot of fun. We’re in post-production now, each of us editing another group’s film, and I’m excited to see how all of them turn out!
Written by Destiny Peńida

IBC AMsterdam

So last weekend my fellow film students and I went to Amsterdam to take part in the IBC (International Broadcasting Conference), which is a big film convention A.K.A. film heaven. It felt like I was a kid in the candy store and we got to check out all these film equipment that I didn’t quite know the names of or what it exactly did but it was super cool. There were different booths sets up that allowed anyone passing by to actually try out the equipment. As soon as we walked in the first thing we saw was a broadcast van. It had switch board, TV screens and everything you could possibly imagine to be inside of a broadcasting van. Meredith, who is interested in being a anchor one day went inside of the van and we all pretended that she was delivering a breaking news story. She performed nothing less than a pro but I’m sure the authentic setting had a lot to do with it.
We then got to play around with the different professional cameras and talk to experts of the brands being represented on the cool features. One thing that stands out in my mind was the ARRI Digital Camera presentation. Big named cinematographers and gaffers came to share their experience in using ARRI. We even got to see the behind the scenes and a sneak peak of films that are not even out yet. It was truly a “game changer”, which was the word used about a hundred times by the film professionals that used ARRI equipment.

We also had the opportunity to put our names in a drawing to win a brand new Go Pro. Unfortunately, even though we went back a second time to put our names in we had no luck. However, this was a priceless experience and it got all of us excited about our future film careers. I would love to attend this amazing event again next year and hopefully next time I can win a little something.
Written by Melissa Effa

Berlin

Our excursion to Berlin has been my favorite experience in Germany thus far. It is an amazing feeling to be immersed within a city filled with so much culture and history. The first night we hit the ground running with a tour of the city.
We visited several historical sights including the television tower, constructed by East Berlin as a monument to the DDR. We walked through the famous Brandenburg Gate, which used to be a symbolism of division between East and West Berlin. We have all grown up learning about the division between the East and West, but to stand before the Brandenburg Gate and the remains of the Berlin wall was a surreal experience. Our city tour ended upon the rooftop of the Reichstag. The Reichstag is the home of the Bundestag, Germany’s Federal Parliament. From the rooftop, we were able to see a 360ş view of the Berlin skyline.
On day two of our excursion, we split up into four groups to discover the city on our own. Each of us with a mission to explore a defining aspect of Berlin (street art, architecture, the World Wars, and the Cold War). My group chose to explore the plethora of street art within Berlin. It seems as though every inch of Berlin is covered with street art ranging from graffiti tagging to building-side murals. A monument for professional street art is the the East Side Gallery, a 1.3 kilometer wall constructed with the slabs from the original Berlin Wall.

Day three brought us to the Babelsberg Studio. The Babelsberg Studio is the site where features such as Flightplan, Inglorious Basterds, and Hansel & Gretel were filmed. It was fantastic to experience how different the German studio system is from studios in Los Angeles. Through the tour, we were able to see the Babelsberg sound stage, wood workshop, prop house, and backlot.
After lunch we visited the beautiful Sanssouci Palace. The Sanssouci Palace is the burial place of Friedrich Willhelm, the King of Prussia responsible for cultivating the potato in Germany. After experiencing the exquisite living of the 18th century, we strolled through the terraced vineyard and extensive gardens.
During our final morning in Berlin, we visited the holocaust memorial of Sachsenhausen. Sachsenhausen was one of the first work/concentration camps to be built in Germany in 1936. Reading a text book can never compare to walking on the same ground where the atrocities of the holocaust occurred. It seems impossible to imagine what life was like within those walls for the victims of the war. We were rendered speechless.
Written by Paul Giacomazzi

Attention! The perks of studying abroad in Bonn

Going to film school has it’s perks, the longer we attend, the more these perks reveal themselves. The last perk our class here in Bonn got to experience, was on our excursion to the great and troubled city of Berlin. Using their vast network of contacts, the AIB was able to organize a private, behind the scenes tour of the Studio Babelsberg, the site on which films from Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ all the way to Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’ have been filmed. The tour was an amazing experience for all of us filmmaking hopefuls, the studio is one of the last remaining lots that has the ability to cover the entire filmmaking process. We stepped into the construction house, where we saw men hard at work, creating and designing the set pieces for the numerous films in production and set to shoot in the near future. We walked through a very new and modern room, containing a state of the art, ‘hot wire’ foam sculptor for set pieces and decoration. We adventured through two large warehouses full of timeless set dressing and props, wondering through hallways of lamps, newspapers, typewriters, and weaponry, as well as stepping into a perfect replica of an eastern German home. For some of us it was awe-inspiring to step into the same sound stage that such incredible movies had been filmed and soak in the sheer vastness of the film making world.
The highlight for me, and I won’t speak for everyone, was our tour of the outdoor permanent set in the back lot of the studio. The designers were hard at work preparing for a night shoot for a new film with Vince Vaughn called ‘The Business Trip.‘ This would have been interesting in itself, but this particular shoot made the experience that much more memorable, for it wasn’t a regular scene on a Berlin street. The posters strung from building to building bore strange pictures of men’s crotches in tight leather, this was the first tip that this was no normal setting. We then walked past the windows, covered with large posters of strangely sexual scenes, bars with large amounts of beer, and finally the kicker, a small shopping stand selling whips and chokers. This was not to be a normal Berlin night on this street, in fact Vince Vaughn and his co-star were about to accidentally wander into a gay S&M street festival. We all joked that we wanted to be extras in the scene, that was supposed to shoot that night, but in reality we all secretly wished we could. To say the least, when the release of this new movie comes around, I think a group reunion will have to take place and we will all go see the midnight premiere.
The rest of our experience at the studio, I spent imagining what it might be like to come back one day to shoot my own film, as I am sure many of us did. Standing at the sight where such amazing films had been shot, was almost too much to handle as I became caught up in dreams and suffered the consequences of returning to reality. With the tax incentives, the experience of the Studio Babelsberg, and the wonderful atmosphere and energy of Berlin and Germany as a whole, I doubt any of us would deny the chance to work there in Potsdam, it may even be a new goal.
Written by Maxx Grummer

PSU Landscape Architecture: Phase I Analysis & Design

On October 4, the 23 Penn State Landscape architecture students presented their site designs concluding phase one of their studio work at the AIB.
Eight groups of two to three students analyzed and designed different signature sites located along/around Bonner Straße in Cologne under the pretense of a big event, along the lines of the famous Cologne Karneval, taking place there: „What if it was Karneval?“
Check out the student presentations and their many creative and innivative ideas!
01-499B-Fall2013-KhajehNoeTarullo-presentation.pdf
02-499B-Fall2013-Hackett_Harold_Lauro-Light of the World.pdf
03-Larch499B_Fall2013_Bonnell+Hewitt+Parisi_EventPresentation.pdf
04-Larch499B_Fall2013_Gray_Marchinski_Sell_SystemPres.pdf
05-499B_Fall2013Waidmarkt.pdf
06-Kelly_Kyd_Swantz_Programing_Presentation.pdf

Casting

Actors are what make films interesting, inspiring and time worthy. If I found myself in a museum of the finest art and looked over to see a man or woman weeping in front a particular painting I would find it quite unsettling. If I found myself in a run down, crumbling Movie Theater watching a particularly touching performance, my own teary eyes would find no discomfort in looking across the row and seeing another viewer barely holding himself together. Without acting, films are just a bunch of pretty pictures; acting is what makes the artwork real. This means that casting the correct actor for a part is enormously important! With that said though, casting does not always have to be intense or stressful and when it came to our five minute narrative projects, casting was an enjoyable and easygoing gathering of like minded creatives from two very, but in many ways not so different cultures. Over two long nights, our groups split up into rooms and met the numerous actors that had come down from Cologne to try their hand at acting for one of our films. Though we could only cast a select few from the large group, it was a great learning experience for all of us, in front and behind the camera. From how to make the actors comfortable before they open up in front of strangers, to giving productive feedback and direction in order to discover the actors range and ability to adapt, we had a lot to wrap our heads around. As I was only part of one group, I can only describe one case of development through the two night mad house. Our first night, we were rushing, we spoke fast, rolled through direction without much discussion with the actors, and became a bit disorganized and flustered. By the end of the first night we had calmed down a bit and found a few pieces of direction that we really thought helpful. On the second day however, we really found our groove and started to see a lot more out of the actors because of it. Our direction became less about the end feeling and more about the process of getting to that feeling, and our opening night nerves were done away with.

What really wrapped the experience up as an inspiring and helpful one, were our last pair readings with those who would become the actors we casted in the film. We had played with opposing motivations a couple times before, but this time we left the girls in the room to decide why the girl in the script had to leave the house at all costs, and us boys went out into the hall to decide why the guy had to stay in the house. We walked in and the energy was already at an excellent level for the scene. What made it even more exciting was that the actors were speaking in German, so our entire understanding of what was going on was based on vocal tonality, expression, action and of course our German translator Maren's reactions. The scene took on levels that we were not prepared for and show cased a level of improvisational skill that almost convinced us all to forget about the script and let the actors take care of everything. The actors guided us from excited battling with regret, to honesty battling with forgiveness seamlessly and emotionally, ending with the two holding one another with their eyes centimeters apart. What were the motivations? The man had just lost his job and in a drunken sorrow slept with his girlfriends sister, and the girl had arranged an elaborate performance with all of her friends to propose to her boyfriend. Through the two nights, we discovered what worked and what didn't. I heard from a couple of the other groups about their approach and it seemed we all learned the same things but in different ways, from asking them to play the scene as if they were a cartoon character to telling them to act the scene as if a swarm of bees was surrounding them. What matters most is that our narrative shorts went off without a scene and we all found the correct actors for the parts we called for. Many of the actors and crew members were quick to become friends on Facebook and it has been mentioned numerous times that we will all soon meet up in Cologne to get the local student tour. We casted actors but in turn we ended up casting friends, maybe life long friends and perhaps one day in the future, collaborators. The shorts will be in post-production soon and I know I am not alone in saying that I am excited to see how they all turn out!
Written by Maxx Grummer

Cologne Day Trip

One Friday we took a field trip to Köln, which is about a 30 minute train ride away from Bonn. It is known for its rich history, beautiful buildings and architecture, and amazing gelato! From our first steps out of the train station, we were welcomed with the magnificent beauty of the Cologne Cathedral – the “Kölner Dom”. It was so tall that not even a camera could capture the entire building in one shot. First, we took a historic tour of the city where we discovered that the first cologne (perfume) ever invented was actually in Köln: Eau de Cologne! We learned that the Romans used to live there and, thus, it was a royal city. So much history — middle school history classes don’t teach you anything compared to this! We passed by the Love Locks Bridge (there’s one in every European City) where couples go to lock their love to the bridge -- and to each other for the rest of their lives (and the key goes into the Rhine)! It was precious to see all the names and dates on the locks — some from 60 years ago! Some locks were even welded there — there’s no turning back from that! There were even a couple bike locks— classy.

Finally, the day was coming to a close and we had the most exciting adventure — going to the top of the Cathedral of Köln! It was a terrifying, shaky escalator ride up to the top (about 50 floors high), but it was so amazing to see the inside of the cathedral and how it was built. From there, we walked through the narrow behind-the-scenes steps to make our way safely to the bottom. It was a great experience and a very exhausting but definitely worth spending day. LMU film students conquered Köln!
Written by Natalie Perez

First Weeks in Bonn/Class

The first weeks in Bonn, Germany have been an exhilarating yet a transformative experience thus far. One statement that my fellow students and I have said is that “ it feels like we have learned more in three weeks than we have in our entire lives”. We are still trying to take it all in that we are learning about film in Bonn, Germany. We are seeing a side of film that we have never seen before and discovering new things every day. Our professors are all passionate and inspirational. For one of our first assignments, we were paired up to create a series of pictures that explain a story while demonstrating elliptical time (time passing). Some stories were abstract and some were straight forward. Nevertheless, we learned how to create feeling in a new way.
The city of Bonn feels like a home away from home, it’s a quaint town full of richness of people, culture and history. The AIB (Academy for International Education), where we attend school is right in the center of town and right in the midst of everything in Bonn. One thing we think we can never get used to is how easy the public transportation is. In a sporadic moment, we can meet up at our local HARIBO shop to indulge in flavorful gummy bears or for a movie night at one of our host families’ houses. Even in going away for a weekend on personal excursions, we all at some point feel home sickness and can’t wait to get back to Bonn. It’s safe to say that we all love it here and we can’t wait to see what else is in store for us in this wonderful place.
Written by Melissa Effa