Photography and film workshop with Robin Jähne

Take One! Action! Over the course of two days, seven cluster researchers learned photography and film tips and tricks from Robin Jähne, one of the best German nature filmmakers. On the university roof, in the forest or at the lake, everywhere we discovered large and small, near and far photo and film motifs: With a torch we made fungal spores visible, with a drone we created a time-lapse of cloud formations and with an endoscope camera we filmed small living creatures in Lake Constance. When the weather was too bad outside, we learned how to edit images successfully and what was needed to create a good video. The insights into Robin's own work were very exciting: He showed us excerpts from a film about animal behaviour during thunderstorms, which will soon be broadcast on Arte.

About the workshop

“Can’t you just hold that? Just press on the button? That probably doesn’t cost that much”, are phrases that photographers and filmmakers hear quite frequently. And then there is always the trailing sentence: “I can do that too – using my phone!” The results then speak for themselves. But how do you actually get good shots? The nature filmmaker Robin Jähne from Detmold knows his stuff. He works on international film productions for “TerraX”, “Abenteuer Erde” (Adventure Earth) or “Expedition ins Tierreich” (Expedition into the Animal Kingdom).

“It sounds great, and it is, but it requires a large amount of experience and sweat. I started out very small – back then I was happy when I received a little bit of information on filming and didn’t have to find out everything by myself”, says Jähne. That is also the reason why he holds photography and film workshops. He wants to make his experience accessible, give tips, but also do that what his whole work revolves around: Broadening the excitement for nature. At the Cluster of Excellence Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour we share this fascination with Robin Jähne, who like many of you also studied biology, and then for many years he worked at different newspapers as a photographer and journalist. But he never lost sight of his goal: making nature films. He says: “This is not only a job, it’s also a calling. It is like with artists. You either go all in or not at all”. “Many say that without their camera they feel naked – there is a grain of truth to that”, says Jähne.

There is no apprenticeship to become a nature filmmaker, he taught himself. This includes not only the camera techniques but also electronics, because he builds many of the controls for the recording devices himself. The same applies to mechanics, such as swivel mechanisms or special model landscapes that reproduce a section of nature and in which it is possible to film special animals. “I want to pass on a little bit of that knowledge. Even if it is just a few small tips”, says the well-known nature filmmaker.


 

Workshop content:

• Camera techniques? “I will explain the basics, even if I am not able to go into every model”, says Jähne. If you want, you can learn where you can find optical axes or how great an aperture is.
• Photo and film motifs: “Above all, we will go out and search for motifs on site”, says the filmmaker. One thing is important to him: “Equipment is not everything. Good pictures can be taken even with the most basic of cameras. Creativity and unconventionality are important” – this is Jähne’s belief.
• Experience: Of course, he always has a few interesting views into nature and anecdotes from his many film trips ready.
• Editing: At the end of the two-day workshop, he will also give an insight into the editing. How is a film made from the collected material or “how do I make the shots more beautiful?” This is also part of the seminar.