It can be very difficult to tell a vast story while being confined to one location. But with the Sept. 5 restrictions, filmmakers and craftsmen found themselves in a position very similar to the 1972 ABC sports team, which really stepped up their storytelling.
Told through the eyes of the ABC sports team, September 5th takes place during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, when Israeli athletes are held hostage by a group of terrorists. “As someone who works in the media myself, I thought I had something to say about the complex media landscape that is especially relevant in today’s world,” says director Tim Fehrbaum.
John Magaro in “September Five”.
Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection
Deadline reports that screenwriter/director Tim Fehrbaum, screenwriter Moritz Binder, cinematographer Markus Förderer, production designer Julian Wagner, editor Hansjörg Weisbrich, and composer Lorenz We spoke to Dangel about how the team told a vast story from a small location.
While researching the film’s subject matter, it wasn’t until Fellbaum met Jeffrey Mason, played by John Magaro in the film, that he realized this was the way he wanted to tell this story. “During those 22 hours of broadcasting, it was very interesting to hear his story about what he was going through that day,” Fehrbaum said. “Even after our first conversation, we thought, ‘Maybe we can tell the tragic story of what happened that day in Munich completely through that perspective.'”
As he and screenwriter Moritz Binder began working on the script, they began to realize the difficulty of telling the story from the newsroom. “You start thinking about things like you can’t be there, you can’t be with the police, you can’t be outside the complex,” Binder says. “But the problems we had while writing were also, in a sense, problems with our characters. So it became this different kind of thriller, and that’s what was really interesting to us. did.”
“As a filmmaker, I felt it was an interesting challenge to tell a story entirely from one location,” Fehrbaum adds. “I admire films that derive their power from certain limitations of space and time.”
To address that limitation, the set itself needed to be unique and special. “We had to design and create this small space, and yet we had to tell a huge story through their eyes, through this small room and screen,” said production designer Julien. Wagner says. “We had a lot of conversations about the size and height of the hallways, what is realistic, what is authentic, and to support all these emotions, to elevate and promote the emotions. It’s about where you can take a little creative license.”
Peter Sarsgaard in “September Five”
Paramount Pictures/Courtesy of Everett Collection
“The set that Julian designed was very unique and everything was connected,” says cinematographer Markus Förderer. “Traditionally, in big movies, you set up a wide shot, then cut and change the angle to get a close-up. We didn’t do that here. We were going to be very strict with the editing, and we could do it in one long take. We captured as much as possible.”
“The camerawork approach gave us the opportunity to delve into a lot of footage and create a long-take tempo in a kind of documentary style,” says editor Hansjörg Weisbrich. “We love this painful tension, the tragic beats of the story, the moral conflict of journalists debating how far they can go and what they can actually show on live TV, and the pertinence between all these questions. I think it’s very timely.”
“From my point of view, it was an interesting situation,” adds composer Lorenz Danger. “We had the luxury of using music as a tool to create a certain dramaturgical arc and really decide what to emphasize.” He said that he used very little and kept his scores very low. “That really pays off in the second half, because the audience doesn’t get tired of the constant tense music.”
While creative liberties were taken in several areas of the set design for narrative reasons, there was one area that needed to be perfected. “The control room is a very precise replica,” Wagner said. “We changed a few things to make the tension more tangible and give it a more claustrophobic feel. Here, journalists are telling the story, and we wanted it to be real. , I wanted to make this tension feel concrete.”
The television screen was also functional and beneficial to the actors as well. “Tim was always adamant that all the content the characters were seeing on set could be viewed live so that the characters could actually interact with the screen,” Felderer says. “The monitor is reflected in the actors’ eyes and glasses, so you can feel the presence of the image.”
Paramount Pictures/Courtesy of Everett Collection
TV screens are usually not used as set lighting because the light flickers on film. This is something most people would like to get rid of, but Felderer decided to add a string of movie lights to increase the frequency. “You often see documentaries where you don’t have perfect sync and it’s kind of strobed, and that’s a really interesting storytelling tool that doesn’t usually get explored a lot,” he says. “Whenever tension increases, for example when a man in a mask appears on screen for the first time, we increase the frequency of the flicker. This has a big impact on heart rate.”
Beyond the television screen, it was important that all devices used in the newsroom were functional to some degree. “All of these machines were working, but these original analog machines are pure monsters when it comes to sound, so they had to be refurbished and rewired,” Wagner says. “We wanted them to be alive and everything to work well, but we couldn’t just connect them.”
“It has a really great sound and is an old switch, but most of the time it’s like a double click,” Dangel adds. “We went on set during a break in filming and recorded everything.”
For Weißbrrich, refurbishing these machines was actually a bit of a throwback, as he had used some of them when he started working as an editor. “I knew everything very well,” he says. “Every morning we received rolls of paper, monitors, everything we put there. That was 30 years ago, not that long ago, but things have completely changed… ”
“Interestingly, the ethical and moral issues are still the same,” Moritz says.
“There’s even more presence today,” Wagner agrees.
