How did the ballet project come about and what was the concept?

When I was given the opportunity to try the ARRI Signature Zooms, the first thought was to try them on an automotive shoot. But it so happened that I had got involved in a project called “125 Years Carl Orff” with the Bavarian Junior Ballet, and I realized that the demands of a car shoot were very similar to the challenges of bringing ballet choreography to the screen. You want the optical quality of prime lenses, but because of the time pressure of a semi-live shoot, you would prefer to never change the lens, instead to continue filming and subtly adjust the compositions to give the editor as many options as possible.

We were shooting the choreography "Unheaven" by Martina La Ragione, based on motifs from Carl Orff's Schulwerk. Together with our editor Jochen Kraus and art director Holger Geisler, we wanted to honor the liveliness and modernity of Orff's work. It was an ambitious project in terms of production and finances, but we were fortunate that Tobias Joeckle and Dennis Boleslawski from Hyperbowl in Munich offered us their virtual production studio. With this LED volume studio and the Signature Zooms, we got a chance to realize our project on the highest technical and artistic level.