A few years ago, during my PhD times, I got very excited about filmmaking. I bought a high definition digital video camera and learned how to use editing and post production tools such as Adobe Aftereffects. I started realizing small film projects which is great fun.
One of those projects which I made with a friend was about a gun rampage. The idea was to criticize gun ownership. The final video was meant to be uploaded to YouTube and spark some debate. But we never got that far. During the filming of some test footage a little incident happened: Someone saw us handling the (fake) gun and called the police. When they arrived the camera was still rolling. After the trouble with the police we never finished the actual film project. Instead I used the material to do a video ‘Filmmaking gone wrong’:
 


This was in 2009. During my visit in Heidelberg now I got an email from the organizer of a local short film festival called ‘Goldener Hirsch’. He found my video on Vimeo and wanted to screen it at the festival. Of course I was very happy to hear this. And it was pure coincidence that I was in Heidelberg that week. So, I invited some friends and we went to the screening. Afterwards was an interview with us where we had the chance to talk a bit about the motivation and give some background infos. I had a really good time even though we didn’t win anything.

My friend and I talking about our video

Later on I talked to one of the other filmmakers and he told me about another team that was filming a scene in public that involved a gun. That time, along with the police arrived the van of TV channel (RTL2). What a shame that didn’t happen in our case… 🙂

Golderner Hirsch Festival Website