Growing up, Claas Ortmann sat glued to MTV, adoring music videos from his heroes Tom Kuntz and Spike Jonze. At the YDA Awards in June his second place in the Filmschool European category announced a bright new talent with a quirky sense of humour and great skill for visual comedy. Alex King talks with Claas about his recent work and to find out where he goes from here.
You won second prize at the YDA Awards in June with your fantastic commercial “The Store.” What have you been up to since then? Has winning the award helped give your career a boost?
Having won the YDA definitely helped my career as it has brought me international attention. As a result, I got fantastic representation in the UK by Supergoober and in France by Addict Film. Since Cannes I have been very busy shooting, so I cannot complain at all.
In the recent film for Audi it seems that stronger storytelling replaces the humour of your earlier work. Can you explain what motivated this shift in tone? Was it a personal choice or the requirement of the client?
I consider myself a storyteller. Sure – I love to tell stories with a certain kind of dry humour but, as a storyteller, the Audi project excited me from the start. To be able to tell a story with such a symbolic figure as a royal guard – to infuse a normally stiff and emotionless figure with desires and emotions – that triggered me.
Tell me more about the Heinemann Duty Free series. How did they come about? Were they commissioned pieces?
Yes, they were commissioned pieces. Heinemann Duty Free has big shops in almost all the major airports across Europe. They were looking for close to a thousand new employees and wanted to try unusual ways of communication to reach new Heinemann talent.
What were the challenges of shooting a parkour scene in a duty-free shop? Did you use a hand-held camera? Tell us about the security-style footage.
The challenge was quite intense. But we got Berlin’s best parkour guys onboard for the project. I told them what I wanted story-wise and what action I’d like to see. On that basis, they developed a choreography through the shop. The airport and Heinemann people were really supportive…after they digested the shock about our plan.
We used handheld camera to simulate a mobile phone camera and we prepped two Alexas under the roof for the security cams. It’s funny, we also shot the scene parallel on a mobile phone but it couldn’t cope so well with the stop. And for the dynamic of the film I wanted to use zooms.
We posted all three Heinemannn films in HD due to SFX. To get the look I wanted we put the films out on VHS tape and played around with different techniques to damage the signal. It was quite fun!
Special effects feature a lot in your work, usually in an amusing way. What is your connection with post-production? And does your imagination naturally incorporate a VFX element when you are developing a narrative?
VFX for me is just a storytelling device. It should always serve the narration, nothing else. I don’t like if VFX shows off. If I could, I would shoot all in camera, as I love to see what I get and play with it on set. In the Heinemann “Wine” film I let the actress throw real dummy bottles onto the shelves and used post-production only for what was necessary to get the most out of it. I would have loved it if she had trained to do it all for real, but we could not invest the 10 years of training.
From which part of the film making process do you derive the most enjoyment?
Casting, casting, casting! I love a good casting as I always try to get interesting characters, good unseen faces and fresh talent. I am present at most castings to begin my work with the actors right there! Working with actors on a character, a scene and the dialogue, I find gives me the most fun. I also love improvisation, in order to keep a scene fresh and to try out ideas that pop into my mind.
Going back to your earlier work, we really enjoyed your quirky shorts for Ben & Jerry’s: “Caramel” and “Handicap.” Even without English subtitles for the German dialogue they are incredibly funny. How did you develop your great skill for visual comedy?
I basically follow my instincts. I love this kind of humour. Dry and quirky. It guess it’s more of a British, American or Scandinavian kind of humour. Probably because I idolise the work of director Tom Kuntz and Scandinavian storytellers like Traktor.
“The Store” is another fantastic piece of visual comedy. Could you give us some background to the making of the film and the challenges involved?
The client wanted a funny film that would have to work without dialogue, as they were to run the film mute on screen in the lobbies of partner banks. No agency was involved. They approached HFF (University of Television and Film) Munich, as they had only a small budget and wanted young filmmakers to write the films. Little budget but great freedom. They loved the idea and basically let us do. Loved it!
Could you tell us a little bit more about yourself? Where you grew up, where you studied film and how you ended up at film school?
I grew up in Hamburg. My love for film was sparked through music video pioneers and great storytellers as Spike Jonze, Jonathan Glazer and Michel Gondry. Music television in the nineties always showed a directors credit, so I tried to get all the stuff my idols did. As a result, right after school I worked in a music video production company, which was a lot of rock ‘n’ roll filmmaking. I loved it! Despite being the new kid, I told the producers that I wanted to write treatments. They let me, and my treatments won the company two jobs. I was proud as hell! After that I worked in a commercial production company, which gave me a lot experience before film school.
At the age of sixteen I got a Hi8 camera and shot one short film after the other with my friends. Most of it was gangster films, emulation of our idols. So I applied to the HFF Munich, as it was – and remains – the film school with the best reputation for feature film making in Germany. After the undergraduate four years, I applied for my masters at the commercial department. And here I am, ready to shoot.
Your career now seems to be really taking off. Are you signed to a production company?
In Germany, directors are very rarely exclusive to just one company. I am with e+p in Munich, with whom I did all the McDonalds films. In Berlin I am with Mr Bob Films and in Hamburg with Sterntag Film. On the Sterntag website I am there in the directors list with Spike Jonze and Tom Kuntz, as Sterntag represent MJZ in Germany. It feels good to be close to one’s idols. As a result of the YDA win, I am also represented by Addict Film in France and Supergoober in the UK.
What are your plans for the future? Do you want to continue with commercials, or take your work in another direction?
I love doing commercials! But I also want to branch out and make my feature film debut. I am working on a script, so I hope to be able to give it a go soon. In an ideal world, in the future I would do both commercials and features. But step by step…
When it comes to film making, from where or from whom do you derive your greatest inspiration?
My inspiration comes from all kinds of places. From the arts, from situations, a lot of mind fucks and other films. For example I love US TV Shows, as they celebrate storytelling and character development as an art form. I love art. I love to go to modern art museums and love to browse through all the creative work on my favourite Vimeo channels.
What would be your ideal film making project?
It’s hard to answer. I thought a lot about it… It all starts with a great script. Lets take it from there…
