[on Abendland (1999)] Some of the long scenes were done in two or three days. The first day was only arranging the lighting and camera rehearsals, because there are many lamps in some scenes and because when you do a very long travelling shot, you see the whole room, you cannot just light a corner or a face and then cut, and then light another corner, the whole room is to be there, illuminated, completely ready and without any lamp in shot. The real place actually looked like it looked on the screen. It has to be done, because film is something very practical and everything you want to have on screen you have to realise before. The second day I worked with the actors, and maybe we shot it immediately if everybody was completely present or it was not too exhausting. If we had been working too long we came back the next day and shot the scene the next day. And maybe I change some little things after rehearsal, so it's really a process of creation during the shooting. It's never like here is something on the paper and then just doing it like it was written. [1999]
