„We organize it with always one family member being in charge“

Christiane Buchmann, freelance director of photography

(deutsche Fassung)

Christiane Buchmann, born in Eltville / Hessen, lives in Hamburg, married, one son (9) and one daughter (6).
 Trained as a media designer for image and sound designer, diploma in film/TV camera at the FH Dortmund, one semester abroad at the international film school EICTV (Escuela de Cine y TV) in Cuba, M.A. Cinematographyn at the Hamburg Media School.

From 2000 film projects as camera assistant, lighting technician, camera operator, 2nd unit camera and gimbal operator. Since 2012 Director of Photography for TV films (Tatort: Die Kälte der Erde), TV series (Pfefferkörner, SOKOs, Großstadtrevier), movies (Wo kein Schatten fällt), commercials, music videos, university and independant productions.

Christiane Buchmann’s Website
Christiane Buchmann, member of the German Union of cinematographers
Christiane Buchmann, member of the Cinematographinnen (female cinematographers)

Dear Chrissi, let’s start with your personal background. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I grew up in the Rheingau, in Eltville, a small town near Wiesbaden. My sister is ten years older and my brother eight years older, so I came along as a late baby of the family. My parents belong to the war generation, they fled as war refugees from Silesia and the Sudetenland. They were real “workhorses” and built up a lot through hard work, also with the aim of being able to leave something to us children one day.

After she had children, my mother gave up her job in a travel agency. In addition to working as a housewife and organizing the family, she worked a lot with my grandparents on their farm, and offered and sold cherries and other fruit at a small roadside stall.

My mother wanted the world to be open to us children – and so it was important to her that we obtained the highest educational qualifications – something she herself had been denied in her time.
 My sister became a grammar school teacher and my brother initially went to university, but eventually ended up in the media industry thanks to the then new training program for image and sound media designers and now works as an editor in the current affairs department at ZDF / public broadcasters.

And how did you yourself end up in the film industry?

My father would have liked me to be a tax consultant, but after a school internship in a bank, it quickly became obvious that it had to be something completely different. After graduating from high school, I applied for various internships in the film industry. I got a call and was offered a place as Sonja Kirchberger’s camper van driver in a TV movie. Without knowing whether I was even allowed to drive campers with my driver’s license, I accepted immediately and a week later I found myself on my first feature film set.

And were you allowed to drive a camper van?

Yes! I got my driver’s license during a year at school abroad in England. I only had an A4 piece of paper and it wasn’t entirely clear at first, but in the end I was authorized to do so.

And how did you like your first film production?

The atmosphere and the work on set made a big impression on me, I had a walkie and was allowed to help cordon off – I think I defended the sets as if it was a matter of life and death! 
I then trained as a media designer for image and sound at a film production company in Wiesbaden that produced mainly for public children’s television, travel magazines and documentaries. It was a small, very nice team where I felt very comfortable.

I was in charge of small editing jobs and worked a lot as a sound recordist / camera assistant on the shoots. Later I was sometimes allowed to take over the B camera and also shoot small things myself; that’s when my passion for camera work began.

After successfully completing my training, I first studied cinematography at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts and worked on many unpaid student sets. During this time, I also received a scholarship for an exchange programme with the EICTV film school in Havana, Cuba, an indescribably wonderful time where I got to know many great people.

Did you know Spanish or how did your studies go?

To be honest, my Spanish was very poor to non-existent. I had registered for two VHS courses in advance, but I didn’t attend them that often because jobs kept coming in. However, there was a Spanish teacher on site with whom I had daily Spanish lessons in addition to the seminars. After about three months, my Spanish was pretty good!

And back in Germany?

I had the feeling that the university in Dortmund no longer had much to offer to me at the time, so I used my documentary film, which I was actually shooting in Africa as a freelance project with my partner, as my diploma film and finished it after I knew that I had got a place at the HMS (Hamburg Media School) in Hamburg.

Nevertheless, I believed that other people in the industry did not yet see / could not see me as a serious camerawoman.

I was also earning my living as a 2nd AC and 1st AC on commercial and feature film sets at the time, so I was more of an assistant and not yet a ‘real camerawoman’.
So I applied for the Master’s programme at Hamburg Media School. That was great, because one of the admission criteria was professional camera experience, and you didn’t have to be very young either – the programme was supposed to function as a ‘continuous heater’. This time was very intensive and I couldn’t work on the side, which at least had the advantage that the step towards identification as a camerawoman / image designer was clearly defined and I was no longer tempted to take on assistant jobs.

Women DoP don’t have it easy, they are disproportionately underemployed in the German film and television industry. On top of that – as camerawomen tell me time and again – there’s the stereotypical question: ‘Can she even carry all that heavy equipment?’ How much do the cameras and lenses weigh that you and your assistants have to lug around? In kilos, or perhaps the weight of a small child?

Yes, unfortunately that’s true. But I don’t think the fundamental problem is necessarily that women are not trusted to handle the weight of the camera.
 Often, especially at the beginning of their careers, I think women are a bit more honest and deal more openly with uncertainties or questions about jobs, for example when it comes to things they haven’t done before. In conversations with my male colleagues, I’ve noticed that men often harbour the same insecurities. I just think that for the most part they deal with it more confidently and jump in at the deep end and don’t communicate it, which means that the external perception of their performance is higher, even if things may not have been done excellently. This in turn means that women are often not trusted with larger productions and therefore don’t get the chance to become visible.

I too have often had to answer the question about the weight. Depending on the accessories, a ready-to-turn Alexa weighs around 15 kg, which is the average weight of a three-year-old child. The only disadvantage with the child is that there are usually no assistants to carry the infant carrier, nappy bag or balance bike behind you, which makes this work much more physically demanding. Funnily enough, nobody here asks how you manage this in everyday life…

And whether a man can do it better.

Exactly!

You became pregnant with your son in 2014, so you’d already been working as a DoP for almost ten years. What was it like with your projects, did you immediately report the pregnancy to production or did you hide it?

My plan was actually to shoot my first feature film before my first child, but that didn’t quite work out with my pregnancy in 2014, which initially hit me hard and depressed me.
So I decided to tell as few people as possible about the pregnancy so that I could get started again as soon as possible after the birth. Debut projects in particular are often postponed because the financing hasn’t been finalised, and I didn’t want to be saved by productions and directors under ‘not available because of child’. This strategy actually worked quite well, because when I later met friends at the Berlinale, for example, many were surprised that I had a child that was already one or two years old.

My pregnancy went very smoothly, you could hardly tell I was pregnant until the 8th month with loose tops and so I was still filming until four weeks before giving birth. Among other things, I had a job as a B-cam on the police programme Polizeiruf. I wasn’t allowed to continue at the beginning of maternity leave, six weeks before the expected date of birth, because the legal grey area was too uncertain for the production.

After our son was born, we quickly started to offer him breast milk via the bottle in addition to breastfeeding. The great advantage for us was that my husband was then able to take over and his role became just as important as mine.

A film director friend of mine, Inga Bremer, asked me to shoot a series of image films with her in southern Germany. She knew about the circumstances and it was no problem for her and the production, which was great for me and my self-confidence at the time. Our son was about four weeks old at the start of production and about two months old during the filming period. My equipment now included a battery-operated breast pump and a portable cool box that I could connect to any mains power supply. This meant I could pump milk on the back seat of the production vehicle on a journey from A to B.


My husband then travelled with our son to southern Germany and we stayed together. The two of them had a great day and regularly collected the milk from the filming locations – it worked really well and was also phenomenal for the bond between the two of them.


Father and son visiting the shoot of Madsen – Küss mich (Kiss me), music video. (2015)

For the rest of the year, I was also very lucky to shoot a lot of ‘smaller’ productions and another fictional short film with director Julz Ritchel, so I didn’t feel like I had disappeared from the scene. My husband had taken parental leave and was very happy with it, so I was able to work freelance and continue to earn money.

And after the births? How did things go in the first few years when your children were small?

You always have to be incredibly flexible in the film industry, but thanks to my husband and my parents-in-law, we manage quite well. Although my parents-in-law live 500 kilometres away, they support us regularly and they are also brought on board for every job enquiry.

I then shot my first feature film in 2017, the preparation for which was fortunately in our shared office at the time, where my husband had his editing and grading space with our daycare centre right next door.

What kind of shared office is that?

At the time, the shared office was made up of the following companies: ‘Das Kind mit der goldenen Jacke GmbH’ -> a production and directing company from my HMS year, Lena Krumkamp, an author friend from our HMS year and Eichholz Film GbR, Lars Jessen’s production company at the time, and my husband and I with our Filmwiese GbR.

We had been looking for this location as a group of friends and colleagues at the time and found it after more than a year of searching. After we had renovated everything ourselves, we were able to move into the floor in Hamburg Bahrenfeld. Of course, our son was always there with us, was changed on the large cutting table and practically learnt to walk there. It was a great atmosphere – everyone took a break with him from time to time so that we could all work very well together.

We also prepared our debut film in this constellation, which was directed by Esther Bialas.

Our daughter was born in 2018 and she was allowed to go on a cinema tour with us when she was just four weeks old to present our film. The big one stayed at home alone with grandpa and grandma. As long as the children were not yet of school age, this could always be organised, albeit with a lot of effort but still well. At the same time, it was important that at least one parent or grandpa and grandma were on site to look after the children. They wouldn’t have gone along with a nanny on set or excessively long daycare days.

In most of my productions when the children were so young, I worked with directors or productions that I already knew, so I didn’t feel like I had anything to prove. Nevertheless, the pressure was high, and I put it on myself, as I naturally wanted to be there for the project 120% of the time and around the clock.

What were or are the reactions of the producers and filmmakers involved to your family commitments?

Fortunately, I experienced a lot of positive things in the early days, my director friends really encouraged me and gave me the confidence to do the jobs, even though the kids were still very small.
I generally used the normal lunch break to pump milk – there were no breastfeeding breaks, although perhaps I could have asked for one?

Yes, at least that is your right according to the law.

‘Breastfeeding times in the first year: Your employer must give a mother time off for breastfeeding if she requests this verbally or in writing for at least 2 x 30 minutes or 1 x 60 minutes per day. The time off does not have to be made up or counted towards rest breaks. Wages may not be reduced due to breastfeeding periods.’
Source Familienportal of the Federal Ministry for Families etc.

In later productions, I’ve also experienced things differently, where people were very critical when we first met and asked how we were organising childcare. I am firmly convinced that if I were a man, I wouldn’t have been asked that question.

If you weren’t so dependent on jobs, you should reply ‘good question, what do you offer as production?’

Yes, absolutely – maybe I would do just that today!

How do you and your partner manage to balance your respective careers and your family today?

My husband, Frank Schumacher, works in post-production as an editor and colourist. He was a permanent freelancer at SWR for a long time. He now has a permanent 50% job there and we also have Filmwiese Filmproduktion GbR together.

The challenge is that SWR in Mainz is about 500 kilometres away from our home in Hamburg, which means that he usually works there in blocks. We coordinate with my projects and he then tries to fit his blocks into the spaces in between. Fortunately, if there are any overlaps, his grandparents often help out by travelling from home.


When I’m filming during school holidays, my husband often takes the kids down to his parents‘ house to work at SWR, and grandma and grandpa look after our children in the meantime. It works well – but it’s quite an organisational effort.


Before our first child was born, I had imagined things very differently. We had specially chosen a crèche where the children could be looked after for up to 10 hours and so we thought that we could be very flexible with our working hours.
In practice, however, it turned out that we never utilised these 10 hours, as the children wouldn’t have been able to cope with being away from their carers for so long, in addition to the constant hustle and bustle. Instead, we organised it so that there was always a family member ‘on call’ to respond to unforeseen illnesses or childcare absences.
We never tried a nanny, I don’t think that would have worked well either, as our kids were rather shy and very focussed on us and the grandparents.
Especially when we are away for longer periods at regular intervals, it is all the more important for the kids to have the other parent with them as a constant carer.

When you start a new project, are you interested in the family (commitments) of your colleagues?

Yes, absolutely! I think it’s important to be open about it, because we’re all in the same boat! Talking about it can also help to find good solutions early on when bottlenecks arise. There have often been situations where my colleagues have approached me when they have to cancel at short notice or because a child has a birthday or something similar. I’m actually pleased about that because it raises the status of the family. Solutions can be found for everything, and I also believe that nobody is irreplaceable in film production.

Do you have role models when it comes to work-life balance in the film industry, or are you yourself a role model or inspiration for colleagues, or do you aspire to be one?

Phew, that’s a difficult question. I can’t really name any specific role models. But I’m pleased that the topic is increasingly coming into focus and being talked about thanks to you, dear Belinde. As part of Cinematographinnen (a network of freelance female cinematographers from European German-speaking countries), I try to exchange ideas with colleagues and share my experiences and I’m happy to hear how others do it. Sadly, I also have to say that I know some very talented female colleagues who are no longer working as cinematographers because they couldn’t manage it due to their respective partnerships or lack of family support.

I am very grateful to my husband because he always let me go first when it came to parallel project requests. As a result, he cancelled things that might have taken him further, but that was never an issue for us. And that’s not a matter of course, because unfortunately many men have egos that are far too big.

Are there any family-friendly measures that you find particularly worthy of support and that you would perhaps have wished for when your children were born or were still very young?

I think the idea of a ‘hybrid’ 4-day week is really desirable, because it would give you the opportunity to do the preparatory work that is now done at weekends beforehand. This would give you the chance to have a real weekend, which would certainly improve everyone’s work-life balance. Of course, I can’t just negotiate this for myself, but the offer would have to come from production.

I also find the concept of job sharing exciting and could well imagine it for my team. It would also be conceivable for me to share the position of DoP with someone I know well and trust in her/his work for a suitable project. There would have to be good joint preparation for this and, above all, a director who can imagine it just as well. So far, however, I haven’t had any discussions with producers or directors about this.

You also work internationally and have an impressive list of foreign shoots on your CV: Costa Rica, Cuba, Tanzania, Oman, Italy, Spain, UK, Liechtenstein, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Russia, USA… Is that still possible with two school children soon?

Most of the shoots and stays abroad are from the time when the kids weren’t there yet. I wouldn’t rule it out at the moment because ultimately our division works in such a way that one of us is always on location anyway as our son has been at school for 4 years. The year before last, I was filming a series in Austria, so of course it wasn’t possible to go home every weekend. I would make sure that I don’t take on two such projects in quick succession, but then there’s the project-free time that makes up for it and where you can invest more time in the family than parents with a conventional 9 to 5 job.

And finally, an outlook: how can the film industry have developed at best or at worst when your children are in their early 20s and possibly also want to get into it?

Ha, that’s a good question – where and how is the film industry heading? I definitely hope for better and more family-friendly working conditions, a good order situation and that you can make a living from it.
For my children, I hope that they can do something that makes them happy and fulfils them. Whether that will be in the film industry, I’m not so sure, they’ll have to find out for themselves…

On the Set of „Pfefferkörner“ (2021)

Dear Chrissi, thank you very much for these insights and all the best for you and your family!


Title photograph: Christine Buchmann with her son on set, 2015. photo CB


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