Forget Star Wars - we're all stars in Munich's film world

Think Munich and you probably think Oktoberfest, Hofbräuhaus and naked sunbathers in the famous Englischer Garten. Yet Munich isn't just beer, brezels and bare bits. It's also home to one of Europe's largest film production centres.

It's a cold dank December morning and I'm visiting Bavaria Filmstadt, a theme park where world-famous films such as Never Ending Story and Das Boot - Germany's biggest ever box-office smash hit - were shot. A good half-hour tram and underground ride out of town, the studios are set in leafy Grünwald, Munich's most upper-crust district. I've signed up for an English tour with my students of Tourism Management, whom I'd normally be teaching Oral Skills at this time of day. We're joined by Claudia, our guide, who seems slightly surprised to hear everyone speaking German. "You really want this tour in English?", she asks.

First stop is "1-2-3. tv". I've never heard of this shopping channel, but apparently it receives 15,000 calls a day. Through the enormous glass window we watch a cashmere shawl being auctioned live on air. "Nice winter scarf anyone?" asks Claudia. Most of us would actually be glad of it - the TV studio, just like the rest of Bavaria Filmstadt, is bitterly cold.

Next up we're in an interactive studio being invited to try out the "Green Screen". This is the technology that, using a skin-neutral colour, enables directors to superimpose subjects onto virtual backgrounds. I join volunteers on stage, where we find ourselves riding virtual rail tracks through mountain tunnels and alongside hair-raising cliff tops.    



 

Another green screen allows us to try our hand as weather forecasters on the set of  "Tagesschau", German TV's nightly newscast. Our volunteer, Manuel, slips into the role like a pro.

 

Round the next corner we're greeted by Limahl's Never Ending Story playing and suddenly we're all lead actors in the epic fantasy. We soon have volunteers riding Falkor The Luck Dragon, doing a "disappearing" act. That's the illusion filmmakers create using a blue screen backdrop. It's rather chilly in here too, but rocking to and fro on Falkor certainly warms us up a little bit.    

 

                    

 

After the group shot on Farkor I'm afraid I rather lose the overview. Claudia takes us on a whirlwind tour of other blockbuster filmsets, like Vampire Sisters, and Ludwig II. We're also shown behind the scenes of several afternoon soap operas, like "Tempest of Love", none of which I've ever heard of, but the students all seem to know.  

 

It's not until we reach the filmset of Das Boot that I'm back on familiar ground - it's one of the first German films I ever saw. Claudia tells us that the actors of movie had to spend several weeks actually sleeping in this model submarine from Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 film. I'm feeling claustrophobic in there after just a few minutes. 

 

You don't have to be great movie buff to enjoy this tour. This might not be Universal Studios, but at least you won't hear a single reference to Star Wars. Besides, the visual effects are great fun, and at the end of the tour you can buy a DVD film of yourself playing on set. While I can imagine there's loads more going on in summer (outdoor stunts and kids' programmes), it's an  interesting place to spend a few hours in winter too. Just make sure you wrap up warm. And don't forget your scarf.

 

Many thanks to my Tourism students - you're all stars. 

                   

 

Blooping ist menschlich. So enjoy your bloopers, and learn from them!

Oops! Embarassing bloopers are all part of learning.

I've been blogging as a Brit in Bavaria for over five years, and covered many typical expat experiences, from embarrassing myself in a brass band to unashamedly cheating in a cyling competition. But I notice that I've hardly ever discussed what I do almost every day: Teaching.

A good starting point is "bloopers". Also known as "howlers". When you mean to say one thing but say something totally different. If this were a feature film it might be called "For They Know Not What They Say". Teachers are not exempt from blooping, of course. My own biggest blooper was on my first school trip to Germany, when I met my exchange partner’s mother, shook hands and announced “Ich bin sehr erregt”.  I meant to say I was nervously excited (“aufgeregt”), but had confused it with the word for naughtily excited. No wonder she raised a quizzical eyebrow. 

Laughing together with your students about embarrassing "faux pas" like this is a great way of bringing light relief into the classroom. Besides, when students slap their forehead and say “Ah so!” you can bet they won’t make the same mistake again.

The other day a student announced her friend was no longer coming to class because she was “becoming a baby”. When I gave her a surprised look she corrected herself: “Sorry, I mean she’s getting a baby”. “Oh”, I replied, playing along, “is she adopting, buying it online?” It’s one of the most common bloopers you’ll hear from German speakers in English. A tell-tell sign of how arbitrary language can be. Does saying “having a baby” really make any more sense than “getting a baby”? 

Roleplays produce hilarious bloopers too. A student was recently welcoming a guest to her company. Shaking hands with her male counterpart she wanted to say “Ich möchte, dass sie sich zu Hause fühlen“. It came out as “I‘d like to feel you at home”.  

In another roleplay I asked a student to react to the statement “May I smoke here?” Thinking it might make her cough, she obviously had the German word “sensibel” (= sensitive) in mind. The response came out as “Please don’t smoke, I’m sensible.”

But beware serial bloopers. Especially when they lead to misunderstandings. I was invigilating an oral exam in which students had to negotiate the sale of a consignment of jumpers. Yet instead of jumpers the seller kept talking about “journeys”. Her partner clearly had the correct word on their role card too, yet at no point did she say “Oh, don’t you mean jumpers?” She ended up buying 2,000 journeys. Destination unknown.

If only I could have a Euro each time students have inadvertently flirted on the phone by asking callers “Can I give her a massage?”. Better still – creepy creepy – when asking to speak to the “Chief Execution Officer”.

I encourage students to note “minimal pairs”, which look similar but are pronounced differently. There's a clear-cut difference between "end" and "and", for example. Like that 1980s group Cool and the Gang, who German radio presenters still announce as "Kool end ze Geng".

Practising word pairs like this can help students sound less like Lothar Matthais and more like Daniel Radcliffe.

It should also save them from embarrassment in front of their friends too. My all-time favourite blooper came in a class discussion on hobbies, when a student announced he liked to “play sex at the weekend”. The room went all quiet and I noticed some of the girls gag a giggle. My gut reaction was to gracefully ignore the comment. But seeing he was totally serious I had to giggle too. He was simply talking about that musical instrument, the sax.