Arno Scheffler

Arno Scheffler filming in Colombia (1995)

Arno Scheffler (* 1939 in Königsberg ) is a German cameraman who has mainly worked for ZDF with a focus on reportage, documentary and documentary films. Several of his films have received television awards. He worked with filmmakers such as Georg Stefan Troller , Hartmut Schoen , Gottfried Kirchner , Bodo Witzke . He made several mountain films with Reinhold Messner . Many of his works were created in regions where “violence is commonplace” or where “extreme” climatic conditions prevail.

Life

After fleeing from Königsberg in East Prussia, Scheffler first grew up in Hesse. After finishing school, he completed an apprenticeship as a miner near Aachen. After an occupational accident, he retrained to become a film technician at Atlantik-Film in Hamburg and worked for various copy factories. In 1963 he started working as a camera assistant at ZDF , and a few years later he became a cameraman. During his first assignment in Bolivia, he shot how the military shot protesting Indians. During his ZDF career he worked for several years in the ZDF studios Caracas and Madrid, specializing in working on longer documentary film formats.

He turned several times on the poles, z. Sometimes during expeditions lasting several months, climbed several six-thousanders, crossed the Behringstrasse in a canoe. He shot several personal descriptions with Georg Stefan Troller ; for the film with Troller Guatemala - Land im Todesfieber (1994) he received the camera award. For the film Why does Alfred Welker risk his life in Agua Blanca with Bodo Witzke he got the Telestar (1997). In connection with the Telestar award, Witzke characterized Arno Scheffler as a “passionate filmmaker” who takes the people in front of the camera seriously, and whose commitment applies to the “poorest and disenfranchised”. The journalist Achim Schiff stated that Scheffler would not enter the extreme places where he was filming as a “muscular adventurer”, but as a “fellow human being who visits the places without the greed for sensation”. Several of the films he made received awards, such as B. Among murderers, priests and forgotten - German doctors in Colombia (1993 Hartmannbund Prize) etc.

Work style

Scheffler learned the craft of the cameraman as an assistant in scenic productions. There he got to know the precision of the studio in camera work and lighting. However, highlights of his work later become documentary films in which he uses a lively reportage camera authentically and yet precisely under often difficult circumstances. The print journalist Andrian Kreye describes the shooting style for the film Guatemala, Land im Todesfieber as follows:

“The violence is finally showing its face. On Route 15, which runs through Guatemala, there is a death squad of the secret police G 2 on the side of the road. Young boys in civilian clothes with their submachine guns slung casually over their shoulders. Proud guys in green camouflage jackets. They carry American assault rifles. An off-road vehicle stands diagonally on the median, the driver's door open. Next to it, as if he had fallen straight from the seat onto the street, a covered body. ›We need the picture‹, calls out Georg Stefan Troller. ›Shut up - sound - running,‹ hisses cameraman Arno Scheffler. Then they stalk up to the post, a fellow of maybe twenty years old. The camera slowly moves along the guard's rifle, stops on his face. [...] In the ditch, Scheffler suddenly sees a second corpse. But the soldiers hastily throw a tarpaulin over the dead man. An officer climbs up the embankment: 'Sigue! Sigue! Fuera de aqui! ‹He roars. The team should run away and see that it progresses. Arno Scheffler pushes around the soldiers who are now blocking his way. He tries to get the body in the ditch for at least a second. But the attitude is lost. When the soldiers bring their rifles to the ready, Scheffler lets the camera sink. 'It's okay, we're going,' he calls out in Spanish. The soldiers do not notice that he continues to turn from the hip. "

- Adrian Kreye, 1992

Filmography

• 1971: Cuba libre on ice with Christoph Kaiser
• 1989: Race for the white continent with Peter K. Hertling
• 1989: ZDF report. Father, why are you shitting? German occupation children and their Norwegian children with Thomas Euting
• 1990: personal description. Richard Gollub - Poison and Galle in Manhattan with Georg Stefan Troller
• 1992: Guatemala, land in death fever with Georg Stefan Troller
• 1992: personal description. Harold Brodky - life is a book with Georg Stefan Troller
• 1993: Among murderers, priests and the forgotten. About German doctors in Colombia with Bodo Witzke
• 1994: 37 degrees. Beyond the shame line. A girl is sold to Germany with Hartmut Schoen
• 1994: Adventure and Legends. When the ice breaks with Tina Radke
• 1994: Terra X: The Spirits of the River of Tombs. Indian magic in Colombia with Gottfried Kirchner
• 1995: Terra X: Glacier Gold. The Treasury in the Caucasus with Tina Radke
• 1996: explosive. Risk of electrosmog? with Bodo Witzke
• 1996: Why does Alfred Welker risk his life in Agua Blanca with Bodo Witzke
• 1997: ZDF report. You don't have that many days with Hans-Jürgen Haug
• 1997: ZDF report. Back-breaking job on thin ice. With climate researchers in the Arctic with Peter K. Hertling
• 1997: Witness - witnesses of the terror with Bodo Witzke
• 1997: Apartments of the gods - trip to the holy mountain Kailash with Reinhold Messner

Awards

• German Camera Prize 1994 for the report Guatemala, Land in Death Fever (with Georg Stefan Troller)
• Telestar (1997) for the camera work on Why does Alfred Welker risk his life in Agua Blanca (with Bodo Witzke)
• Nomination for the German Camera Prize (1998) for the ZDF report You don't have that many days (with Hans-Jürgen Haug )

Web links

• Images of violence - images in the head , Trier University of Applied Sciences, 2011, interview with Scheffler

Individual evidence

1. ^ AZ Mainz, Achim Schiff: Pictures of everyday life elsewhere. Cameraman Arno Scheffler and his work. (1997)
2. ↑ Pictures of violence - pictures in the head , Trier University of Applied Sciences, 2011.
3. ^ AZ Mainz, Achim Schiff: Pictures of everyday life elsewhere. Cameraman Arno Scheffler and his work. (1997)
4. ^ Adrian Kreye: Beatnik behind the camera. Georg Stefan Troller and the violence in Guatemala. TEMPO October 1992. Quoted from: Bodo Witzke and Ulli Rothaus: Die Fernsehreportage. Konstanz, UVK 2010 (2nd edition), p. 179.
5. ↑ German Camera Prize 1994, accessed on November 4, 2018.