A MODERN CONSTRUCTION ON A LIVELY TRADITIONAL SITE
In 1999/2000, a new University building providing 10,246 m2 of floor space was constructed on the site of the Babelsberg Media City. This set new standards as a newly built construction designed to suit all of the specific demands of a media University and also located at the centre of a traditional and renowned studio site.
A University that educates young talents for the media industry and is located at the heart of an area in which film and television are produced –certainly a unique scenario! No other European media academy is able to provide education at such close proximity to media in action on a studio site and no other European studio site has the creative potential of future talents right on its doorstep.
The new construction contains all of the elements needed to spark the students’ interest in filmmaking. From dramaturgy right through to the final sound effects, the HFF building combines all professional technology under one roof, just like in a full service film studio.
The University building contains music recording and vocal booths, a digital music mixing desk, a sound mixing studio with a Harrison MPC4D mixing desk, photographic studios, live recording studios including PAL controls with up to 6 camera units and a Philips DD 35 production switcher, photographic laboratories, digital animation camera rooms, a motion capture system, student workshops, a props room, a large central technology storage room and high-quality workstations for 2D/3D computer animation and montage (AVID Media Composer or Adrenaline, Final CutPro), etc. It also provides students from the Acting course with rehearsal stages and smaller practice areas. There are workstations for audio editing (Protools, Nuendo, etc.) and a 35mm CRT plate setter for the photographic printing of 2K image data and a Nucoda filmmaster/Grading suite as well.
Alongside the large cinema (with 250 seats and a 2K projector, as well as a the possibility of screening 3 D and a Digital Daily System for screening uncompressed 2K moving image material) and the theatre hall with a variety of possible layouts, the University can also display film, video and data formats, 35/16 mm, DigiBeta, DVCPro, DV, DVD, VHS and so on.
The building also provides a wonderful lookout point over the roofs of the University, where an impressive conference room is located for the University Senate sessions and for particularly important meetings. From here, the view stretches as far as the Berlin Fernsehturm (Television Tower) on Alexanderplatz, the Berlin radio mast and St Nicholas’ Church in Potsdam.
Thanks to its location directly in the Babelsberg Media City, the University is guaranteed optimal co-operation opportunities and an active exchange between education and practice.
The traditional halls on the site have been renovated and additional halls have been built. The full service and extremely modern technology now attract international producers, directors, actors and camera crews to the Babelsberg media centre. Fully-equipped studios and halls of an international standard, for example the Marlene Dietrich Studio, Europe’s largest film studio, provide the space needed to turn a story into a masterpiece.
