It was a short day at the Berlinale Talent Campus as things begin to slow down at this part of the festival.

I did, however, manage to attend the “Ready, steady, go” panel about the Berlinale’s Co-Production Market and the Residency program, which was interesting. I got a chance to see how the biggest and most sophisticated co-production market works, at one of the bigger festivals in the world. I learned a few things, too, the sorts of things I couldn’t pick up from a website, the sorts of things you actually “had to be there to understand.”

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Every time Ted Hope or Christine Vachon are slotted to speak at either a talent campus, a panel series, or a workshop at a film festival – and I’m there in the city – I always make a point to catch them speak. And I never walk away dissatisfied. In fact, I’m usually on fire.

Which is why I found it a total treat the both of them were doing double duty as part of their Killer / Hope Crossing the Lines panel at the Berlinale Talent Campus. And, as expected they didn’t disappoint to the nearly sold out crowd.

Here were some of their reflections…

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Had a blast of a time listening to Berlinale Programme Manager Mattijs Wouder Knol mediate the discussion between UK-based trailer director Shaun Farrington and German trailer-cutter Phillipp Fleischmann on the need for slick, highly-effective marketing trailers and the various complexities involved in creating, cutting, and promoting top-notch marketing trailers for maximum market share.

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I attended the first of two of the transmedia panels at the Berlinale yesterday (pictured above).

Of the three events I’ve attended thus far at the Talent Campus, this was by far the best. Between panel guests Power to the Pixel’s Liz Rosenthal (moderator), and going from left to right – ARTE’s Michel Reilhac, Martin Ericsson (Erlichsson, of Sweden’s BARDO), and Caspar Sonnen (of the IDFA DocLab), I had a ton of takeaways and took a load of notes.

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The second of two panels I’d attended at the Theater Hebbel am Ufer on February 12, 2012 as part of the Berlinale Talent Campus was “Directing Scripts, Editing Stories.”

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I attended the Berlinale’s "The Other Side of Reality” today, one of several panels in their Talent Campus lineup at the Theater Hebbel am Ufer.

Rather than summarize the entire panel’s findings for you now (of which they were truly very few), I thought I’d pull a quotable or two and insert some choice comments about what I’d learned, which on this panel was essentially bubkes.

Also, since I’m on the run going from panel to panel and networking at the Berlinale and outside event venues — not to mention the fact that I don’t want too many of these posts to stack up — I’m opting for a shortened style of my otherwise longer blog entries as per usual.

So what did I learn? Well, I think my panel mates Juliane Block and Ian Kath would agree with me: Victor Kossakovsky pretty much violated the hallowed trinity rule of public speaking:

Be bold. Be brief. Be gone.

A gross violation, in fact.

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Since the 62nd edition of the Berlinale began, I’ve been chatting around a bit with some of the local players, trying to gain insights into how actors in Berlin earn their keep. This is a subject of interest, doubtless, to a host of individuals looking to make Berlin their new creative home. I wish I had stats to back this up, but there are newcomers landing at Tegel or sliding into Berlin Hauptbahnhof every single day.

My chinwags have been relatively low-level up to this point, but I’ve been gaining a few understandings about the local scene I thought I’d share in brief here for any of those actors, directors, producers, or other aspiring indie creatives looking to cut their teeth in their respective area of expertise in this truly low-pressure arty crucible which is the German capital.

So what have I been seeing?

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I’ve been spending a bit of time over in the former eastern sector of Berlin (“East Berlin,” though never known as such to the East Germans – Berlin was plain old “Berlin,” perhaps snubbing the West Germans). During those past few days, I’m astonished how much the buildings along the Leipziger Strasse remind me remind me of my time in Prague. The architecture, understandably-enough, is so strikingly similar, with Berlin receiving even more of the grandiose Communist stuff given the pedigree and reputation of this burg under the GDR (it was literally their “Alamo”) and the fact that it was the site of so many standoffs between the Soviets and the Allies.

For the past week, as well, I’ve been getting into several chats with local artists and filmmakers and polling them on their views re: the state of the art scene in town and what Berlin’s like as a backdrop for films and the like.

So I’ve basically been in heavy intake mode, with the wide funnel approach to research, which essentially means there’s been less of a content production churn than is typically the case when I’m back at PMD-For-Hire  HQ in Toronto.

Here are some of the things I’ve noticed so far as I go about town which is why I think this city makes for excellent film film fodder:

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