"A Great Gift"

Created: 08/13/2022, 08:46

By: Nicole Kalenda

Meeting in the park: Jakob Schreier (left) and Johannes Brugger (middle) now live in Berlin.

Martin Brugger stayed in Munich, but drops by the capital from time to time.

© Johannes Brugger

Three boys from Karl-Valentin-Straße and their school friend from Feodor-Lynen-Gymnasium: Jakob Schreier co-wrote the screenplay and embodies the main character Jaksch, Bulgan Molor-Erdene plays his friend Bulli, Johannes Brugger is the cameraman and Martin Brugger for the film music responsible.

Without the four Planeggers there would be no "Fett und Fett", the ZDF comedy series, the first season of which was nominated for the Grimme Prize in 2020 and the second of which can now be seen in the ZDF media library.

In the Merkur interview, Jakob Schreier (36) and Johannes Brugger (32) talk about what it's like to work with friends and acquaintances for 17 episodes.

Mr. Schreier, you and Bulgan Molor-Erdene graduated from the FLG in 2005, the twins Johannes and Martin Brugger in 2009. How did you meet?

Jakob Schreier:

Martin, Johannes and I have known each other since they were both born.

Our parents are neighbors.

Bulgan played in a band with Martin and Johannes, that went across the age group.

I didn't mess around with that.

Johannes Brugger:

You were also there for a short time.

Schreier:

But you started The Velvet Noise without me.

You found each other, and then I joined.

Is that the origin of your collaboration?

Schreier:

The foundation stones have already been laid.

Back then there was the skate park up there and the basketball court.

You just hung out there.

Johannes, Martin and Bulgan were in the sample container, and I was out and about with the skateboard.

In principle, this was the starting point for several creative careers.

You realize you can do anything in life.

Everyone looked for playing fields.

With Martin it has remained the music.

He also now makes a lot of music for the series.

Johannes, you started more with photography, didn't you?

Brugger:

Exactly, first photography and then at some point I went over to film.

That was maybe 2000 to 2010.

You shot much later.

Did you keep in touch?

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Brugger:

Munich isn't that big.

And the scene is manageable.

Schreier:

There were times when you didn't see each other that often.

The fact that we worked together came later with Chiara Grabmayr.

I met her at film school.

We needed someone else on the camera, and Johannes does the camera.

Then we needed someone who makes music and asked Martin.

And when you were missing an amateur actor, Bulgan came to mind.

Schreier:

When we were shooting on the Isar, we needed someone to help us drive all the stuff back and forth in the dinghy and also act as an extra.

Later we said: He was already in the picture anyway.

He could actually play Jaksch's friend now.

He did it so well that he got more space and a lead role in the new season.

How did it all start?

screamer:

First we did a web series, five episodes.

Over a period of two or three years.

Again and again a small episode for fun.

We peddled those and submitted them to web series festivals.

We thought it would only be interesting if you know us, or are from Munich or the area around Munich.

At a web series festival in Hamburg they thought it was great.

Megalomaniac we continued to submit, in London.

Rio de Janeiro and in Los Angeles, Seattle, Seoul, Stockholm.

Everywhere people found it quite funny, with English subtitles.

Then we thought maybe we could do more with it and knocked twice on ZDF without success.

The third time there was an editor who liked it.

She took us on board and made sure that we got a small budget from ZDF.

We have thus produced the season that is now the first season in the ZDF media library.

There are a total of 17 episodes, twelve of which were professionally made by ZDF.

The Velvet Noise 2005: (from left) Bulgan Molor-Erdene, Babak Mohajer, Jakob Schreier, Martin and Johannes Brugger won the "Running for the Best" competition.

© The Velvet Noise

Apart from your childhood friends, which you acquired: is Planegg also in the series?

Schreier:

In episode five of the new season we are on a bachelor party in Bochum and are dancing wildly to a rock band.

For this we went back to the Würmtal and used a song by Mary Jane.

They were a bit more successful than The Velvet Noise.

There's a scene where Jaksch and Bulli jump around in the hotel room and one of them explains to the other characters: "They all went to school with us.

That's the band of our youth, and the bass player is now my dentist.” In fact, one of Mary Jane's band members now has a dental practice in Würmtal.

Everything that happens in the series happened to you or anyone you know?

Schreier:

Something like that.

We used that as our motto.

Brugger:

Friends always collect the coolest anecdotes.

Schreier:

Chiara and I wanted to have dinner before the new season and invite people from the team, from production and maybe some other people that we knew liked fat and bold.

Then Corona came and we couldn't have dinner with twelve people.

We called the 12 and talked to each for an hour.

We liked it so much that we kept talking on the phone.

We ended up interviewing 70 or 80 people for an hour each.

We drew a lot from that in the new season.

But that should be enough for a few more seasons, right?

Schreier:

Of course there are things left over.

But if we were to do another season now, we would be doing interviews again.

Until then, time has passed.

Maybe people are doing something else.

The character Jaksch is also getting older and everything around it too.

Jaksch as a father with a permanent job and an income tax card?

Schreier:

Exactly, that would probably be the next step.

Let's see how he does with it.

How is shooting under Corona conditions?

Brugger:

More strenuous, but I think it worked.

We were tested every morning.

Rapid test every day and PCR twice a week.

There were different circles in the team, sorted by irreplaceability.

Director and actor as the innermost circle.

An attempt is made to ensure that these people do not have as much contact.

It's not super comfortable to wear an FFP2 mask for ten hours a day while still lugging around a ten-kilo camera.

But I was rather glad that we were finally able to shoot at all.

Schreier:

The production company was scared the whole time.

If someone had had Corona, the people outside would also have had to be isolated.

In any case, we would have stood for two weeks.

That's pretty expensive.

We were all lucky or very careful.

During the six-week shooting phase, no one from the team had Corona.

They weren't always on the set at the same time.

Your brother, Herr Brugger, will not always have been there.

Brugger:

He also plays along.

A buddy of Bulli.

He can be seen at a party in episode three of the new season.

Schreier:

Johannes and I were almost always together on the set.

Nothing will be filmed without Johannes.

Martin was only on the set in his second capacity as an actor.

I actually wanted to ask: Do you also argue or have you just known each other for too long?

Brugger:

Oh, arguing.

That actually doesn't happen anymore.

Because we've been doing creative things together since we were kids, starting with music, we might discuss things more, but there really aren't any arguments.

We know each other too well and value each other too much for that.

Schreier:

It has to be said that we are actually in different departments.

As an actor and also as a screenwriter, I don't have much to do directly with Johannes.

In between is the director.

Criticisms and problems are clarified with Chiara.

We don't even have to argue.

Mr Brugger, was fat and fat a breakthrough for you as a cameraman?

Brugger:

Being able to do a project for ZDF as a student at the University of Television and Film is a career boost.

But it's not like I can't save myself from orders.

It's been a super opportunity to make a project professional that started for fun and where only friends are involved.

And you get paid for it too.

That's actually an awesome gift.

And Mr. Schreier, were you famous before that?

Schreier:

I'm not famous yet either.

But it sometimes happens to me that I am recognized somewhere.

It was a breakthrough for me too.

It's my debut as an actor.

I've written a screenplay before, but not my own stuff.

I've written a lot for comedy shows and also one or two episodes for another ZDFneo series, but that wasn't my idea and I didn't have a creative mind.

Season 2, Episode 5: Jogi (Oscar Lauterbach, from left), Jaksch (Jakob Schreier), Nicolai (Nicolai Zeitler) and Bulli (Bulgan Molor-Erdene) are on their way to the bachelor party in Bochum and are already celebrating on the train.

© ZDF/Johannes Brugger

Do you enjoy acting more than screenwriting?

Schreier:

I haven't done enough for that.

I still see myself as a screenwriter.

I shouldn't call myself an actor either.

I've now got one or two smaller acting jobs and I keep getting invited to auditions.

But I notice that it's difficult for me if I didn't write the text myself and don't know the director as well as Chiara does.

do you get rich

Brugger:

Not rich, but for the second season the budget was normal.

You can live well there.

In the first ZDF season, it was actually still a very low budget.

We made little money there.

Schreier:

In the first season for ZDF, we had a debut budget for young talent.

The production company, Chiara and I more or less made a pact that we wouldn't earn anything from it.

We wanted to put the money into the product to make it good.

Was it self-sacrifice, so to speak, or an investment that paid off in this case.

Now I've earned so much money that I was able to make a decent living from it for the two years that I worked on the project.

But it's not like there's much left now.

What do your parents say?

Do you like the series?

Brugger:

My parents like everything I do.

Schreier:

My mother is in the new season.

Another Karl Valentin Strasse resident.

In episode four she plays my mother.

As a result, Jaksch visits his cousin, Anton Schneider.

This is an actor.

We've been looking for Jaksch's aunt for a long time, i.e. for a woman who will play the cousin's mother.

At some point we said that if my real mother plays Jaksch's mother, then the actor's mother could do it.

We asked and it worked.

That's a bit of the vibe of fat and bold.

I think my mother was happy.

I thought it was nice that I could take her with me into my world.

And your dad was on the set at some point too.

He lent us a car.

Brugger:

Unfortunately, he cannot be seen.

He was an extra in the theater and disappears in the blur in the background.

I think that's okay with him.

What are you doing now?

It's been a year since the days of shooting.

Schreier:

The post-production lasted until March of this year.

Then I traveled a bit.

There's still enough money.

It's over in September.

Then I start working again.

Brugger:

I make a lot of music videos, shoot a day here, a day there.

I work so that I have money to live on.

What did you particularly like about the 17 episodes Fat and Fat?

Schreier:

One of the nicest things about this project is that we somehow managed to make everyone on the set more or less friends and acquaintances and get along well and go out for a beer or coffee together at the weekend or drive to the Isar.