Some time ago we moved “into the countryside”. There are many advantages here (especially at the current time) compared to Cologne, but especially one big disadvantage: extremely slow internet connection. The Telekom website falsely shows a speed of 50 Mbit for our address, which would have been slow, but at least somehow tolerable. however, it turned out that a staggering speed of only 16 Mbit is available. In the meantime, DSL has been canceled thanks to an unlimited LTE rate plan (ca. 200 Mbit). But for that price, we could have gigabit internet via fiber instead.
And now the time has come: a demand survey for fiber internet in Büttgen is currently being conducted, but it is proceeding at a relatively slow pace. The need for fiber is not as great for everyone as it is for us in the area here, since for example there is gigabit cable internet in the village center. Hardly anyone there wants fiber, although there are still many arguments in favor of it. In addition, the statement “I don’t need that, what I have is enough for me” is heard very often, especially here with a very high average age.
So I decided to make a film. I sat down (digitally) with writer and director Patrick Jäschke and we developed a script. Shortly after, I was approached by a representative of the city. The budget was as small as the local bandwidth, but my personal urge for faster internet access was as big as the bandwidth of gigabit fiber. And so it happened that I made the official film about the fiber rollout in Büttgen. Patrick and I developed a concept according to the new circumstances, which deals with one of Büttgen’s passions: cycling. Cycling is deeply rooted here.
Via cycling, analogies are built up to the benefit and common cause for fiber internet. The film is not meant to explain or convince factually. Rather, it is about telling stories. The goal is to evoke emotions so that even people who are not originally interested in switching to fiber, will watch the film because of the people portrayed, the metaphors and thus the messages are nevertheless being communicated. Explanatory films or pure advertising are probably of no interest to them.
The shoot, among other things, in the cycling hall (the Sportforum Büttgen) took place with some well-known Büttgen personalities. Even though we weren’t so lucky with the weather on the second day of shooting, it was fantastic on the day of the shoot for the scenic shots and I was able to capture some very atmospheric pictures. I even had to take out some of the orange in color correction on the shot with the mill, otherwise it would have looked too artificial and no one would have believed that I didn’t turn up the colors. It was indeed such a lovely orange on location.
The result is a film called: “Highspeed and team spirit”, as usual in 4K and with German and English subtitles (the film is embedded from my YouTube account, the film on the city’s page can be found here):
