PROFILE

What we do

We create stories, from start to finish, from the original inspiration to the final finished, polished product. We think of ourselves both as creators and as guides, who, together with other creative souls, whether authors, directors or producers, develop and realize projects. We take on roles such as budgeting and casting, and also negotiating and costing with broadcasters and studios. We are reliable partners at all stages, from raising finance to the presentation of the finished piece of work.

WHITEROOM|BLACKROOM is a Showrunner-Company.

What we value

Commitment and tenacity. Care and attention in choosing ideas. If we like an idea, then we commit everything to its realization.
We welcome criticism. We are willing and able to learn from criticism. It helps us improve our work.
We believe in the promotion of quality and in the success of quality.

WHITEROOM|BLACKROOM is a forge of excellence.

Aspects of our work

FORM

We search for original ideas. We like to work with ideas in their pristine form, untouched, as yet, by any particular aim or purpose.
The particular structure of the Internet and the emergence of streaming platforms are enabling new viewing habits, and challenging and diminishing narrow, pigeonhole thinking. This is giving rise to fundamentally new possibilities whose potential is just beginning to unfold.

CONTENT

We look for what characterizes our times. Feeling for the pulse rather than searching for the spirit of the times.
We are concerned with the issues of the day, political, social and private. At the same time, we want to look to look at these issues from a perspective that transcends the present and examines their universality.
All this also affects how we tell the stories.
Our aim is to tell stories set firmly in the here and now but which are nevertheless timeless and universal.

CONSISTENCY

We develop stories with the greatest possible care and attention. We like extremes and so allow our characters to continue their journeys to their (however sweet or bitter) ends. Consistency before constraint. We favor inevitability over what is arbitrary or merely spectacular, and that is what shapes our ideas and the characters we create. In our storylines, too, we create consistency, both narrative and emotional, and we look closely at how those storylines might develop further.
What new tributaries might add their strength to the flow of the narrative river, what obstacles may now make it change its course? What adventures await it next?

IDENTIFICATION

We create characters and cast actors.
What is crucial here is the relationship between the protagonist and the viewers. In a new world of series in which heroes are ever more free and able to develop and are ever more multi-layered, in a world in which their moral compasses are ever more unreliable, it is especially important to create characters in whose motivations viewers can with believe although they are unable to identify with them, characters whose actions the viewer can, in spite of everything, understand.
The setting may be outlandish, the story spectacular, but the characters, no matter how exotic they may at first seem, must be seen to be related to us at some level:  figures onto whom we can project our hopes and fears.
The believability of our characters is a principal goal.

SETTINGS

We search for locations and spaces for our heroes. We choose the places not only because of how they look but because they have a special pertinence – internal or external – to our characters: thoroughly researched external settings or interiors that reflect an inner life. We look for colors, shapes, fabrics, and materials in which to surround and clothe our characters.
The inner and outer worlds should communicate with each other, complement each other and mirror each other.

CUT!

Does that seem too idealistic? Too pretentious? Too naive?

We believe that is a matter of perspective.

We have been active in the world of film and television for 25 years and we know the bitter realities of time pressure, budget limitations, interference from many sides and

Ill-judged compromises. This, though, is the very reason why we recognize the need for a strong sense of direction so that in the end our common goals can be attained, namely: to tell stories that are like food and drink for the viewers, food and drink without which, ideally, they feel they cannot survive.

It is not we who set these standards, but the iconic role models from the history of film and television. Not, we think, a bad compass to steer by.