From Factory Floor to Open Sky – TV Production for Deutsche Welle Euromaxx

Flying Like Lilienthal Once Did – And We Were There

It's just after nine in the morning, the sky over Mecklenburg is wide and blue, and Wolfgang Labudde climbs into his plane. Headphones on, goggles up – and then the Aerolite 120 starts to roll. Cameraman Uwe Schwarze follows it with the camera, Author Stephanie Drescher stands next to Thilda Labudde on the ground, watching her husband lift off. That gaze into the sky – curious, proud, in love with flying – that was the shot we had been waiting for.

For the lifestyle magazine Euromaxx on Deutsche Welle, we travelled to Rothemühl in Pomerania as our special two-person camera team. There, Thilda and Wolfgang Labudde have made their dream a reality, right in the heartland of aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal: in an old factory hall, they build the ultralight aircraft "Aerolite 120" – handcrafted, passionate, with a team of four designers, engineers and mechanics. 125 years after Lilienthal's first gliding flights, the pioneering spirit lives on here.

We filmed over two shooting days: the manufacturing process in the workshop, the distinctive features of the Aerolite design, the open day at Neustadt-Glewe airfield – and of course Wolfgang Labudde himself, taking off, flying and landing. At the Otto Lilienthal Museum in Anklam, we traced the historical roots of this story.

What makes this production so special? Our team size. No large crew pushing through the workshop and making subjects nervous. Just Stephanie with the microphone and Uwe behind the camera – and suddenly people talk the way they really talk. Open, warm, from the heart. That's exactly what makes the difference.