Today's words · 🎥 Filming & actors
Lights, camera, Deutsch: 10 words from the film set
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After today, those end credits will start to make sense.
Walking through Berlin, you find a street blocked off with huge lights and a camera crew. Someone says Hier wird ein Film gedreht! — but doesn't drehen mean ‘to turn’?
Today's ten words take you onto the film set: actors, directors, lead roles, scenes, scripts and more. With them you can chat about your favourite films and actors in German. 🎬
📋 The ten words at a glance
- der Schauspieler — actor
- der Regisseur — (film or stage) director
- die Rolle — role, part; roll
- die Hauptrolle — leading role, lead
- die Szene — scene; (particular) scene, milieu
- drehen — to turn, to rotate; to shoot (a film)
- filmen — to film
- die Kamera — camera
- das Drehbuch — screenplay, script
- die Besetzung — cast; occupation; filling (of a post)
🧠 Words, examples and memory tricks
der Schauspieler
[SHOW-shpee-ler]actor(Pl. die Schauspieler (f: die Schauspielerin))
📌 Mein Lieblingsschauspieler ist Koreaner.
→ My favorite actor is Korean.
💡 schauen (watch) + Spiel (play) = someone in a play you watch 🎭
Bonus a female actor = die Schauspielerin
der Regisseur
[reh-zhee-SER](film or stage) director(Pl. die Regisseure (f: die Regisseurin))
📌 Der Regisseur hat für seinen Film einen Preis gewonnen.
→ The director won an award for his film.
💡 Borrowed from French 🎬 Say the g softly, like the s in ‘measure’.
⚠ Don't say Direktor — that's a head teacher or company director.
die Rolle
[ROLL-uh]role, part; roll(Pl. die Rollen)
📌 Geld spielt keine Rolle.
→ Money doesn't matter.
💡 Actors once got their lines on a roll of paper — hence role 📜
Bonus It doesn't matter = Das spielt keine Rolle.
die Hauptrolle
[HOWPT-roll-uh]leading role, lead(Pl. die Hauptrollen)
📌 Wer spielt die Hauptrolle in dem Film?
→ Who plays the lead in the film?
💡 Haupt (main) + Rolle = lead role ⭐ Same Haupt as in Hauptbahnhof!
Bonus a supporting role = die Nebenrolle
die Szene
[STSAY-nuh]scene; (particular) scene, milieu(Pl. die Szenen)
📌 Die letzte Szene im Film war sehr traurig.
→ The last scene of the film was very sad.
💡 From Greek skēnē (tent, stage) 🎞️ The sz sounds like ‘sts’.
Bonus to make a scene = eine Szene machen
drehen
[DRAY-en]to turn, to rotate; to shoot (a film)(dreht – hat gedreht)
📌 Dreh den Schlüssel bitte zweimal nach links.
→ Turn the key twice to the left, please.
💡 Old film cameras were cranked by hand 🎥 Turning the handle = shooting the film.
Bonus to shoot a film = einen Film drehen
filmen
[FIL-men]to film(filmt – filmte – hat gefilmt)
📌 Er filmt das Konzert mit dem Handy.
→ He's filming the concert on his phone.
💡 Film + -en = to film 📱 Perfect for recording a gig on your phone.
⚠ For making a feature film, Germans usually say einen Film drehen.
die Kamera
[KAH-meh-rah]camera(Pl. die Kameras)
📌 Meine Kamera ist kaputt.
→ My camera is broken.
💡 Latin camera = ‘room’ 🏠 Actors stand vor der Kamera, directors hinter der Kamera.
das Drehbuch
[DRAY-bookh]screenplay, script(Pl. die Drehbücher)
📌 Das Drehbuch basiert auf einer wahren Geschichte.
→ The screenplay is based on a true story.
💡 drehen (shoot) + Buch (book) = the shooting book 📒 The script!
Bonus screenwriter = der Drehbuchautor / die Drehbuchautorin
die Besetzung
[buh-ZET-soong]cast; occupation; filling (of a post)(Pl. die Besetzungen)
📌 Der Film hat eine tolle Besetzung.
→ The film has a great cast.
💡 Same family as besetzt (occupied) on toilet doors 🚻 Each role gets someone ‘seated’ in it.
⚠ It can also mean military occupation, so you'll see it in history texts.
🇩🇪 A spoonful of German culture
Babelsberg studios in Potsdam are among the oldest large film studios in the world. Films have been made there since the 1910s, and international productions still shoot there today.
Every February Berlin hosts its international film festival, the Berlinale. Members of the public can buy tickets too, so it's worth a visit if you love cinema.
Foreign films and series are usually dubbed into German, and well-known actors often have their own regular German voice. To see the original, look for OV (original version) or OmU (original with German subtitles) in cinema listings. 🍿
✅ Quick quiz
Q. Your friend points at an actor on a film poster. How do you say he's the star of the film?
- ① Das Drehbuch ist von ihm.
- ② Er spielt die Hauptrolle.
- ③ Er dreht den Schlüssel.
Show the answer
② Er spielt die Hauptrolle.
die Hauptrolle spielen means to play the lead role.
Think of a film you love and fill in out loud: Der Regisseur ist … and Die Hauptrolle spielt … Next movie chat, try it in German! 🎬
🔜 Tomorrow's topic: 📡 TV & broadcasting