Music Video, Commercial and AI Director in Munich

Munich at a glance

Munich has a strong agency and corporate base and a full studio lot just outside the city. Bavaria Studios, at Geiselgasteig in Grünwald, has 14 stages in its Munich lot, the largest around 3,150 square metres, and Film Commission Bayern, part of the regional fund FFF Bayern, is the first call for locations and permits across the state.

music videos in Munich

Munich has its own chapter in pop history: Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" was cut at Musicland Studios, deep inside the Arabella high-rise in Bogenhausen, where Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte ran their sessions. The city is also home to ECM, the label Manfred Eicher founded here in 1969, which has since released more than 1,700 albums. On the classical side, the Munich Philharmonic plays the Isarphilharmonie, a hall of about 1,900 seats at the Gasteig HP8 site in Sendling that opened in October 2021.

commercials in Munich

The agency and client side is strong: Serviceplan, which calls itself Europe's largest independent creative agency, runs its House of Communication headquarters here, and BMW Group keeps its corporate headquarters, one of its biggest plants and its research and innovation centre in Munich. Bavaria Studios rents stages and provides set construction, props, costumes and post-production, so studio-based spots can be built and finished on one lot.

locations and light

Film Commission Bayern points producers to city looks such as the English Garden and Nymphenburg Palace, and works with film regions like Tegernsee-Schliersee and Berchtesgaden for Alpine and lake scenery. State palaces from Nymphenburg to Neuschwanstein are handled by the Bavarian Palace Administration, which wants written requests at least ten working days ahead, usually allows interiors only outside opening hours and does not issue weekend permits.

working in Munich

On public streets and in municipal green spaces, permits come from the city's Servicebüro Film, part of the Mobility Department (Mobilitätsreferat). Small shoots that stay on sidewalks and pedestrian zones, with no more than five people and handheld or shoulder cameras plus at most one camera on a tripod, need no permit, but places such as the Viktualienmarkt and the Theresienwiese always do.

Film office: Film Commission Bayern (FFF Bayern).

Germany's federal DFFF rebate, run by the German Federal Film Board (FFA), pays up to 30% of eligible German production costs, but only for feature-length films with a German cinema release, so commercials and music videos do not qualify.

Time zone: Central European Time (UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer).

Munich Airport (MUC) is the city's international airport.

AI-led and hybrid pieces can be developed remotely, with a live shoot in Munich only where the idea needs one.