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IB/E's 'Freyung' headquarters will soon be joined by 'Los Angeles'. Not only is this the second time that cinematographers have been honored with the Oscar whose tools of the trade - the camera - were equipped with lens sets from IB/E Optics and were able to deliver spectacular scenes, most recently James Friend for “All quiet on the Western Front”. A branch of IB/E is also planned in California. Founder and Managing Director Klaus Eckerl (63) also plans to be there frequently. On the one hand because of the beautiful weather in California, but above all to be closer to the professionals and find out what they need.

2016 was the first time in Freyung: Emmanuel Lubezki was awarded the Oscar for Best Cinematographer for his spectacular images in “The Revenant” with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, and this was the first time that the high-precision optics from the Bavarian Forest were used to great effect. The client was the Munich-based professional camera manufacturer ARRI, which had the optics, i.e. the lenses, for its “Alexa 65” developed by Klaus Eckerl and his team at IB/E and manufactured in the factory under clean room conditions.

“Like brushes and paint for the painter”

IB/E had 21 employees back then. Today, seven years later, there are 60 - and an Oscar has been added. In “Nothing New in the West”, cinematographer James Friend captured oppressive images of the brutality of war, for which he not only had the ARRI Alexa 65 in his luggage, but also the “TRIBE7”, “his favorite lens”, KlausEckerl is proud to say.

lens innovation bears his company's name. IB/E is one of the seven investors - hence the seven numbers - and has developed and produced this new range of lenses. Another investor is camera great Bradford Young (Star Wars, among others).

Eckerl is undoubtedly a technophile. After graduating from high school in Passau, he studied precision engineering in Nuremberg, worked in the field of technical optics and plastic injection molding in Munich for a long time and ventured into self-employment in his home region of Lower Bavaria in 1992. In 2001, he founded the production company IBE optics GmbH, and in 2006 Eckerl received the first patent in the film optics segment. The industry

The industry took notice and was on the lookout when the small company from Freyung received the “Cinec Award” in 2010 for a quality assurance software for lenses.

This was proof of the quality work - and the breakthrough in the film industry. After the optics for Alexa 65, however, development did not stop. “Good for us,” laughs Klaus Eckerl, and explains clearly why good can always become better and more precise: ”You have to imagine that a lens is to the cameraman, i.e. the Director of Photography, DoP, as the brush and paint are to the painter. These people see themselves as artists because they translate the words written in the script into images.” And this personal image must be shown exactly as the DoP sees it in his mind's eye.

According to Eckerl, a lens is mainly made of “aluminum, steel and glass with different properties”, but the focal length, i.e. the format that the camera is able to capture in razor-sharp detail, is the key factor. There are a few “key points” here that make the difference - and this is what IB/E is concerned with. This involves preventing wobbling around the optical axis (image jump) or ensuring that extreme weather conditions do not affect the optics.

Klaus Eckerl admits that he likes to have control over what the artist, i.e. the cameraman, has at his disposal later on: “We can now do everything: from the development of the optics and mechanical design to the coating of the lens elements.” Eckerl talks a lot with the “DoPs”, as he calls the cameramen, listens, wants to deliver what they love: “For years, that was a difficult balancing act.

difficult balancing act for years,” he says, describing the task of combining technical specifications with artistic demands. But he has obviously succeeded, as demand and the use in other blockbusters such as “Planet of the Apes”, “Mission Impossible” or even “Revenant” and “Nothing New in the West” prove.

In addition to film studios and rental companies that equip the productions, a few people, mainly successful professionals, also afford IB/E lenses, a set of twelve of which can cost as much as 270,000 euros. However, customers also include industry (e.g. Krones, Audi, Bosch), which orders optics for research and development in Freyung.

The demands on the workforce, which according to the founder consists mainly of physicists and engineers, but also technical draughtsmen, who IB/E itself trains, are correspondingly high. Despite an exciting field of work and contacts in the glittering world of international film, the boss admits that it is not easy to find so many specialists. Overall, he describes his team as an “international mix” with people from India, Chile, Hungary, Lower Bavaria and the Oberpfalz.

But IB/E is reaching its limits. The current company headquarters were built in 2012 and expanded in 2016. A further extension is not making much progress, first corona put the brakes on the plans, now it's the bureaucracy: “I don't know if I'll live to see it,” says Eckerl, but he is also making “exit” plans and wants to be more present in “LA”, where Klaus is known and appreciated. And he is thinking about his succession. “As I don't have any children, there has to be some way of continuing when I'm no longer there or no longer fit,” he muses about options such as finding investors or a management buy-out, i.e. a takeover by employees.

But the resourceful entrepreneur is still enjoying successes such as the Oscar. He slept through the award ceremony for Emmanule Lubezki in 2016 or didn't watch it because he didn't have his own work on his radar. This time, however, he joined in the excitement and was delighted when the names “James Friend” and “Nothing New in the West” were called out. Has he already said thank you in Freyung? “No, not yet”, says Klaus Eckerl, ‘he certainly hasn't gotten around to it yet - we're a long way away’.