Behind the scenes in Hansa, the studio where Mr David Bowie created his Berlin Trilogy.

How Mr David Bowie got his mojo back. The real-life inspiration for “Heroes”. Why the East Berlin S-Bahn inspired “The Passenger”. Where the “Lust For Life” drumbeat was nicked from. If you’re looking to sharpen your pub quiz music round credentials, a new documentary on legendary German studio, Hansa, will boost your brain’s back catalogue of rock nitty gritty.

Hansa Studios: By The Wall 1976-90 by filmmaker Mr Mike Christie – to be screened on Sky Arts tomorrow – is about how a production hub at the desolate end of West Berlin overlooking the border with the East became a mecca for rock artists looking to reimagine their sound in the latter decades of the 20th century. But while Hansa has produced a distinctly dark, sonorous quality to work by Depeche Mode, U2 and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the film shows the studio was more than a conduit for sonic reinvention. The rock stars who came to Hansa changed their output, outlook and style in the culturally unique outpost of West Berlin.

It was Mr Bowie who kicked things off in the mid-1970s when, in a fit of fear and loathing in LA, moved to “the most arduous city” he could think of. Finding himself in Cold War-era West Berlin in 1976, he began recording at Hansa Studios, a five-storey concrete block set on wasteland between East and West, where the views included the Wall, “no man’s land” and armed guards in sentry towers on instructions to shoot anyone attempting to escape.

Mr Bowie was on a mission to escape in Berlin. He went relatively incognito there; he did not want to be his most recent persona, the Thin White Duke, anymore. As the archival shots in Hansa Studios illustrate, this Mr Bowie was the artist dressing down. He worked with music minimalist Mr Brian Eno on the first of his Berlin trilogy, Low and the album’s stripped-back aesthetic was echoed in Mr Bowie’s new, simple silhouette of slim-fit blouson leather jacket and denim jeans (no shirt included).

Mr Bowie shared a flat with his friend Mr Iggy Pop. A man famously unfamiliar with shirts, Mr Pop was a livewire and electric performer, as the Hansa film’s footage of his debut solo album, The Idiot, attests. A deeply influential record, Mr Pop made The Idiot dressed in a boxy biker leather jacket, Ray-Bans and slim jeans, classic rock star style that’s enjoyed similar legacy since. In their downtime, Mr Bowie and Mr Pop disappeared into Berlin life. Wrapped up against the German winter in lined bomber jackets, boots and brogues, they found inspiration in the Brücke-Museum of expressionist art and nightclubbing in libertarian West Berlin.

If Berlin resonated deeply with Mr Bowie and Iggy Pop, they repaid the favour in kind. The musicians helped put the city back on the map culturally and Hansa, which previously had been seen as a production factory for Germany’s most embarrassing musical genre, cheesy Schlager pop, became a magnet for local and internationals bands looking to reinvigorate their sound and vision.

Hansa Studios: By the Wall 1976–90 is on Sky Arts, 10 January at 9.00pm

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