Markets. Who doesn’t love them?
Stocks, fleas, Christmas, so many things to buy! But none scratch quite the same itch as the Helper’s Market here at the HSLU.
What’s for sale here, you may ask? Experience. The third years and master students, who by now are hard at work with their graduation projects, show us what they’ve been cooking all this time. They get up on stage, show their animatics and tell us how students and alumni alike can sign up to help their projects come true.
I can’t talk about these projects in detail just yet, so I decided to interview the third years and get the scoop on the behind-the-scenes process. The nitty gritty stuff. What do they do when the teachers aren’t looking? How do they organize themselves? What’s their favourite colour?
So join me as I get down to brass tacks with members from the upcoming «Gahts no Lang?» and the team behind «Weird Receptionist».

How has it been like organizing, scheduling, and working on a project of this scale?

«It‘s equally exciting as scary sometimes. On the one hand you get to spend a year trying to make your ideas come to life, on the other you have to commit to them for an entire year.
It‘s also been a big joy working with a new constellation of the sweetest people who also happen to be amazing artists!»

Sven Kristlbauer, director of «Gahts no Lang»

«I would say I don‘t really think about it that way, it is just the next step. We did short projects, then a 6 month one and this one is a year. That is a step but there will be more of these! But it is truly amazing.»

Marion Zeder, Gahts no Lang

«Probably a bit different for every team but for us it was the most stressful at the start (might be because of the nature of our movie, which had no defined story at the beginning).
Once we had the story set, it became way easier but was still a lot to handle with all the meetings and deadlines. Most teams we talked to were agreeing with us on it being stressful due to having a lot of things going on at the same time.
Now that we are in/transitioning into the production phase, where we know what we want the project to be like, it has become quite chill, and we are having a lot of fun.»

Sina Lerf, Dario Marti & Dario Boger, a.k.a. Team Reception

Any unexpected challenges so far?

«This is the first time I‘ve been directing a group of people on my own, which sometimes means I spend a lot of time putting ideas into words to get them across to all the people involved. Being the director also means making a lot of decisions, which is very fun and creatively fulfilling, but also daunting at times.»

Sven

«Having to organize a lot, plan for other people than me or the 3 of us and include having to make interviews and decisions about people that are way more talented than us in their own field.»

Marion

«Idea finding…
As stated before, we might be a little edge case, but we had a hard time of figuring out our story. We had the world, and we knew what we wanted as a rough outline for the story – a reception and crazy guests. But having to write a story while having already a pretty clear image on the setting/the frame was way harder than expected.
We ran in circles for almost 2 months straight, building a story, reworking it, salvaging the parts we liked and restarting again (might not have been of much help that we got a lot of conflicting feedback, too).»

Team Reception

The bachelor film is a big project. What drove you to tell this story?

«Real life experience and the fact that people are very weird (not in a bad way) and that the resulting interactions are fun :)»

Team Reception

«Sven pitched this idea. He‘s the director and writer and I personally just felt like I could relate a lot to the topic and story. Also, visually it is a very cool style, I really wanted to be part of this!»

Marion

«I just hate driving and love toy designs from the 2000s to be honest.»

Sven

Was there anything you learnt from working on previous projects (1BA, Idents, etc.) that you brought over to this one? (Work ethics, communication, skills, anything you can think of!)

«Phew a lot to be honest, you always learn stuff for future projects! I did some 3D blocking for the ident to help with the more complicated perspective stuff. And I did an internship in the 4th semester that taught me a lot about TV Paint and animating in general. Those two things helped in a major way I guess :)»

Sven

«Communication is key. You don‘t have to speak 100% of your mind, but if you are part of a group and something is bothering a team member or making it hard for all, people need to talk and figure out how to go on with it if not fixing it.»

Marion

– How to work in a team
– It matters how you and your teammates vibe with each other 🙂
– Animation doesn’t have to always be done in the perfect way. It can be rougher if the style/story fits it.

«It has to be fun and if the quality suffers a bit under it it’s okay 🙂 It’s a school project in the end (our approach). »

Team Reception

How was your first Helper’s Market like?

«The first helper‘s market was intense, I was interested in a lot of projects, and it was hard to decide, but on the other hand, I didn‘t feel confident enough about what I could do to help, or to ask more tasks, because I was afraid to fail or to do something wrong for someone else‘s project. Intimidated as well as inspired.»

Marion

«It was crazy that we already got to see it from the other side. I felt nervous at first, but seeing the people react to our animatic was very fun. It was kind of the first bigger test screening we had.»

Sven

«Our first Helper’s Market we attended:
Very cool to see what the 3rd years are cooking and what is going on in the 3rd year. Seeing all the projects was inspiring (very nice projects) but at times it would have been fun to give feedback to the movies (but it was too scary o.0)
Our first Helper’s Market we held:
At times it can be weird working on the project, and you lose a bit the perspective of who you are even making this film for. And seeing so many people laughing/enjoying watching the animatic was inspiring and reassuring for us (but also again scary since we have only shown the animatics to people who knew the project from the beginning… but also scawwy)
So all in all the Helper’s Market for us was fun to attend (seeing our classmates current state of the project was also a nice bonus)»

Team Reception

Is there any piece of advice you wish you could tell your younger self?

«I don‘t really know. I worked a lot to make progress. Maybe too much. Have more rest and keep some free time to enjoy with friends, family or anyone that matters to you!» – Marion
«Be ready for the pitch of your idea. Have at least a general plan of how the story could unfold, doesn’t have to be the final version but any guideline for entering preproduction helps. (this comes from us suffering for 2 months because we were struggling finding a coherent story that implemented all the things we wanted)»

Team Reception

«Worry less.»

Sven

And lastly, what’s your favourite colour?

«Oof, I don’t know. Blue maybe?»

Sven

«I like Coral. Or Turquoise. Or purple. Is it a real question after all? (I can‘t pick I want to use them all)

Marion

«#8777E6 #E37D5B #5BA8E3
ik we are just too funny»

Team Reception

There you have it! The Helper’s Market is just one out of many milestones the third years have to reach on their way to a finished film. To get out there and tell a story takes guts, but it takes a village to finish it. Storyboards, animatics, scripts, voice acting, soundtracks, sound design, rough animation, clean-up, colours, backgrounds, compositing…

The amount of people involved in these productions is huge, and to be given the chance to participate in these crazy projects is a huge honour. I wish the third years well and I can’t wait to see the finished films.

It’s been a long semester. Us first years have wrapped up our final projects for the semester after having had a taste of 2D, CGI and Stop Motion. Meanwhile, the second years have wrapped up something even bigger… an ident for Adult Swim!

Usually, these presentations happen at the end of the semester (hence the name «Semester End Presentation») but this time, they were hosted a week before the final deadline so everyone could get a little extra feedback they could try implementing with the time they had left (or for their future projects even).

This year, we’ve got a huge variety of amazing films, ranging from the cute and sweet to the macabre and weird. If you wish to see them yourself, they’ll be screened at the International Trickfilm Festival of Animated Film (ITFS for short) in Stuttgart, alongside other animated films from the Bachelor’s and Master’s programs.

Apocalypse Playset

First one was «Apocalypse Playset» (dir. Markley Cahn von Seelen, Mykolai Filevych, Alain Fleury, Ole Niemann, Jeongeun Park), a charming CGI/live-action ident in the style of a toy commercial. Everything from the cute gardens with perfectly vertical vegetables to the evil mutant rats was stylized with a plastic sheen to really sell that toy look. One of my favourite details were the monitors in the background of some shots. They were modelled after glued-on stickers! Growing up with Legos, I’m used to the occasional decal one would have to carefully place during builds every now and then and small touches like these really help convince you this is a real toy commercial.

But you might be wondering «wait, this all sounds very CGI, didn’t you say this had live action elements?» Here’s the kicker, there was a live-action hand that was green screened into the animation to interact with the toys!

Personally, I’m a bit biased because my girlfriend played the hand model for this one – one day they just approached her while she was washing dishes in the animation kitchen and said, «Pretty hands there, wanna help?» (I’m paraphrasing here, but it was more or less like this according to her).

Jokes aside, this just goes to show how collaborative and spontaneous the process can be at this school.

Claw Me

Up next came «Claw Me» (dir. Ana Sofía Aillaud Trasviña, Irina Georgiadou, Cheyenne Gia Klossner, Inna Soroka, Ysabel Steiner). I think we’ve all been there, folks. We desperately want a plushie from a claw machine, but it’s slipped away from us. No matter how hard we try, it escapes our grasp!

The idea for the short was born when Cheyenne, the director of this ident, visited Japan. She was inspired by all the arcade cabinets she encountered in her time there and returned to school with new ideas. They clearly resonated with people, because this was easily the largest group of the bunch with five people on board! Due to the size of the group, the teachers encouraged them to go crazy. Go big or go home as they say… and they went BIG, but as one of the members of the project so succinctly put it:

«Dream big, but if you dream big that means you have to work more.» – Irina

This was exemplified with a shot they dubbed “Shot 666”. It’s a crazy perspective shot, and Irina, the storyboard/layout artist, fought hard to keep it in. It required lots of planning and reference footage – but the end result speaks for itself.

One thing I should mention is that after every presentation, the groups would receive individual feedback by each of the teachers and an associate from Adult Swim who was connected via Zoom. This was another of the highlights for me. Being connected to industry professionals from across the globe is very exciting, but what is even more exciting is when they are drinking some kind of mystery sludge on a big cinema screen. Kino.

Zombie Golf

Zombie Golf (dir. Jessica Eugster, Fabian Betschart, Dana-Elena Binică, Gian Widli)  – bam, what a title! Need I say more? It’s zombies golfing in the apocalypse, c’mon! This one was one of my personal favourites. Unlike most idents, this one is a blend between stop-motion and CGI and the behind-the-scenes process for this one was wild.

First, of course, is the stop-motion animation. But, as usual with stop-motion, before you get to the animation part you got to build things first. For this, they decided to build them out of foam latex which involves a very fragile and delicate process involving molds and what not. It was easy to get many imperfections during this, but for zombie puppets this was perfect.

Now that the puppets are ready the team was ready to finally animate but how do you go about making a somewhat seamless blend between two mediums? Very careful planning. Lots of it.

On the CGI side of things there were some challenges too. 3D is finnicky because, for something like this, it’s too perfect. How do you replicate the imperfections of stop-motion in a software that can produce the best, most optimal results? How do you get textures that match the textured realism of stop-motion?

The team tried many things, but it seems like the best solution was the simplest. After getting nowhere trying to replicate the textures of the stop-motion set, they tried taking a picture of the set and using that as a texture… and it worked! To quote one of the team members:

«Keep it simple, stupid.»

Simple solutions such as colour grading or adding film grain in post-production worked wonders to blend both styles, giving more credence to this simple wisdom.

Dinner Date

If you had your fill with the man-eating zombies then wait till you get the bill with the next ident, «Dinner Date» (dir. Iara De Jong Goncalves, Anna Müller) . We’ve all been in bad dates before. Don’t you sometimes wish you could bite their heads off? This is what the duo behind this ident sought to answer with their quirky yet gory homage to the UPA style of animation.

They were faithful in trying to replicate the look of cel animation, going to great lengths to ensure its authenticity. The ident was formatted in 4:3 instead of the standard 16:9, the quality of the video had been slightly blurred, as if recorded from an old VHS tape but Jürgen Haas, a veteran from the era and the lead of the animation department, pointed out some slight inaccuracies. Guess you can’t fool a trained eye.

For these idents, the school collaborates with the music department of the «Zurich University of the Arts» to provide music as well as «Speech Academy» who bring the characters to life with their voice acting. The music in this short was definitely a standout with how jazzy it was but also due to the slight horror undertones they managed to sneak in as the ident ramped up to its bloody finale.

A funny anecdote the team shared with us was the fact that everybody at Speech Academy wanted to voice the femme fatale protagonist «Lily Mantis», yet no one wanted to voice her smarmy and pathetic date, «Chris Fly».

As a little gift, the team ordered some stickers based on the short, including one for Chris Fly! Perhaps we can give him the love he (doesn’t really) deserve.

The Legendary Treasure

«The Legendary Treasure» (dir.  Benjamin Gilli, Emanuel Strehler, Jiani Fei, Jonas Opderbecke, Sina Mazziotta) is a fun take on Indiana Jones and Greek Mythology. An intrepid adventurer runs for his life, chased by a giant creature, dodging past spikes and fire and what not.

The style for this ident was inspired by contemporary 3D projects such as Spider-Verse and, primarily, Arcane. As the other big group of five, they decided to go big too, trying to give their own spin to the show’s iconic style.

But before they get to that they have to model their stars first. The monster wasn’t much trouble however the human was quite the adventure to get right. Making a stylized human was more difficult than expected. He often slipped into the uncanny valley and getting the texturing done for him was quite difficult.

At first, the team tried experimenting with some procedural shaders to get the painterly look but just like the artist behind Arcane, they had to resort to painting everything by hand.

Something that was nice to see were the various team building activities they did outside of animating. They visited adventure rooms (though there was no legendary treasure at the end of these), shared snacks and just overall seemed like they had a great time.

Los Limpiadores

Next group was «Los Limpiadores» (dir. Mártin Alfredo Allmendinger, Tifany Perera, Marija Simovic), an ident about two cleaners suddenly forced to face an extraterrestrial creature. The film was a kind of ode to the wonderful janitors at our school who face an even scarier monster than the one in the ident… the wacky shenanigans of a school full of art students. Makes me shudder to even think about it.

Again, a little bit biased here due to myself being involved in this one as the voice of one of the janitors. Just like the other collaboration with the second years, this one was very spontaneous. I was just asked randomly by one of the team members while on the bus and well, the rest is history. Now my screams of terror as I try to fight off a horror beyond my comprehension will be immortalized forever.

Development on this film wasn’t as smooth as some of the others, given that it had over a dozen different animatics. It was a tough road to reach a vision the entire team agreed upon. They had to wrangle new software and faced technical difficulties with the old ones they knew, but by the end their hard work paid off.

Open Wide

«Open Wide» (dir. Jérémie Jayraj Itty, Mona Joana Gassner, Suwoo Kim, Viktoriia Vasylets) was, well, what other way to put it other than widely beloved among my classmates. A rugged, (and dare I say sexy?) pilot flying through the skies is suddenly caught in a storm! His engine catches on fire, his airplane nosedives on a sure path directly to the cold, harsh seas but then… a baby!?

It’s fairly simple story that works well, subverting expectations on a dad feeding his baby some food, pretending it’s a little plane so the baby actually eats it.

The team made a point to put communication and a healthy work ethic as a key part of their group’s core. They took care of each other, set ground rules, made sure they were getting enough sleep, all to ensure a good working environment.

The ident used a blend of CGI and 2D in a subtle way. The airplane itself was animated in Blender and essentially rotoscoped in 2D later down the pipeline. Work smarter, not harder, folks.

Don’t tell anyone, but my sources (the director himself, SHH!) told me that his laptop broke down mid-production. One day we were at his place playing games on it, the next the screen wouldn’t turn on anymore. With no cloud backups of any sort, it seemed like a chunk of their ident had gone missing! Luckily, he managed to get it fixed. Phew! A good reminder to back up project files on the school’s servers or a personal cloud storage. Or both, probably both is good.

Even though the team had a healthy work ethic it was still hard for them to stay healthy in the physical sense. During the presentation they showed this humorous slide ranking how often a member of the team got sick. Except for one member who outstood them all… The Mighty Suwoo.

Everyone tried learning new things during the production of the ident and they all seemed pleased with themselves by the end of the project. Personally, I learnt something new too, as Jürgen gave some surprisingly detailed feedback on the design of the plane. What kind of life has he led as to know so much about planes…?

Space Girls

«Space Girls» (dir. Mélina Bron, Yuliia Bykova , Daniel Neto Dias) is about space divas competing with each other in a dancing game, only to lose to someone who’s not even trying. If you’ve ever played Just Dance you might find this one relatable.

Heavily inspired by a captivating Y2K aesthetic mixed with a retro futuristic style from the 70s, this ident is seriously stylish. You can gleam a lot from its inspirations from Sailor Moon, Bratz to that Angelina Jolie fish from Shark Tale, they really made sure to go all the way to nail down the vibe.

As mentioned earlier, there is a collaboration with the ZhDK for these idents and the filmmakers here used it to their full advantage. They went from a song that «sounded like a The Weeknd song» to an instrumental that feels like it could’ve been lifted straight out of a Britney Spears album.

The animated dance choreography is nothing short of impressive, though sadly, this short wasn’t finished yet at the time of the presentation, and two of the three people in the team were now in an exchange in Singapore. I hope they manage to finish the ident despite the differing time zones because just like the space girls, it has the potential to be a star.

Fastest Way to Bingo

And at last but not least we have «Fastest Way to Bingo» (dir. Julia Flor Estrada Torres, Touka Fatemi, Della Miranda, Jiwoo Yoon), a fully stop-motion animated ident about a grandma who’s dead set on arriving to bingo as fast as possible, even if it means trespassing the law…

Anything that is stop-motion is like catnip to me. As someone who experienced it during my studies here, I have nothing but respect to those that are dedicated enough to commit to it. There is a ridiculous amount of work involved in making a stop motion film and just hearing them talk about their production had me and others reminiscing about our own time down in the «mines» (our «affectionate» name for the Blackbox where the stop-motion films are shot).

The team had complications building the puppets as Touka showed us pictures of the handful (heh) of hands she made for the main character, only to realize they didn’t really need them. Though some parts of the process were hard, others were sped up significantly by using new techniques such as laser cutting, used in the final film to create an authentic looking metal bridge.

The look of the ident was very grounded, therefore the main subway set had to match as well. As the set designer talked about the challenges of building miniature, tiled, ceramic walls some of my classmates groaned empathetically as the memories of doing the exact same thing for their own film returned to them.

All teams made some excellent projects! Their presentations, detailing the process behind each ident, were an excellent way for us first years to learn from.

So… what did we learn?

Dream big!

Communicate!

Foster a healthy work ethic!

Plan ahead. Do LOTS of planning ahead.

Maybe for next time they’ll get another first year to write about me and my classmates’ very own SEP.

P.S. And if she’s reading… Love you, Kathy! (Hope this ages like wine and not like milk haha…ha)

Das Annecy Animationsfestival kann man sich so vorstellen: Es ist ähnlich wie das Fantoche, nur grösser und mit mehr Anime. Annecy ist eine kleine Stadt etwa eine Stunde Busfahrt von Genf entfernt. Für europäische Verhältnisse teuer, aber immer noch günstiger als die Schweiz.

Angekommen in Annecy liefen wir noch mit unseren Koffern gleich zum Festivalzentrum um unsere Pässe zu holen.  Das Gelände ist etwa 10min vom Busbahnhof entfernt und mit den Tickets gibt es auch gleich Rabatt für die ÖV. Zusätzlich erhielten wir noch einen gratis Annecy Rucksack mit etlichen Programmheftchen und Flyern.

Gerade erst angekommen, rannten ein paar von uns schon zu ihren ersten Vorführungen. Hat man Glück und bereits eine Reservation, kann man einfach gemütlich ins Kino laufen, seine Karte scannen lassen und platznehmen (ist alles elektronisch hinterlegt). Hat man noch keine Karte, steht man erst mal an und hofft, dass man noch rein darf. 10min vor Filmbeginn werden dann die Wartenden je nach Anzahl freigebliebener Plätze hereingelassen.

Hier seht ihr ein kurzes Video zum Aufenthalt unserer Klasse in Annecy, gefilmt und geschnitten von Samantha Leung (Danke Samantha!). Das Video fängt die Stimmung des Festivals recht gut ein und führt durch einige Stationen. Aber Bilder sagen mehr als tausend Worte und Videos erst recht, also schaut es euch einfach gleich selbst an!

 

Das Festival besteht aus drei Hauptteilen. Der erste und offensichtlichste Teil  sind natürlich die Filme. Daneben gibt es noch Meetings und den Mifa Campus.

 

Filme

Ob Lag-/ oder Kurzfilm, Experimental oder Kommerz, FSK 6 oder 18 beim Annecy Programm ist für jeden was dabei. Im grossen Pathé Kinokomplex werden die meisten Filme gezeigt. Insgesamt flimmern in 11 Sälen Animationen über den Schirm. Bei den Midnights Specials beim Festivalcenter laufen alternativ zu den neuen Filmen alte Klassiker wie zum Beispiel „Perfect Blue“ und „Akira“. Und wenn man genug von geschlossenen Kinosälen hatte, kann man auch der Wiese platznehmen und sich gemütlich dem Openair Kino hingeben.

Alle der über 500 gezeigten Filme wird niemand schaffen, aber das Niveau jedes einzelnen ist sehr hoch. Am Schluss dieses Blogeintrag findet Ihr noch eine Liste der Filme, welche mir besonders gefallen haben.

 

Meetings

Mein persönlicher Favorit sind die Meetings. Viele wichtige und spannende Infos, guter Tipp für Studenten.

Einfach gesagt sind Meetings Präsentationen zu einem bestimmten Thema von verschiedenen Firmen oder Personen. Hier habe ich ein paar interessante als Beispiel aufgelistet, selber war ich aber nur in dreien davon. Für „Disney“ oder „Glen Keane“  musste man, wenn man rein wollte, sicher mindestens drei Stunden vorher anstehen.

• Chat With Walt Disney Animation Studios: An Interactive Portfolio Workshop
• Glen Keane: Thinking like a Child
• Join The Force: A Chat With ILM Recruitment
• „Rogue One“ a Case Study in Virtual Production
• Guillermo del Toro: Conversation With Guillermo del Toro

 

Mifa Campus

Der Anlass für Networking für Animatoren/-innen die Business machen wollen.

Mit dem Studentenpass konnten wir auch einen Tag in die Mifa. Die Mifa ist ein Treff für verschiedene Firmen und Schulen aus allen Ländern, die sich präsentieren um Werbung zu machen und/oder Leute anzuwerben. Die Bewerbungen erfolgen in der Regel jeweils vor dem Festival, während dem Festival finden aber oft Vorstellungsgespräche statt. Visitenkarte ist an der Mifa ein muss. Es gibt auch viele coole Merchandise-Produkte, wer auf diese aus ist, geht am besten gleich zu Beginn auf die Jagt.

 

 

Was kann man sonst noch machen?

In Annecy gibt es neben Kino, Mifa und Meetings auch noch viele andere Beschäftigungsmöglichkeiten. „Glace essen“, allgemein einfach Essengehen, ein Velo mieten und Studentenparties. Auch gibt es viele interessante Geschäfte, z.B.: Einen kleinen Künstlerladen gleich in der Nähe des Geländes, einen Comicshop (fast alles auf Französisch…), beim Festivalcenter hat es auch einen Artbook/Comic/Movie/Figuren/Fanartikel/alles-mögliche-Laden, perfekt um sich die Zeit zwischen zwei Filmen zu vertreiben!

Und natürlich gaaanz viele andere Studenten, ideal für einen internationalen Austausch. Hierfür gibt es sogar Veranstaltungen von Annecy selbst wie zum Beispiel: „Student Snack Time“ und „Shorts & Breakfast“.

 

Das war’s von Annecy. Alles in Allem hatten wir extrem viel Spass. Das Filmfestival ist empfehlenswert, da es so breit ist, ist für alle was dabei. Probiert es am besten einfach selbst aus. Es ist auf jeden Fall ein Erlebnis für sich.

 

 

Meine Lieblingsfilme

Langfilme

Weiterempfehlen bei den Langfilmen kann ich „Feature Film in Competition 7: Lou Over the Wall“. -Bei diesem Anime geht es um eine Art Meerjungmädchen das auf einen High School Jungen trifft. Ein äusserst „süss“ und „humorvoll“ erzählter Film. Auch empfehlenswert ist der „Feature Film in Competition 5: Loving Vincent“ . Leider konnte ich mir kein Ticket ergattern, aber ich habe nur gutes über den Film gehört. Am Fantoche wird er ebenfalls gezeigt und auch gleich das Making Off dazu!

 

Kurzfilme

Bei den Kurzfilmen ist mir vor allem  „Graduation Films in Competition 2“ ins Auge gestochen. Eine echte Goldgrube an Kurzfilmen wie „Juliette“ und „Garden Party“.

ine persönliche Überraschung für mich war für das Kurzfilmprogramm: Commissionned Films in Competition mit vielschichtigen Videos wie: Giedré „Les Rois des animaux“, „Human Right Explained“, Moby „Are you Lost in the World Like Me?“.

 

 – Leoni Dietrich –

 

 

Der Animationsjahrgang 2016 geht zum Animationsfilmfestival nach Annecy, das grösste Animationsfilmfestival in Europa! Ich habe euch hier ein paar Informationen zusammengestellt, die nützlich sein können für das Festival, manche mehr manche weniger. Ihr könnt sie aber auch gern einfach so lesen um zu erfahren wie wir/ich Annecy erlebt haben.

 

Ticket und Reservation

Das Ticket für die Erstklässler organisiert die HSLU. Zu allererst erhielte wir einen Zugangscode für die Reservation. Das Programm kann man sich schon lange vor der möglichen Reservation ansehen und sich Favoriten zusammenstellen. An einem bestimmten Tag um eine bestimmte Uhrzeit (bei uns war es 15:00h) werden die Plätze für Reservationen freigegeben. Innerhalb weniger Sekunden waren die beliebtesten Filme und Präsentationen ausgebucht. Hierzu muss man aber auch wissen, dass bestimmte Vorführungen bereits vor unserer möglichen Reservationszeit ausgebucht waren, da Leute mit anderen Tickets bereits vorher buchen konnten.

Annecy Tipp Nummer 1: Macht eine Liste und reserviert so schnell ihr nur könnt. Schnelles Internet ist ein muss, macht es nicht auf dem Schulserver, so wie 90% unserer Klasse…

Habt ihr aber keine Reservation, so könnt ihr immer noch vor Ort anstehen um in den Film zu kommen und hoffen, dass eine Reservation frei wird. Beim Annecy Campus habt ihr Internetzugang.

 

Anreise und Unterkunft

Mitte Juni sind wir mit dem ganzen zweiten Semester der Animation und ein paar Viertsemestlern nach Annecy zum Filmfestival gefahren.

Wer Geld sparen will kümmert sich am besten um ein Gruppenbillet, bei uns war das die gute alte Rhoda, herzlichen Dank an dieser Stelle. Insgesamt haben wir 15 Euro für Hin-und Rückreise gezahlt. Und auch bei der Unterkunft heisst es: je früher desto besser. Wir haben uns in Gruppen in verschiedenen Hotels platziert, eine Jugendherberge für alle wäre natürlich noch besser gewesen. Jedoch haben wir uns trotzdem immer wieder angetroffen. Annecy ist zwar grösser als das Fantoche aber immer noch übersichtlich und wir hatten ja Internet.

–Leoni Dietrich–

 

Beitragsbild: Annecy Poster gestaltet von: Kevin Manach und Ugo Bienvenu beide Gobelins Alumnis

Nach ca. 40 eingereichten Bewerbungen für Work-experience und 4 optimistisch klingenden Antworten, (hallo berühmte 10% Marge!) fanden schliesslich 2 ihren Weg in die Realität. Aus 2 Wochen bei RAMJAM wurde 1 Monat, da sich eine dritte Platzierung in Luft auflöste, nachdem ihre einzig laufende Produktion auf Eis gelegt wurde. Angefangen habe ich in Brighton, bei der kleinen 2-Kopf-Firma Ramjam. Dort kam ich rechtzeitig an, um an einem no-budget Musikvideo die Animationen der Menschen zu übernehmen. Somit waren meine Tage gefüllt mit dem Zeichnen von Gangstern, reichen Drogendealern, korrupten Polizisten und Prostituierten. Obwohl ich nicht viel dazulernen konnte über technische Aspekte, hatte ich dort viel Zeit, um mich in TVPaint-Animieren zu üben und wieder mal richtig Figurenzeichnen zu können.

Das zweite Placement war dann ausserhalb von Bristol, in der Modellbauwerkstatt von Aardman, an der Produktion von der “Shaun the Sheep” Serie. Es sind jeweils zwei Praktikanten anwesend, alle zwei Wochen kommen Frische an den Start. Dies bedeutet, dass man hauptsächlich kleinere Aufgaben bekommt, die austauschbar durchgeführt werden können. Gussnähte an Armen/Beinen/Ohren von Schafen wegsanden, Drähte drehen und mit Epoxy fixieren, Silber-löten lernen, Schafe nach einem Dreh putzen und kaputte Teile ersetzen, Gussformen reinigen und – nach ein Paar Tagen – auch selbst giessen dürfen. Spannend war der Einblick in die Produktionsweise einer Serie, wo ständig Ersatzteile bereit sein müssen und an neuen Figuren & Sets vorzu gebastelt und designt wird. Von der Arbeitsweise her, unterscheidet sich gar nicht so viel von unseren Möglichkeiten an der Schule, ausser natürlich in Umfang und Tempo! Neben der Modellbauwerkstatt (wo nur Figuren hergestellt werden) gibt es noch eine Props-Abteilung, wo alles auf dem Set – ausser die Figuren – herkommt, von mini-Cupcakes, Bäumen und Traktoren bis zu Bademänteln und winzig-kleine Brillengestelle!
An den Sets (die bis zu 5mx5m gross werden konnten!) durfte man, je nach Animator, beim Animieren zusehen und Fragen stellen. Erstaunlich war für mich die Feststellung, dass selten mehr als eine Person an einem Set animiert, selbst wenn eine Herde von 20+ Schafen übers Gras stürmt!

Generell kann ich allen empfehlen, die Arbeitserfahrung im Ausland suchen, sich genug Zeit einzurechnen wenn man mal dort ist, und ruhig auch nochmals Studios anfragen wenn man im Land ist. Viele sind offen für ein Besuch oder ein Gespräch, wenn man sich danach erkundigt. Oft wissen Studios auch erst einige Wochen im Voraus, was tatsächlich zu tun ist, und brauchen dann spontan Hilfe.

Danke Jane

I just released a keyframemapper plugin for shake osx – a swiss army knife for keyframe mapping. You can get it here or on highend3d.com .

I developped it in the first place to be able to fit the changements in parameters to our cartoon renderings and stop motion animations after retiming. I still have the script that converts the cambridge animations animo dopesheet to shake script …

Let me know if yo like it, if it is useful to you or if you have any suggestions to it.

See some basic concepts of lightning nicely explained on lowel.

Vor drei Jahren stellte sich das EU-geförderte Projekt MIDAS der Herausforderung, Bestandsinformationen von 18 Filmarchiven aus ganz Europa zusammenzuführen und zentral online zugänglich zu machen. Jetzt ist das einmalige Vorhaben geschafft. Bislang können rund 25.000 Filmwerke schnell und direkt im Internet recherchiert werden.

I feared I’ll have to sell my 5122 for a few bucks – but now it’s back.

Update: While talking about retro things, maybe it’s worth mentioning the impossible project.

Imagine you work for years on your movie and nobody sees it – *Autsch*. Unfortunately it happens more often than you imagine – even with good films. So take action and release it eighter on The Pirate Bay or read the Lux Distribution Guide and give your work some audience.

Animata is an open source real-time animation software, designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances. It somehow remembers me the Aftereffects Puppet Tool, mixed with the random arboretum for processing. Give it a try and share your results.

Reverse Shadow Theatre from gabor papp on Vimeo.