Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 1, 2005. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
#Animation Meeting June 30, 2005
It was hot and humid at Munich’s Gasteig cultural centre, yet the Black Box was filled to the last seat. Around 300 visitors crowded in for the four keynotes of the 6th Animation Meeting. Gert Zimmermann from co-organiser Film Tools Consult moderated the event; Prof. Gabriele Goderbauer-Marchner from the second organiser, Mediencampus Bayern, joined later.
“Our goal was to give the audience a broad cross-section of the industry,” Zimmermann explained regarding the choice of keynote speakers.
Bruce Steele and Hector Macleod from the British postproduction house Glassworks started. They used their appearance before a German audience for a broad overview of their work, and the technically elaborate commercials left an impression on the audience. For example, the “hair monsters” from a spot for the shampoo manufacturer “Sunsilk”. The three pests stand for flat, greasy and broken hair and consist entirely of CG. Besides believable modelling and animation, the main problem was letting the creatures interact with the hair of real models.
Visual Effects Supervisor Stephan Trojansky of CA Scanline Production was able to present impressive results in the simulation of natural phenomena. The Munich company’s secret is its self-developed software solutions for fire, water and gases. The FlowLine water-simulation suite thus made it possible to unleash a shark on humanity in an ocean calculated entirely in CG for the RTL project “Shark Alarm on Mallorca”.
Scanline is currently working on the simulation of Hamburg’s flood of the century of 1962. The computer-generated water is intended not only to rage through the streets in a physically correct way but also to carry objects with it. The state of development presented was already very realistic in any case. The next challenges are improved spray interaction, the simulation of the suface tension of water and realistic rain simulations.
Significantly less high-tech is used by Björn Kimminus from the Digital Inquisition: The Berliners produce the “Ersin and Börek Show”. The approximately seven-minute short films in Flash format are characterised by the combination of verbal wit and a deliberately sparse graphic design. Kimminus certainly had the laughs on his side.
As closing speaker, Philip Hahn from Arri had a somewhat difficult time after so much cheerfulness, although the topic was quite exciting: Arri assumes that in the next few years classic film will still be the medium of choice for cinema productions. Based on this premise, Hahn presented Arri’s solutions for the digital-intermediate process. The focus was colour grading, in which he saw irrefutable advantages for digital processing: Whereas colour changes used to be irreversible, digital editing offers the possibility of undoing edits at any time.
At the end of the event, Gert Zimmermann was satisfied in conversation with DP: “The Animation Meeting,” Zimmermann said, “is the best-attended themed event at the Filmfest.”
The next Animation Meeting is already planned for October 26, 2005. From 6 p.m., the industry is to meet at the ICM on the exhibition grounds as part of the Munich Media Days. Zimmermann plans to invite a similarly broad spectrum of speakers again.
Further Links:
- Sunsilk Monsters
Scanline
Ersin and B
Arri Digital Intermediate
