Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 26, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Producers and directors Reinhard Klooss & Holger Tappe (Constantin Film and Ambient Entertainment) offered a first look at the feature film due to open in autumn through a making-of presentation. More than three years of preparation were invested. For over two years alone, an average of around 60 employees at Hanover animation studio Ambient Entertainment worked on the complex stages of image creation – from character and production design through the storyboard, digital setups, previsualisation models, animation, camera and lighting design, textures and so on, up to rendering the image. Around 50 speaking creatures appear in the film in total.
“Animals United” is an adaptation of Erich Kästner’s story, although it was adapted to today’s storytelling expectations and is set in Africa,” said Klooss, who was also responsible for the screenplay. The geography in the animated film is defined by the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Around 10 minutes of exclusive material were presented. Thanks to shutter glasses from partner zweiB, the audience was able to enjoy this world premiere in stereo 3D. “However, we could only make the final decision for 3D in mid-2009,” says Reinhard Klooss. “We had to make sure that enough 3D screens would even be available a year later. But because it could be assumed that James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ would turn the entire cinema world upside down, we dared to take this step.”
The film was supported by the German Federal Film Fund, nordmedia Fonds GmbH, the State of Lower Saxony/N Bank, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern and the German Federal Film Board.
Making of Iron Man S3D
The VFX specialists at Trixter are also active in stereoscopy. Using the Hollywood blockbuster Iron Man, which the Munich company was working on at the time, Michael Coldewey explained the process of converting two-dimensional source material to S3D. “Converting 2D to 3D always means a compromise on numerous levels,” Michael Coldewey explained. The shots had to be completely taken apart to achieve a clean result. A selected scene from the successful cinema hit showed that the Munich team had done this well. Coldewey also noted that there were two directions: one was to make VFX generally S3D-capable. The other task was to convert all the old films. “Home entertainment will be there by the end of 2012 at the latest,” he predicted. Entire archives would need to be converted by then.
VFX for “Black Forrest still”
Sebastian Weidner and Florian Decker (PICTORION das werk) showed the individual digital components of the “Black Forrest still” commercial for manufacturer Peterstaler Mineralquellen GmbH. The project was completed in only four weeks of production, while pre-production took three weeks. A small anecdote, albeit one with major consequences: the company and its water come from the Black Forest. At the time scheduled for the shoot, however, it was winter there, so the production was promptly moved to New Zealand. This was not always easy, as the equipment had to be transported by helicopter to locations that were often somewhat inaccessible, as the presented making-of scenes showed. Only in this way could untouched locations, as later seen in the commercial, be captured on film.
The team always followed the credo “What can be shot should also be shot.” This was initially attempted with the ivy covering the models. But attaching real ivy to cords did not achieve the desired effect in reality, so the winding ivy tendrils ultimately grew on powerful workstations after all. Apart from that, however, PICTORION had to run particle simulations for the pollen, track the butterfly’s flight path using a model in order to obtain the CG camera later, animate its flights, and much more. The presentation provided exciting insights into the shoot and production. Both commercials can be seen at http://www.blackforest-still.de.
“D:SF becomes Sport1” and Moon Man
Stephan Persdorf and Marcel Kuus spoke about the on-air design of broadcaster “Sport1”. Their impressive clips showed that brandsome had succeeded perfectly in creating a new brand with the broadcaster and enabling its establishment as a new multimedia brand across different media. “The on-air logo was the measure of all things,” Persdorf explained. The logo can be quickly adapted to the many on-air format packages for infotainment, sports formats and so on.
Former HFF Munich graduate Stephan Schesch (Schesch Filmkreation) used the 15-minute animatic of Tomi Ungerer’s “Moon Man” to show that a classically drawn 2D film can still fascinate today. Six storyboard artists told the basic framework of the story. The special feature: Schesch approached the film from the language first and had the actors speak without the film. Completely unfamiliar at first, an immense creative process then developed, Schesch explained enthusiastically. The film is intended to open in cinemas on November 28, 2011 – Tomi Ungerer’s 80th birthday. “But perhaps we will remain a little ahead or behind, depending on what Pixar is planning,” Schesch joked in conclusion.
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