Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 31, 2012. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
As part of a third-party-funded project, the animated work "The Princess, the Prince and the Green-Eyed Dragon", which was produced for the ZDF series "Siebenstein", won last Monday evening. The children’s film was directed by Jakob Schuh and Bin-Han To, who is currently completing his diploma at the Animationsinstitut.
Studio Soi director Jakob Schuh, who successfully completed his studies at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in 2003, spoke about the film’s creation and success. He was delighted by the award, the recognition given to children’s film and ZDF’s committed editorial work, and Culture Minister Bernd Neumann’s refreshingly clear and demanding words. Above all, after "The Gruffalo", he was pleased that another co-direction with one of his students at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg had found an audience and perhaps approval.
"The Princess, the Prince and the Green-Eyed Dragon" is based on the book by Angelika Glick and presented the filmmakers with considerable challenges: Because of the approaching broadcast date, only six weeks were available to animate the film. Studio Soi normally works on comparable projects for up to six months. The implementation was intended to further highlight the qualities of the book, the anarchic humour and the warmth of the story.
Together with Gottfried Mentor, also an animation diploma student, Schuh and To created the film’s set —Dragon Mountain, Prince Mountain and the deep valley —from simple geometric bodies made of plaster and paper. Details such as the forest and castle were also drawn onto the photographs of the plaster set in a similarly simple visual language. The directors, who come from Bavaria, also gave the story a subtle Bavarian touch in the costume design, music and several turns of phrase. The Bavarian musician Hans Franek was recruited for the tuba-heavy soundtrack, to which Bin-Han To also contributed.
You can watch "The Princess, the Prince and the Green-Eyed Dragon" in full in the Siebenstein media library: http://www.tivi.de/tiviVideos/beitrag/Geschichten/1175070/1457912?view=flash
You can find further winners of the German Short Film Award here.
More information about Studio Soi and the Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction
