Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 27, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The “Oh Sheep!” project was nominated in the “Best Newcomer Production” category in 2012.
Serious content in a cuddly guise – two flocks of sheep that actually only want to be happy together are rigorously separated from their two shepherds, which leads to a lot of trouble. This is the content of the seven-minute diploma film “Oh Sheep!” by Gottfried Mentor, who completed his animation studies at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy with this project. DIGITAL PRODUCTION interviewed the graduated filmmaker about the making-of process of the animago-nominated work. The film “Oh Sheep!” has already been shown at Siggraph in Los Angeles and is nominated for this year’s animago AWARD in the “Best Newcomer Production” category. Reason enough for the DP to drop by the Film Academy once again and ask Gottfried Mentor (www.gottfriedmentor. de) about his graduation film.
DP: What did you study at the Film Academy? What semester are you in?
Gottfried Mentor: I studied the Film and Media programme, which consists of two years of basic studies and two and a half years of animation studies. “Oh Sheep!” was my diploma film, with which I successfully completed my studies at the Film Academy in March 2012
DP: How did you end up at the Film Academy?
Gottfried Mentor: On the one hand, it was certainly its good reputation that drew my attention to the Film Academy, but I was particularly impressed by the high quality of the films made in Ludwigsburg, which repeatedly caused a stir in the public eye. “Hessi James” (directed by Johannes Weiland), “Das Floß” (directed by Jan Thüring) or “Das Rad” (The Rock, directed by Heidi Wittlinger, Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel) were films that inspired me at the time. On the other hand, I had been working with film myself for a while and had already realised a few smaller projects, including during an internship at the Medienwerkstatt Stuttgart. So it made sense to apply to the Film Academy, which is based in Ludwigsburg, just 20 kilometres from Stuttgart.
DP: Which project did you submit with your application?
Gottfried Mentor: For the application, I submitted a nine-minute stop-motion film, which was initially rejected, even though it had already won a minor award at a festival. I later learnt that some of my fellow students had to apply to the film academy twice before they were accepted. That included me. I shot another three-minute stop-motion film in my living room at home, with which I was then admitted to the entrance exam a year later. In the entrance exam itself, in addition to an intensive discussion with the Film Academy jury, I had to make another short film on a specific task within 72 hours. I succeeded and was finally accepted.
DP: How did you come up with the idea for “Oh Sheep!”?
Gottfried Mentor: The idea for “Oh Sheep!” was initially preceded by a few personal questions that centred on the topics of tolerance, prejudice, religious-political fanaticism and manipulation in the broadest sense. I was particularly interested in how hatred arises among people and the extent to which the system and the society in which we live manipulate our freedom of opinion in a negative way. This serious topic is always sadly topical due to countless global political conflicts, and it was important to me to make a film that could be understood internationally without language. For me, animated film is the ideal stylistic device for dealing with such topics without hurting feelings and without pointing the finger at certain grievances in our world. Ultimately, the small cosmos of sheep and shepherds proved to be a suitable metaphor for realising this theme in a humorous way.
DP: Over what production period was the film made and where?
Gottfried Mentor: The film took around 20 months to produce and was made at the Film Academy in Ludwigsburg between the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2012. For a film of just under seven minutes, that is of course a relatively long production process. In view of the many challenges and the fact that it is a diploma film and that you should also have time to try things out during your studies in order to achieve the best possible result, the time required is justified. In professional life, it will hardly be possible to realise your own ideas at such a high technical level without time pressure. Despite the long period of time, it was an intensive production that often took six days a week to complete.
DP: Were real models or stop-motion used?
Gottfried Mentor: No, the film was made completely digitally. But I’m always very happy when this question is asked, as we as a team invested a lot of time in developing the look in order to create the most haptic and organic stop-motion impression possible. Initially, based on initial tests, we actually planned to use textures modelled from modelling clay, plaster and ketchup, which were generated into normal maps for preview via the CrazyBump software. In the end, however, we decided in favour of a completely digital solution, as we achieved similar results with Mudbox ZBrush and the like. This was certainly also due to the fact that my animation roots come from the stop-motion sector and it was my wish to get as far away from a 3D look as possible. Last but not least, the visual result is due to the good collaboration with Marcel Reinhard, who did an excellent job in the rendering, shading and lighting department, and Peter Hacker, who was responsible for the compositing and colour correction.
DP: Which software packages were used? Did you have to develop them yourselves?
Gottfried Mentor: “Oh Sheep!” was modelled, rigged and animated in Autodesk Maya. Autodesk Mudbox, Pixologics ZBrush, Mari from The Foundry and Adobe Photoshop were used for the detail modelling, sculpting and texturing. Autodesk Softimage was used for shading and lighting and Solid Angel’s Arnold Renderer for rendering. Editing was done in Adobe Premiere and we used Nuke for compositing. We also used tools specially developed for “Oh Sheep!”, such as the animation user interface by Tom Ferstl and some pipeline tools by Marcel Reinhard, for example to enable or automate data exchange between the various software packages.
DP: Were there any difficulties with the project and how did you solve them?
Gottfried Mentor: In addition to the development of ideas and dramaturgy, where the difficulties lay in creating an internationally understandable film without language and finding the right balance between tragedy and comedy, the animation with a total of 18 characters was another major challenge. Considering two flocks of eight sheep each, which do everything in their power to merge into one flock, jumping and dancing wildly, and are always prevented from doing so by their two shepherds, the animation effort can be roughly estimated. With the number of characters and the desired haptic look, the rendering effort also multiplied. This in turn made a good pipeline and choice of software essential in order to achieve reasonable render times. In addition, as specified in the script, there were a number of special effects such as blood, dust, flying scraps of wool and the interaction of these with the characters and the landscape of stone and grass.
DP: How did you approach the workflow?
Gottfried Mentor: In terms of developing ideas and pre-production, the weekly weeklies at the Film Academy with fellow students under the guidance of the supervising lecturer Prof Andreas Hykade proved to be very helpful for discussing your own story in the group. In order to master the animation, a detailed storyboard and blocking as well as a clearly defined animation style were essential in order to be able to animate as a team on the one hand and to avoid possible incorrect animations on the other. Tom Ferstl, who was responsible for the rigging and cloth simulation, spoilt us with excellent rigs and a very comfortable user interface specially developed for “Oh Sheep!”, which was very helpful for animating the many characters reasonably smoothly in Maya. Particularly useful were features such as scalable rigs, an IK-FK switch, excellent skinning and an additional muscle system for the fur. As well as a selection tool to select all character rigs individually and quickly, to hide them or to switch between high resolution and low resolution. Marcel Reinhard, who was responsible for rendering, shading and lighting, developed an extensive shader network to achieve the desired look. The credible depiction of the sheepskins was particularly complex. On the one hand, the skins had to work in their fullness but also when shorn, as required at the end of the film, and on the other hand, they had to look as if they were soaked in blood in the fight scenes. For a long time, we relied on volume shaders for the skins. However, as this required another renderer (Mental Ray) in addition to Arnold, and we had problems with artefacts in compositing when merging the different render layers, hair instances based on a particle system ultimately proved to be the right solution. Hair was also used for the jackets of the shepherds, their beards and for the meadow. The blood simulation was done by Yannik Faase in Realflow and the flying wool shreds and sawdust by Christopher Hempel in Houdini and Softimage ICE. We discarded an initially planned 3D stereo version of “Oh Sheep!” in favour of rendering time and continued to prioritise look development.
DP: How did you design the characters?
Gottfried Mentor: As far as the design of the shepherds is concerned, the challenge was to work out the classic stereotype of the shepherd. In our case, he was given a kind of bell shape, which is intended to symbolise protection. It was also important to me that the shepherds look largely the same and only differ in their jackets and hair colour as well as the different patterns on their sticks. The patterns symbolise the different thought patterns. With the sheep, the main focus was initially on designing funny and lovable sheep that would evoke sympathy from the viewer. At the same time, however, it was also important to consider the transformation of the sheep into apathetic, aggressive, traumatised animals that fight each other with different patterns in their fur at the end of the film. We also took great care to develop our own design, as there are already some famous sheep in animated films! The design process, for which Max Lang was responsible, extended into the modelling phase in the form of several paint overs for the facial expression, which was also helpful for the rigging.
DP: How did you approach the sound design and music for the film?
Gottfried Mentor: As the film was to do without language, a rich sound design and a music concept that supports the plot and emotions was very important. The music was intended to emphasise the funny character of the sheep, whereas the sound design was intended to emphasise the shepherds and the use of violence when separating the sheep. Matthias Klein from Berlin composed music that supports the story with a recurring and ever-increasing melody with a catchy tune. The sound design by Roman Volkholz was also recorded in Berlin and finally mixed in 5.1 for the cinema by Chris tian Heck in Ludwigsburg.
DP: Which festivals and competitions will you be submitting the film to and why?
Gottfried Mentor: “Oh Sheep!” is not only my graduation film, but also served some of the team members as part of their diploma thesis. The film can therefore also be seen as a calling card for the professional world after graduation. In addition to the film, a website is also being created on which further information about the film and a trailer can already be seen (www.ohsheep.de). The first screenings of “Oh Sheep!” took place this year with a making-of presentation at FMX in May and a screening at this year’s Siggraph at the Electronic Theatre in Los Angeles. Fortunately, the film has already reached several other festivals and will be screened in various competitions around the globe in the near future. The latest important commitments in Germany are currently the nomination for the animago AWARD in Potsdam-Babelsberg in the Young Talent Award category and the DOK Leipzig festival, where we are represented in the “New German Animation” category with “Oh Sheep!”, which we are very pleased about! Other important submissions and selection procedures that are still pending are the German Short Film Award, the ITFS in Stuttgart and the animation festival in Annecy, France. The film received an honourable mention at the Krok Festival in Russia and the Best Comedy Award at the Budapest BuSho Festival. The festival submission is still in full swing and we are very excited to see where the film will find its audience.
DP: How was the support at the film academy?
Gottfried Mentor: I can only speak of excellent support from the Film Academy in the realisation of our projects. In addition to excellent hardware and software, which is always up to date and enables us to work professionally, the teaching programme is wide-ranging and is mostly held by lecturers who work in the animation industry themselves. Lessons take place in small groups of ten to a maximum of 15 students in workshops lasting several days. In addition, lecturers are always available to answer questions and solve problems relating to current productions, irrespective of the lessons. Last but not least, it is also thanks to the teamwork among the students that you can learn a lot from each other, as each student has a different background and has usually already worked in the industry themselves. Everyone is free to decide which production they want to work on and what they want to specialise in. In addition, the two-year foundation course with subjects such as film design, camera, screenplay, editing and directing was a very important part of the degree programme for me, as this is where the basic craft of filmmaking is taught. This was followed by the two-and-a-half-year animation programme at the in-house animation institute. If you don’t like working independently and always hope for clearly defined tasks, then studying at the Film Academy is not the right choice for you. You should also be stress-resistant and be able to take a more relaxed view of the whole thing when a deadline is looming and everything is “on fire”. I particularly appreciate the artistic freedom that you have when realising your own projects and the trust that the Film Academy places in you.
You can find all further information about the animago AWARD & CONFERENCE here: www.animago.com
