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This year, the jury selected 5 nominated entries in each of 9 animago categories. They include entries from Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Great Britain, France, Greece, Moldova, Belgium, the USA, the Netherlands and Germany.
Best Character
“Anna” by Alexia Rubod, Antoine Poyard, Jordann Jacobé, Alexis Choquard, Sophie Bracmard and Yunhan Liu from MOPA University, formerly Supinfocom, from France.
“Border” by Reinout Swinnen and Bram Van Rompaey(Plan 78) from Belgium, produced by S.O.I.L., sound by Senstudio. The film was created with Maya, Modo, After Effects and Premiere.
“Escargore” by Oliver Hilbert/MediaDesign Hochschule from New Zealand: The funny snails were created by the student team using ZBrush, Maya, Houdini and Nuke. They were rendered with V-Ray.
“My Dear Gnome” by Emmanuelle Leleu, Julien Hazebroucq and Chez Eddy from France – the team brought the elegant deer and the stiff garden gnome to life using Maya and Avid Media Composer.
“The Mechanical Waltz” was submitted by Julien Dykmans and William Thomas from France. The music was composed by Amaury Bernier and the film was created with Maya and Nuke.
Best short film
“Bloody Sunday” is an animated film noir from Poland by Studio Produkcyjne Orka. Many tools were used for the film: After Effects, Fusion, Flame, 3ds Max and Maya.
Till Nowak has already won the animago once before with “The Centrifuge Brain Project”. This year he is taking part with “Dissonance” – and you should recognise the main actor: He was also the professor in the Centrifuge film. The film was edited with 3ds Max and After Effects, produced with Nowak’s company Framebox and Detailfilm is managing the festival exploitation of the film.
“Knights Quest” comes from Studio Red Star 3D and was distributed by nWave Pictures. The short film was created with Blender, Modo and Softimage as well as Premiere and Vegas.
A nun on a holy mission and a museum guard in distress: “None of That” was submitted by Isabela Littger, Anna Hinds Paddock, and Kriti Kaur from Ringling College of Art and Design in the USA; the team created the film using ZBrush, Maya, Mudbox, Renderman, After Effects and Nuke.
This film warms the hearts of nature lovers: “Shift” by Cecilia Pugliesi and Yijun Liu from the MFA Computer Art Department of the School of Visual Arts in the USA. The student team realised it using Maya, among other things.
Best Newcomer Production
“Into the Void” as a CG version by Maxime Helier, Guilherme Pereira, Sophie Loubiere, Carla Gandolfi and Marion Chopin. The psychedelic short film “Ataraxya” (from the Greek for “imperturbability”) comes from France from Rubika High School.
“Canned” also comes from Ringling College in the USA. The film is a mixture of 3D animation and painting and was created by the student team Ivan Joy, Nathaniel Hatton and Tanya Zamon using ZBrush, Maya, Deep Paint and Renderman.
This is what “Thelma and Louis” could look like in their retirement years: “Escarface” was created by the student team Pierre Plouzeau, Eva Navaux, Burcu Sankur, Vincent Meunier, Lionel Arnold and Dario Sabato from Supinfocom Valenncines in France using 3ds Max and Nuke.
Tough subject aesthetically realised: “Les Liens de sang” (Blood Ties)” by Manon Lazzari, Sophie Kavouridis, Marion Louw, Thomas Ricquier and Simon Pannetrat, students at the Ecole Georges Meliès in Orly/France, created with ZBrush, Maya, After Effects and Nuke.
In the next issue of DP, which will be published on 28 August, we will include a making-of for this article: “Natural Attraction” is Marc Zimmermann’s diploma film at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy. The film is completely CG and was created using Cinema 4D and After Effects.
Best Postproduction
Trixter from Munich gave us an in-depth interview on “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” for DP 04 : 2015. The team realised the Ultron MK1 and the visual effects of the party fight.
Scanline VFX from Munich is in this category with the VFX work on “Big Game”. The Samuel L. Jackson film was released in the cinema in June. Here is a breakdown scene from the film of an Air Force One crash.
“Crossbones” is an NBC adventure series from the USA, the VFX were provided by Important Looking Pirates from Sweden.
The Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg was nominated with “Jagon”; the VFX work was realised by the student team on behalf of SWR with Maya and Houdini.
VFX work from Amsterdam by PostPanic, created with the support of Glassworks . The 15-minute trailer for “Sundays” was completed with Kickstarter money and many volunteer artist helpers from all over the world. You will find a detailed making-of of the project in an upcoming issue of DP. A Hollywood-financed feature film is in the making.
Best advertising production
Liga 01 Computerfilm submitted the “BMW M3M4 Carbon Fibre” commercial. The portrait of the studio with locations in Munich and Hamburg can be found in DP 01 : 2015.
Disney/Pixar meets advertising: “Find the One” is no romantic romanticisation; the ladies in this Triumph commercial pursue very pragmatic goals – but still sing. The commercial was realised by Boutiqu AG from Switzerland in collaboration with Stories AG and Chez Eddy.
We’d be surprised if this dance advert didn’t make our readers’ toes itch a little. Glassworks from London created the “Moves You” advert for Lycra.
And PostPanic from the Netherlands is back at animago 2015 with the TNT commercial “The People Network”.
Crazy – that’s the only word that aptly describes this “Supermoine Holypop” advert. Supamonks Studio from Paris created the wild animation mess for the Holypop soda drink.
Best Trailer/Opener
Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed” is once again among the nominees this year with a cinematic – for the “Syndicate” part. The game trailer was realised by the Hungarian team from Digic Pictures, which also has its headquarters in Budapest.
In the “Run Boy Run – Dying Light Trailer”, a young man fights zombies – to the song of the same name by Woodkid. The game trailer was realised by Axis Animation on behalf of the Polish game developer Techland:
in 2013, Unit Image from France won an animago AWARD with the E3 trailer for the Ubisoft game “The Crew”; the launch trailer was nominated this year.
Games always have a lot of cinematics, trailers and teasers that are realised by CG studios on behalf of the game developers. Last year, Platige Image was nominated with the official launch trailer for “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” from game developer CD Project RED, this year Digic Pictures was able to convince the jury with the launch cinematic for the game. The trailer is appropriately titled “A Night to remember”:
The “Total War: Warhammer” tabletop game from Games Workshop is eagerly awaited by fans, and publisher Sega plans to release it in 2016. The responsible game development studio is Creative Assembly. The announcement cinematic trailer has already been provided by Platige Image.
Best Visualisation
And once again Platige Image (nobody can beat quality): The Polish team realised the image film “Ambition” for the European Space Agency (ESA ) to draw attention to the Rosetta mission and bring the topic closer to the general non-space scientist.
When it comes to visualisation, sometimes unpleasant topics have to be explained; the spot “Be smart, be sexy” by PlusOne from the Netherlands is aimed at young people and provides information about sexually transmitted diseases.
“EPA Air Pollution” addresses air pollution and asks important questions about the problem. The visualisation clip was produced by The Magnificent Itch from Australia.
Uli Henrik Streckenbach has already won the animago AWARD several times and did so again this year with his team Robert Pohle, Ronny Schmidt, Maurice Mersinger and Jochen Mader from Uhsless. His visualisation on the subject of “organ donation” called “Young Heroes” is one of the nominees:
Architectural visualisation with finesse: “The Edge” was also submitted by PlusOne and was rewarded with a second nomination.
Special prize from the jury
Films and contributions that do not really fit into one of the previous categories or have missed out on entry, but have nevertheless deeply impressed the jury, will be honoured in this category and given the chance to win an animago Trophy.
Among them is “A Single Life” by Job, Joris & Marieke, for which we have a making-of in the upcoming DP issue 06 : 2015. The short film from the Netherlands was nominated for an Oscar this year and was realised with Cinema 4D.
Also included is the short film “Auster” by Dominik Stockhausen and Carl Krause from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg – funny, concise and originally realised. The trailer was created for the International Festival of Animated Film 2015 in Stuttgart.
The Blender Foundation has kicked off the first ever animated open source feature film with the release of the first 10-minute short film on “Cosmos Laundromat”. The film will be created with the help of the Blender community. All further information about the project here.
Simpals Animation Studio from Moldova is nominated with “Dji. Death Sails” nominated. The team has released a series of funny films featuring the Death character, created with Maya, V-Ray and After Effects.
Please fasten your seatbelts: “Kung Fury” takes flight. The viral trash wonder, which was realised with the help of crowdfunding and in which David Hasselhoff, among others, plays a key role, also made the animago jury laugh and was able to convince them with a special kind of design. The effects were created by Fido from Sweden; the film was directed by David Sandberg, who also plays the lead role.
Best Still
Last but not least, the best CG artworks without movement in the image. We need the help of our readers to determine the winner: Please vote here on Facebook which still is your favourite this year!
“Closed” by Aris Michailidis from Greece
“Hominium Historia” by Thomas Vournazos from Slashcube in Switzerland
“Raspberry Madness” by Tuna Unalan from the United States
“On the Tramp” by Manuel Peter from Germany
“Topview” by Jürgen Stein Fotodesign from Germany
All further information about the animago AWARD & CONFERENCE here. Tickets can be booked here, currently there are still discounted early bird tickets available!
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