911 Retrospective...

A few weeks back I was contacted by the good people at L'Oeil de Links at Canal+ about making a piece on my memories of September 11th 2001. We are closing in on the 10 year mark for when it happened, and in memory of the tragedy, they have hired 11 artists from around the world to each create a video of 1 min and 11 sec to be shown in a special later this year...

It was really interesting to wrestle with a subject that is so personal and subjective to a lot of people. I had quite a debate with one of my long time collaborators (and best friends), Kim Svarer, whether or not I could show the actual event (the hit and the towers crashing) because it is such a sensitive topic to a lot of people. Kim is higly intelligent and a provocateur of the first rank, and we almost always agree on everything, so it surprised me that he was very cautious around this particular subject - but I am a very visual cat and the visuals of the day had a huge impact on my experiencing it, so it was out of the question not to include them in one way or another. - so if anybody out there are taking the imagery to heart, I apologize, It is not meant as offensive; It is just part of the way I remember the day.

I would have loved to do a visually complex treatment of it because as before mentioned the event opens up to a very rich visual memory bank. But the time restrictions and the budget on the piece set some quite strict limitations on me, so I ended up in GraphicsGale making it in 8 bit which is a super fast and quite intuitive way of going...

I will be posting the video and a proper post mortem on the clip when it airs on french tv. I do own the rights for the clip, but out of courtesy to the hard working boys and girls at L'Oeil de Links (that actually hired me to do it) - I think they should have the right to the first showing. I will however post a few frames from the clip...

WINNER OF WEBCUTS.11

I just got back from WEBCUTS.11 where we won in the category "best collaborative online project" with the Animation Tag Attack. It was the first screening of  the movie in its entirety (WorkInProgress) with the mask sound and no score, and it was horrible to see a non finished piece on the big screen, but really interesting to see it with an audience. And on top of that getting all the work we put in it awarded over 2 other awesome projects was a great feather in the hat. Although I have been the front for the project it really hasnt been my project at all; every month a new episode from somewhere in the world has surfaced and blown my mind.
I felt bad for taking all the glory at the ceremony - because it truly is a bastard baby in the most positive sense of the word.

Btw. If you happen to be around tomorrow (1/6 2011) I will be giving a speech about the project at 6 pm at

Hotel Maritim proArte Hotel

Friedrichstraße 151

Berlin, Germany

 

I will be taking about creativity with the Internet as a platform and collaboration across boarders + of course all the personal artistic choices tied into making a movie with others without any kind of rules of form and style. I am looking forward to talking about the project in a crowd - and most of all hear some of the reactions from the public + questions etc. It will be so much fun. Here's a picture from the award ceremony where they highlighted tomorrows events. Stop by it is open for the public and FREE:

Wrapping up the Animation Tag Attack

We have been at it for around 1,5 years now, and now finally we are closing in on the finish line. If all goes well all imagery will be done by the end of this week and the sound will follow shortly after. We will screen it as a sneak peak at this years Webcuts.11 where we are nominated in the category best online collaborative project. On top of that Bear Untitled is going up against  Brendan Carroll & Francesco Giroldini's "the Monk and The Monkey" in the Webcuts Classics category. For you non die hard fans of The ATA, I can reveal that they are the Dreamworks legion who created Episode 11 of our bastard baby.
I will be giving a speech about the project on the first of June as a part of the festival, so if you're in Berlin and aint got no idea what to go and do - stop by for a chat.

Ive been tinkering a bit with the footage of course in order to do the final edits and Ive been painfully aware for a while now that the hookup between Brendan and Francesco's Episode 11 and our E12 didnt work, so finally this weekend I sat down and tinkered up an 8 second bridge of mr Umbrella flying. Now theres only a short stopmotion shot, a bit of grading and the end credits left, and the final sound mixes... Cant wait to have it all finished - and to see it on the big screen...

Happy Birthday Noémi

A few days ago my dear friend Noémi Besedes had her birthday and keeping the tradition in awe I created a small birthday Aquarell for her in the midst of the night. If she seems familiar to some of you it is because she played the stellar role of the Duck in my last Episode of the AtA (That hasn't been published yet, but a ton of photographs from the event has...)

She is Swizz, hence the mountain theme...

Some background WiP

Last night very late I got over a stressfull deadline for a big company. Unfortunately I cant tell you much more about it than that. Not unlike secret agents us creatives also sometimes need to walk the path of secrecy and bear the burden of corporate secrets. I will however post a couple of the backgrounds I did for this particular project. Even though it was a lot of work it was so much fun to do. Everything was kept very rough and for the first time in a very long time I was actually enjoying creating a commercial spot. Maybe I am fooled by my hormones and the spring.

I can tell you this: Projext X is set in a 1940'es filmstudio. Here is a finished background and a background from first sketch to final composite:

Work, some bad news and some pretty awesome news...

These days are just melting together. I get up ridiculously early in the morning and go to bed way past the wee hours all due to a melting pot of projects laying on my table. All of them are so much fun but I must admit that right now I am looking forward to getting some of them pushed off my plate so I can start focusing a little bit again.I will tell you all about it at a later point but right now there is no time to dwell. Must work.

Yesterday I got word that our Animation Tag Attack didn't get selected to Annecy which totally bummed me out. They received a very rough cut of the film and I can totally understand why it didnt get selected, but I would have loved to go, and I totally believe that it deserves exposure on the big festivals. But after spending a day in the studio with the composers for the last episode I am so psyched about the final product that Im sure everything will be alright.
Half an hour after my short term depression over the Annecy selection I received an email from the Vie Network informing me that Bear Untitled got selected by the Director's Guild of America for the very first New York digital short film festival:

"The Festival will be hosted at the prestigious Director's Guild of America Theater in New York City at a World Broadcast Gala Event in March 28th, 2011, with doors opening at 5:45pm. A selection of Chosen Digital Films that display excellence in the progression of the Digital Revolution in filmmaking will be shown for a World Audience LIVE on THEVIENETWORK.com."

Although slain in work I made a poster for my little film this morning. Nothing revolutionary, granted, but then again neither is the graphics of the little flick...

Heavy Heads

I have been away from the blog for quite a while now due to a series of crazy work incidents - amongst them the very last Episode of the Animation Tag Attack + all the producer work it apparently takes to get a bird like this of the ground. But what a ride! And on top of it all a series of commercial gigs I unfortunately cant share with any of you at the time being due to signed papers and corporate secrecy.

Next to this hectic work schedule, these past 1,5 weeks featured the Berlin International Film Festival - and I am so tired after spending all my nights hobnobbing and my days working/watching movies that Im close to falling apart right now, but inside my heart is breaking - My make-up may be flaking - But my smile still stays on... To quote the good FM.

There are two reasons for this Festival madness:
1) I did the compositing on the amazing Helena Frank's Heavy heads. A dark comedy about loneliness.
2) My good friend Esben Toft Jacobsen had his feature film debut, The Great Bear, premiering on the festival. An animated fairytale about the friendship between two kids and a giant bear... + Andreas Normand grøntved who did Episode 3 of the ATA did the production design on the movie and my good friend Petter Lindblad produced it. And since they were all in the city there were no rest for the wicked.

I must be frank and admit that I was a bit skeptic after seeing the trailer for TGB, but it is so well told and the universe is so well rounded that you totally forgive and forget the minor flaws that a 2 million Euro 3d production is almost bound to have and just enjoy the great story. Heck I was entertained!

And now enjoy the trailer for Helena Frank's Heavy heads...