The ‘Die Konferenz der Tiere’ (’Animals United’) teaser trailer hit German theatres recently on December 18th and can be seen before James Cameron’s latest action-scifi epos ‘Avatar’ (even in 3d if you are visiting a stereoscopic screening).
Naturely I was very proud to see it on the big screen in our Cinemaxx theatre here in Hanover. Maybe it’s a little bit self-centred but it feels great to know, that pieces of your latest work will be seen by millions of people during the next weeks and hopefully entertain and ‘tease’ them a little bit.

If you like you can find the teaser trailer online on the official ‘Die Konferenz der Tiere’ facebook page in high definition quality. HD requires flash player 10 or better so make sure that you have the latest version installed on your computer.

Furthermore you can visit the official ‘Die Konferenz der Tiere’ website at http://www.konferenz-der-tiere.film.de.

I just watched the trailer fort he upcoming Pixar movie ‘Up’. Nothing special about that, I know. You can do the same on the apple website or on youtube for example.

The trailer indicates that the story will be about Carl Fredricksen, who appears to be a stubborn old man and who might have lived in his tiny, beloved house ever since while the rest of the city was growing bigger and bigger around him. The trailer then shows how Mr. Fredricksen is leaving this city with the help of a huge bunch of balloons tied at the top of his roof. Now the interesting thing is that although this plot sounds quite original it seems to be based on a rather true story.

Due to the lack of proper information so far, I could be totally wrong! But watching the trailer, a story came to my mind, which my old fellow Felix sent me a little while ago. It’s the story of Edith Macefield that you can read here.

Although Mrs. Macefield did not fly away with a bunch of balloons tied to her rooftop, I think there are some quite interesting similarities – especially concerning the set design!

Just compare this picture which I found via google with this photo from the article mentioned above.

There are not too many fancy things happening in my life at the moment. The work at Ambient is quite interesting and yet a little bit disenchanting from time to time. First of all because I have to admit how little I know about Maya. This program opens up a hell lot of possibilities! On the other hand it’s kind of wired to feel like you’re building up your future career on a single program… Second it is becoming obvious to me how difficult it is to produce a 3d animation feature film in Germany. Compared to America, Australia or New Zeeland the industry over here still seems to be in its infancy which of course is mostly a matter of size. In other words: Ambient does not employ a few hundred 3d artists like Pixar does – but the ticket price at your local cinema is the same for movies from both companies. Assuming that the German average consumer goes to the movies 1.5 times a year you can clearly tell what the problem is.

Apropos cinema and Pixar: I did what Woody, the cowboy from Toy Story, recommends in this awesome trailer:

I met WALL•E who finally arrived in German theatres on September 25^th. Kind of a good idea because this movie kicks ass! Although Ratatouille stays my favourite movie from Pixar, I highly recommend watching this masterpiece (definitely to everybody, not only to my fellow 3d animation students!) The only thing that bothers me a little bit is the implementation of live action characters during a few video messages on the human space ship. It’s not like it’s ruining the movie in any way but I just don’t understand the reason and from my point of view it simply does not fit in.

During the next few days I’m going to finish my report on the semester abroad in Sydney that I have to write for the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). That’s the support organisation that payed my scholarship. If I’m confident with the result I might upload it to this site (in German language). While writing this report I really feel like my German vocabulary and writing skills have degenerated rapidly in the past few years. Or maybe I’m just getting older. At least I am not 20 anymore, am I? ;)

Fortunately I found this nice website (German language)…

Yesterday I watched Roland Emmerich’s ‘10,000 BC’.

Before any movie starts you get to see a trailer. So before I start my report I’d like to provide you with this trailer from the upcoming German feature film ‘Urmel voll in Fahrt’ that was animated by Ambient Entertainment from Hanover. A lot of current and former students from the FH Hannover (University of Applied Science and Arts, Hanover) worked on this project so I think I should promote it a little bit. ;)

Back to 10,000 BC: Why did I watch it? Because of the cool advertisement poster at Central Station and because two students from the FH Hannover also worked on this film as compositor and renderer. And at least compositing and rendering are very well done… But the story is so bad… I don’t even know an English swear word that is bad enough to describe it! ;)

I mean it’s not only about the issue that successful movies nowadays always seem to need a ‘prophecy’ or a ‘chosen one’. You can get used to it as long as the rest of the plot is working well. Although it’s really remarkable that people seem to lust for messiah stories that much. Is it because everybody doubts that society can deal with it’s problem on it’s own anymore or is it because everybody wants to be or at least wants to identify with a messiah like character for two hours to escape their life as a nobody?! Who knows…

Anyways, this movie is about a chosen one and a prophecy and has no good plot around it, although the setting had high potential. The idea of placing the story at the dawn of civilization is opening up so many possibilities. You could deal with questions like: How to define civilisation? Is war a consequence of it? You could think about which kind of persons did and which did not fit into this new world…

10,000 BC shows you a white hunter called D’Leh who seeks to fulfil his destiny to free some enslaved black guys, a few of his white buddies and his girlfriend from the claws of an alien-pharaoh-god-creature. During his journey he meets some oversized animals which I actually liked because they give you the feeling that mankind is not yet superior to its environment in that time. The bad guys have a strange Arabic look (Arabic or Persian looking villains seem to be hip at the moment…) and are building pyramids in the desert. After some hilarious dialogues, some technically nice cg shots and some very grainy, low quality shots that are really offending the viewer’s eyes you get to see the kitschiest ending in movie history I think which I will not spoil for those who still want to see this movie. ;)

… more or less. But as long as you stay in an IMAX 3d cinema you definitely have the feeling you were part of the movie. Yesterday we visited Sydney’s IMAX and I can tell you… it’s really amazing. Although the movie sucks in terms of adapting the original Beowulf saga, the IMAX experience really makes it a must see. And if you look at the camera angles and movement you can clearly see that this movie was made for 3d cinema.

So yeah… here’s a little photo of Manuel and me to prove that we were there. I bet these funny glasses will become absolutely hip during next summer! ;)

Before we had the opportunity to watch this 272-mocap-camera-based piece of pure hardware consumption we had to face the problems that come with an eight camera system like the one UTS owns. Although it was very interesting and sometimes a lot of fun we had to accept that an eight camera system is not almighty. There were still some gaps in your motion capturing data when less than three cameras were able to see one of the markers at the same time. Monday we will meet again at UTS to continue working on this project. I am really looking forward to this.

Between gathering mocap data and watching a mocap data based movie we went through China Town to Darling Habour. So I got to see some new interesting places in Sydney. Here are some photos: