(Get it? Like the movie? ‘cause we’re a film school, and that’s how we joke haha)
The second years get ready for their biggest challenge yet – applied animation!

The second year has kicked off with a bang!  Right off the gate, we started with an animation warm-up to get us back on our feet after spending a whole summer recovering from our packed first year. 

Usually, we don’t move that fast / just a small glimpse into our dark reality, a full stare into our twisted perspective would make most simply go insane

Afterwards, we were introduced to our main module this year: Applied Animation. 

We were going to apply (hence the title) all we learned last year into one commissioned ident of around 20-ish seconds. But who is commissioning? This year, we’ve got quite some variety: Adult Swim, Amnesty International,  the Kurzfilmnacht Winterthur Festival, UNICEF, and Médecins Sans Frontières.

But before we delve any deeper into the clients there was one more thing we had to do before any of that – the Kükenfest! While we were getting ready to continue our studies there were students who were just getting ready to start theirs and it was our job to welcome them.

One of the main functions of the Kükenfest is not only to break the ice but also to assign the first years a buddy who they’ll be able to ask questions to whenever they feel lost throughout their studies. Since “Küken” means “chick” in English we decided to draw baby chicks and mama birds for them. The first years would pick out a baby they liked and then they’d have to search for us mamas among the crowd.

Here are some of the funny birds we drew! which one would YOU have chosen?

Once we found each other and the initial wave of fear and embarrassment washed away we all sang, danced, and ate all night long. Well, maybe not ate. The delicious food we cooked up got snatched away instantly.

I slaved away in the kitchen making my world-famous Empanadas

The day after we were a little groggy, still shaken up from the party… so what better way to wake right up than a presentation by Adult Swim themselves? For us animation people they were the main event. They’ve produced many shows we know and love (heck, some of us even went to their panel in Annecy) and continue to be one of the few channels that takes risks and greenlights adult animation. 

This also reflects in what they were looking for from us as well as the lovely Gerhard Wolf explained to us that we had full creative freedom to do whatever we wanted. Heck, we could even use some of their IPs!

With a theme in our heads and a pencil in our hands we were handed paper to do thumbnails in and this was like a splash of cold water. Suddenly, we had to be funny on the spot. Come up with something cool (or “cook” as the kids put it nowadays). The pressure was on, the clock was ticking and most of us couldn’t even think straight from the party! Of course, we are students from famous school HSLU, no matter how hangover or tired we were we still delivered. 

Since Adult Swim gets the most pitches we didn’t really have time to pitch our ideas, the storyboards had to speak for themselves. Some people saved their cards for later, we were going to have the chance to pitch to our peers later, so why not keep the stew burning?

After lunch, Amnesty International presented themselves. You’ve probably heard of them and know about their cause: advocating for human rights. But not everyone does, and their ident wanted us to raise awareness to them and their cause. Because of this some very unique challenges presented themselves to us. Unlike Adult Swim, who is open to pretty much anything, Amnesty wanted something more specific, and they came to us with a vision of what they wanted. It was overwhelming to tackle a topic as important as human rights, especially after coming off of the funny hahas of Adult Swim, but it was an interesting one for sure.

Our class busy at work

A good night’s sleep and a cup of coffee in the morning later and we were back at it again, this time with Lynn Gerlach from Kurzfilmnacht Winterthur – a film festival focused on short films. Since Lynn is a former animator she obviously has immense respect for the craft. In fact, she even said she always tries to sneak more animation into the program, hehe. The task for this client was to create a trailer that would play in movie theatres across the country. There were no restrictions, the only “rules” we had to follow were that our trailer had to have a cat somewhere and the cat had to meow. Other than that we were free. The catch? They only take one trailer per year. 1 in 33 chances! And with classmates as talented as ours it was going to be a tough competition.

Our teacher Jochen took the time to snap some pictures and take notes, thank you!

Cats are the greatest creatures ever and their dominion over dogs is obvious to most, so it is no surprise that the pitches for this festival were phenomenal. 

One trip to the cafeteria later and we were greeted by the next organization: UNICEF. You’ve probably seen ads for their campaigns all around you (in fact, after they gave us a rundown of what campaigns they are currently running I started noticing them a whole lot more). They work to protect the rights of children, making sure they are protected, supported, and taken seriously. Again, this was another heavy topic to tackle, but with Amnesty behind us, we were more prepared to tackle this client.

One of our exchange students talking with the UNICEF representatives

Last but not least, Médecins Sans Frontières (or Doctors Without Borders)came to present themselves. Like Amnesty and UNICEF, they are a humanitarian aid organization. When they asked us what we think they do someone answered they “doctored without bordering” which is essentially right, they deploy doctors to conflict areas and treat the wounds of injured civilians and soldiers alike.

A woman from the organization who had been deployed in Sudan told us about her experiences, and shared personal stories with us, motivating us to tell stories that resonated deeply with people. They wanted people to know what MSF was about not by explaining who they were but by showing it via impactful storytelling. This was an exciting task and by now we were comfortable with casting aside our fears and putting ourselves out there with these sensitive topics. 

The lovely Jessica Minarro from MSF tells us about her experiences

But now what? We workshopped some stories, drew some thumbnails, and presented our ideas but what comes next? Well, now we keep working on them. Polish them, draw concept art, and get people excited as we come onto the next phase – voting.

That’s right, soon we’ll be presenting our favorite ideas and showing them to both our classmates as well as the clients. This is a scary, nerve-wracking but most importantly exciting time. 

Next time you hear from us, we’ll be working on the projects already! Stay tuned, because we are only getting started.