It‘s been rough, being a 2D animator at HSLU during the summers. All your cool 3D animator friends are having fun and are levelling up their skills at LuMAA, meeting industry professionals and likeminded folks from abroad. Unless you’re ready to give up your sanity and soul for some intense CGI learning, the average 2D cartoon lover is excluded from all the fun… however, it seems the heavens (our lovely department heads) have finally heard our cries of agony. 

After many many years of longing, begging, bargaining and hoping, we‘ve been granted the first ever 2D LuMAA and from what we‘ve heard it‘s here to stay! 

Unlike the 3D LuMAA, instead of six weeks we were given only four weeks to pour our hearts and souls into making sure our drawings would come alive — but hey, beggars can’t be choosers and in the end, most of us found that this was the perfect length anyway!

A big portion of our class consisted of a bunch of HSLU animation alumni who have been waiting for the long promised 2D LuMAA since the dawn of time. As always we were joined by the lovely people from our partner schools abroad, namely Melanie from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Demir from Filmuniversität Babelsberg and Josephine from TAW. And of course — the usual suspects — us BA animation students, though this year fewer in numbers as we were only four people who were currently attending or had just graduated from HSLU.

Week 1 – Walk cycles with Jeremie Becquer

To start off the 2D fun, the first week was spent working intensely on walk cycles with Jeremie who is a seasoned animator and vis dev artist who had previously worked on Klaus and Space Jam: A new Legacy!

Every day he‘d give a short informative input to get everyone ready to walk those cycles!

(Unfortunately, I had fallen victim to the plague — the flu — in this very first week, so the recounts here are reconstructed from the daily updates I received from my lovely classmate Aurelia.)

The first day was spent working on a vanilla walk, a good way to get back into animation for those who joined the class to take up some good old cartooning again and a nice introductory exercise for the four weeks to come.

The next two days were spent on a character walk, upping the stakes and getting the animator brains working again. This lead up to the final big exercise the remaining days were spent on: perspective character walk! 

Jeremie was a great teacher, finding a perfect balance between inputs, feedback sessions and time to work on the exercises. 

Compared to the other teachers he was closest to our age so striking up conversations was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time chatting and bonding with him.

He also always took his time to join the whole class for the lunches and even decided to accompany everyone to the spontaneous hangout at the park on Friday!

On Monday our wonderful chef cooks and freshly graduated animation students Irina and Emanuel prepared a wonderful feast to celebrate the beginning of many exciting days of animating to come.

Irina and Emanuel kindly took up the big task to cook for the whole class and teachers every Friday from then on out and I think everyone started to look forward to this delicious closing ceremony for each week!

Week 2 –  Lip sync with Boris Hiestand

The second week revolved around lip sync and having Boris Hiestand as our teacher for this topic felt like a perfect match.

Boris started out as a 2D animator, he showed us a lot of his early work which included a ton of those very fun and whimsical — and maybe slightly morally questionable — animated advertisements for sugary cereals and snacks back in the early 2000s catered towards children. So if you were a fan (me) of those commercials featuring Tony the Tiger or that Cookie Crisps wolf (mmmhh Cookie Crisps my beloved), you now knew one of the people responsible for those. These days Boris is mostly directing on TV shows and working as a voice actor, you might know him as Sigma in Overwatch or as Alex Taylor in Captain Laserhawk.

On Monday Boris showed us many examples of lip sync animations and explained to us what we should look out for. What is the intention, which words or sounds are highlighted, which sounds have the mouth barely moving at all and advised us to check the mouth movements by holding our hand below our chin, speak the voice lines and pay attention to how far our mouths would open.

As a start he gave us an audio file and a silly little frog character he designed many years ago and tasked us to come up with a fun sequence for it. We worked on this task for the first two days, on Tuesday afternoon we looked at the results in class and it was very inspiring to see how everyone came up with something different and unique for the same voice line. 

Some of us might have been a bit too ambitious for this task, the idea was to focus on the lip sync, though many got carried away and also included some full body acting which made the whole task extremely stressful as we barely had two days time to work on it. 

The second exercise was a longer audio file where we could choose a segment from to animate, we were also given the film it was originally from so we could pay attention to the facial movements.

Boris gave us plenty of feedback whenever we asked him to look over our shots, him also being a voice actor gave him additional insight on what to look out for. He encouraged us to act out our lines because often times we would realised that we were making the characters do way too much in too little time.

For me personally lip sync has always been a struggle and one of my least favourite things to animate, it also didn’t help that I hadn’t really done much proper lip sync beforehand. I felt very frustrated when doing the first exercise because it really showed me where my skills were still lacking but thankfully, with Boris‘ and my fellow classmates‘ inputs I turned this frustration into a valuable learning experience. Even though in the end I gave up on saving the first exercise, I was able to start fresh and with a new perspective on the second exercise which in the end turned out very nicely and made me more confident in tackling lip sync shots in the future.

On Friday Irina and Emanuel cooked up an absolute feast once again for us to end the week.

This time they served us various dishes from different regions of Africa. Both Irina and Emanuel could be seen working hard in the kitchen since lunchtime, pouring heart and soul into the upcoming dinner. All that hard work paid off because not only did Boris bring along his wife and daughter to enjoy dinner with us as well, additionally to that some fellow HSLU animation students who happened to be around the school at the same time decided to join us too!

Week 3 – Full Body Animation with Len Simon

Thought we were done with lip sync? Absolutely not! And this time with emphasis on body movements. We were given one single exercise for the whole week to work on. We were once again given a longer audio file and tasked to come up with a fitting animation that included lip sync and full body acting.

Starting the week, I‘m sure most of us had never heard of Len Simon but that certainly changed after spending this first morning with him. Len Simon‘s animation career is impressive to say the least, dropping out of Sheridan after only one year because he got hired to work for Don Bluth at age 19 surely isn’t something many people can say about themselves. He quickly got promoted to directing animator and worked as such on productions like Anastasia, Prince of Egypt and Titan A.E., if anyone can pull off the art styles that became so iconic during the 90’s/2000’s 2D renaissance era it certainly is Len.

He came with a ToonBoom animation file he prepared for us but it seemed like the odds were stacked against us that morning because the school computer just refused to start the program and poor Tim had to try his best to fix the issue all morning.

In the meanwhile Len had to improvise without any means to show us stuff on the computer. What followed were some of the most interesting stories and insights into animation and the animation industry we‘ve ever heard. Len is an impressive teacher, not only by the sheer drawing and animation skills he possesses but also by his ability to effortlessly tell us about various life experiences in the most engaging ways possible. Most of us even forgot at some point that this was all an improvised segment to bridge the time it took to fix the ToonBoom issue.

We spent the whole morning listening and asking questions which is what most of Len‘s inputs were for the rest of the week. Len’s inputs mostly consisted of him opening up ToonBoom or Photoshop and starting to animate or draw to show us how he does things, why he does it and how we can do them as well. He would keep the initial input short to then turn to us, asking if we had any questions — and oh my, did we have plenty of those! Most inputs were spent by just us asking him to show us how to draw and animate certain things, how he drew folds, how he animated hair, how he tackled characters in perspective and so on and so forth. We were all amazed by how effortlessly he explained all these things to us, it seemed like for every possible question you had he had a thought out answer prepared.

Most of us decided not to multitask animating and listening to him simultaneously. 

I felt like I had spent such little time actually animating because it felt wasteful not to have my full attention on whatever he was explaining to us but at the same time I learned so much by just listening and watching him that it compensated for the time I didn’t spend animating myself. 

Besides that, Len would be walking around, giving each of us individual feedback and would draw suggestions onto our animations which was all extremely helpful.

Len also wanted us to emphasise the movements and arcs, advising us to avoid adding any details until we have the animation fully down. He wanted us to make the dialogue work using only body movements before adding any lip sync.

Even the animators got to take a little break to celebrate the national holiday together 😉

Len brought us some copies of his sketchbooks as a gift, though he only had eleven copies left and proposed to draw sketches for the people who didn’t get a copy on the last day. In the end he managed to make everyone a sketch who wanted one, even the ones that also got a sketchbook — if that isn’t a fantastic souvenir to remember this week with him by!

And once again we got to conclude the week with yet another delicious meal made by Irina and Emanuel. This time we were served various Brazilian dishes, courtesy of Emanuel who has Brazilian roots himself and wanted to introduce us to the tasty dishes he‘s familiar with.

Week 4 – Action Shot with Diego Porral

The last week was spent working on an action shot. After doing lip sync related work the previous two weeks, this was a welcome change. Our teacher for this week was Diego Porral, who has worked as a director on Love, Death + Robots and Scavengers Reign and had graduated from Gobelins a few years ago. Our week was pretty much structured the way he was used to when studying at Gobelins. There wouldn’t be any big theory segments, it would mostly be us doing practical work while he would go through each of us and offering advice and feedback. Having these frequent feedback sessions was very helpful but also intimidating, especially when you felt like you haven’t gotten much work done since the last time Diego came to check on you but thankfully he always had understanding and encouraging words for you despite that, motivating you to keep pushing on.

He gave us one assignment to work on for the whole week which was to animate a character doing some kind of action with a skateboard or a similar object. He advised us to work with well known characters other than our own and to try to stay on model to showcase potential studios our ability to adapt to different styles. In between our working times, Diego would show us a bunch of amazing animators and their works to take inspiration from. He also showed us his old demo reel that got him his first job and gave us valuable insight into what to look out for when applying for animation jobs. 

On Friday we looked at everyone’s work in class and once again it was so inspiring to see what everyone got to create during these past five days!

Afterwards Diego very kindly took his time to look at people’s reels, giving feedback on what to keep, what to remove and what to add on to it.

And since it was Friday, we got to enjoy one last scrumptious dinner to celebrate the last four weeks. This time we were able to enjoy an assortment of amazing Greek dishes, courtesy of Irina this time who told us that if we were to visit her and her family, this is what we would find at their family gatherings!

It was a perfect way to end these eventful four weeks, coming together one last time to  enjoy good food together and reminisce about all the work we had accomplished. The evening was filled with laughter and bittersweet goodbyes and lots of promises to keep in touch and hopefully seeing each other again at latest in Annecy next year.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we were eternally grateful to Jeremie, Boris, Len and Diego for teaching us, to Irina and Emanuel for ensuring we‘re all well fed and — most importantly of course — want to say a big thank you to all of the Animation Lucerne staff for even making this first 2D LuMAA possible in the first place! 

May there be many more in the future and that we all get to see each other again!

The FMX in Stuttgart is a Filmfestival for VFX and CGI. While other Filmfestivals such as Annecy mainly represent Animation, the talks at FMX rather dive into current technologies and trends in Visual Effects, Simulations and other technical fields of CGI. The event felt very well organized and more professional than other Filmfestivals. As the Festival is mainly organized for experts to exchange and connect, it could be more fitting to see it as a conference. 

This also led to feeling a little small as a student, while sitting in talks that are complex and advanced in its topic and clearly directed towards a professional audience. Nevertheless, that was a unique chance to dive directly into the heart of the industry. And to get a taste of the trending topics and newest technologies that are dominating the entertainment/digital-visualization industry. We got fascinating insights into big film productions, such as “The last of Us”, “That Christmas” and “Electric State”, on how they managed to create breathtaking effects.

The HSLU gang in front of “Haus der Wirtschaft” the main building of the festival. From left to right: (Jonas Opderbecke, Pedro H. Benz Fagim, Emanuel Strehler, Kai Müri, Tim Markgraf, Alain Fleury, Roya Rahmanian Baradaran, Ole Niemann, Elena Binica, Gerhard Wolf (Adult Swim)

The slogan of this years FMX “Rhythm of change” felt particularly fitting. As the global VFX and Filmindustry currently is in a situation of uncertainty. Global crises, and new technologies such as AI threaten to radically change the job market. The Festival managed well to represent this as the core topic of this year. Resulting in most talks and conferences being about artists discussing how they judge the changes and navigate in these difficult times.

Yvonne Muinde, giving a talk about her exploration of AI tools into her workflow as a Digital Matte Painter and concept artist

While many artists were trying to draw a positive picture of the current industries state, you could clearly feel that many professionals and lecturers were clueless on what the future is holding for digital artists. Not the most ideal condition to start out as a student. But this is where the festival turned out to be successful. As students, it gave us a good idea and insight of what exciting projects are in production or in planning and what fascinating technologies are being developed. But also what the difficulties are we are facing in current times. It was often said that there is a more fundamental, structural change that will force many artists to re-orientate themselves. 

The festival was mainly representing Effects, Games and immersive Media, there was barely talks about Animation. Although some of us are primarily interested in Animation, it definitely was a valuable insight into many different areas within film, game and other digital visual productions. We learned about the term “Offshoring”. Which describes the business model of outsourcing film productions into foreign countries. A model that Hollywood is using extensively to lower production costs. This led to many middle sized studios appearing all over Europe to work on the big blockbusters. Some of the successful cases that were represented at the festival were Storm Studios, Trixter and Rise. 

We learned that the VFX industry is very international. Some of the local studios even organized awesome parties, where we got the chance to connect to professionals and students from other schools.

Although this years FMX was defined by the unstable industry overshadowing the festival, we students decided to stay optimistic and enjoy the time we had. Luckily we could meet some fellow students from The Animation Workshop we knew already. There was plenty occasions to connect with other fantastic artists, visit amazing talks and eat gorgeous food. The festival was a big success!

HSLU and The Animation Workshop united. Dinner at the Umami Ramen Restaurant in the heart of the city. 

A year ago, I wrote an article about the last SEP presentation. Somehow, things have come full circle and now I’m back at it again, the key difference this time being that I’m actually living it. 

For those who don’t know in the third semester of our studies we focus on one single module, “Applied Animation”. This means we get to apply all the things we’ve learnt so far in our studies into a real project for a real client. If you want to read more about the process of pitching and developing an idea then I recommend you check out the articles covering the second year written by me and Mickael Marro. 

Anyways, back to the SEP. Last time I wrote about this, I ended my article with a cheesy takeaway – “Dream Big!” – and I can proudly say that we all went above and beyond this year, starting things off with one of the most impressive idents that’s been produced in HSLU so far… 

 Phonomenal Battle 

 We’re kicking things off with a banger – “Phonomenal Battle” is the brainchild of Tuan Nguyen and Tom Vonlanthen, two of the most talented people at our school – ask anyone and they’ll agree with you, even the third years. If Blender was a cell then Tom would be the mitochondria, what I’m saying here is that he’s a powerhouse of computer-generated imagery. This man is so good that for last year’s idents the second years were asking him for help. 

And Tuan? This guy is more machine than man, he works like no other. If you are a football fan like him you might follow the Bundesliga account and from time to time they occasionally post these insane illustrations – guess who draws them… Right?! When he’s not busy declining job offers from Warner Bros. he’s busy making crazy things happen here at HSLU. This ident is deeply rooted in Tuan‘s home country, Vietnam, as it follows the story of a cook and her inner world as she cooks one mean bowl of Phở. 

Not to discredit the rest of the team either – Linus Koger is a beast of his own, rendering gorgeous illustrations in 2D while also making wonderful sculpts in 3D. Many of the assets you’ll see are hand-sculpted by him, such as the buff customer at the end based off team member Gianluca Pinarello. 

What can I say about Gianluca? Him and I? Well, we go way back. Back when we were first being interviewed for HSLU we both sat across from each other. I was too nervous to talk to him then, and I’m too nervous to talk to him now due to all the unresolved romantic tension between us. Jokes aside, he’s always ready to try new things. Last year, he was editing sound and splicing songs on a 2D project we both worked on and now he’s working on shader nodes, modelling statues and animating in 3D. 

But despite it being CGI, there’s still some 2D work involved. All the 2D VFX you’ll see in this ident (such as the flames in the still above) were all animated by none other than Steven Truong. He’s the type of guy to make some modest animation exercises only to go all out during projects. 

Artistic Choice 

Given that most of these were idents for Adult Swim, we were given the (artistic) choice to work on our own stories or borrow some of their IPs. And what better team to make use of Smiling Friends than this trio of some of the goofiest, silliest people in all of HSLU? 

Lea Glitsch and Janine Varga have been working together ever since the first year and despite their worrying work schedule and Baldur’s Gate 3 addiction they keep cooking every single time. The slick, colorful backgrounds of the ident were a collaboration between the two! 

“Artistic Choice” is fast-paced and action heavy and what better person to bring that to life than Lara Mravičić? Her animation style is somewhat like her personality in person – snappy, cartoony, bouncy and funny. We collaborated together in our first project ever at this school, a little stop-motion short called “Cowboy Beeboop”, but that’s not where our collaboration ends. There’s one detail about this ident that I had my hands all over – the spit trail. If you see this and you wonder who’s sick and twisted idea it was for there to be a stringy, wet trail of saliva then look no further than here. I kept bugging Lara about it, telling her she should add it. She did so begrudgingly and sent it to Jochen, our 
beloved mentor, for feedback, hoping he’d set his foot down and say “no”. Instead, he only encouraged it, saying they should “give the people what they want!” and now here we are today. 

meet the team, feat. musician Landolin Wirz! (art by Janine Varga) 

Alley Crew 

Punk’s not dead! It lives on at HSLU, apparently. And the premise of “Alley Crew” seems to parallel its development in real life. 

“A motley and loud punk band performing their newest song, the music so powerful, it changes their reality. The ‘Bünzlis’ don’t like the loud noise and try to stop them.” 

Meanwhile, in real life, the folks over at Adult Swim Europe were not happy with this one during the midterm presentation. The people in London (lovingly referred to as the ‘London Police’ by us) were not convinced by the usage of punk music and wanted them to change it. Just like the “Bünzlis”, they didn’t like their loud noise but the crew, just like the punk band of their ident, decided to push onwards with music so powerful it changed their reality. Day after day, they worked up to the very last minute to build gigantic sets, tons of little props, punk puppets, all so that the so-called Alley Crew could perform its greatest set yet. 

The ident was shot with an intricate lighting setup that changed different lighting conditions every time they snapped a picture, as well as a gigantic TV screen that served as a green screen. Apparently, that made each frame take around 2 minutes to capture much to the dismay of the animators but for compositing this made a world of difference. Marvin Büeler brought these different takes together to create an authentic, live-set look. The guy even had to learn Nuke to composite this! 

To quote Marvin, “my new favourite art-style is Helmi”. Helmi Korhonen is one of the talented stop-motion artists who worked on this project and her unique sensibilities made the puppets feel so much more tactile. During the SEP, they passed the puppets around for us to feel and touch and each had a different texture to it, making each of the band members that much more special. 

In an ident like this nailing the music is one of the most vital elements. We always collaborate with ZHdK students to bring these to life and this one was no exception. Watching this ident, especially with a crowd, felt like being in a real concert. 

With music this good all you need is a good venue and Ines “Nini” Nungässer built an impressive set, taller than most of our classmates and full of intricate detail. I’ve been trying to find the words to give this the praise it deserves but I always come up short (unlike the set which is tall), so why not let the set do the talking? 

It’s always easy to give in to pressure when talking to a client, but this team chose to stick with their intended artistic vision and the end result is wonderful. Rock on! 

Love, Money, Success 

Do you believe in fate? Then why not let Madame Phate divine yours? “Love Money Success” comes from Anna Paziewska’s experience growing up watching Polish TV ads for sketchy fortune tellers with visuals so uniquely trashy and mesmerizing they left their mark on her, even now. The allure of calling the number on the screen and seeing what’s up is too big to pass, especially for the three teenage protagonists of our ident who quickly learn who they aren’t messing with just anyone – they are messing with Phate. 

A temporary addition to our class, Dutch exchange student from HKU, Miles Dinjens, lent his talent to bring this ident to life. He worked on the visual development, backgrounds and props, and his hard work shows on screen! Miles was always on the lookout for feedback for the tarot card designs that appear by the end of the ident, touring from person to person and asking them which design was their favourite. Though sadly he could only stay in our school for this one semester, Miles’ company will be missed! 

Our group’s atelier was next to theirs, so we often got to take a peek into what they were making. Though everyone in the group contributed in animating and designing as well, they each had their own specialties where they shined. Stella Tauxe was in charge of the sound, and we often crossed paths down in the sound studio. Fellow blogpost writer Mickael Marro was in charge of compositing for this ident. It’s an under-appreciated kind of work where you try to make the final product look as good as possible. Since I was also in charge of compositing for my group, I paid extra attention to every group’s compositing effort and you can really tell how everyone was at the top of their game. Make sure to keep an eye out on all the tasteful little effects each group’s sprinkled in, such as the subtle dust particles next to lights in this one. 

Forever Together 

They say love moves mountains, but can it also mash atoms together, forming some sort of fleshy, monstrous representation of love? For this couple it does, because their love knows no bounds! 

“Forever Together” is the brainchild of Joren Basyn, another temporary exchange student from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Ghent. Working alongside Maya Depoortere (also from the same school!) and Angelika Boos the three of them brought this ident to life, much like how the protagonist of this ident brought his beloved bride to life! 

Something that will stand out immediately when watching this ident is the live action set they built for it. As if putting together an ident wasn’t hard enough they decided to build a wooden cathedral set where they’d animate the characters on top. Crazy! We’d often see Maya and Joren come back from the workshops with new bits and bobs for their cathedral, slowly assembling it night after night. 

You see, their atelier was also right next to ours, so we’d constantly see each other. You’ve got to imagine that Joren isn’t only tall, but he also looks like some kind of high-fantasy elf, ripped straight out of the page and put into our reality. The man even plays the lute! Any time he stood up we saw him, his hair always blowing in the breeze somehow despite being in-doors the entire time. Angie and Maya would also occasionally peer into our atelier, sometimes for a quick chat, other times to exchange food, or sometimes to just stare at us until someone noticed. 

Angie, the character designer for the mad scientist groom and ghastly bride, would occasionally ask us if the groom was hot enough for us to willingly let him experiment on us or if she should push the hotness even further. As for the bride, she constantly had to look up reference of disgusting, freakish monsters in horror movies. 

Maya and Joren could also only stay for this one semester. But I know that in our heart of hearts, we’ll always be… forever together. 

Ring 

Talking about horror, what if one day you looked through your ring and you got a glimpse into another world? That’s the exact thing Nguyễn Tiến Minh Khuê (also known as Kathy) wondered when she first thought of “Ring” all those months ago. It was such a simple, genius idea for a story that everyone she pitched it to immediately saw the potential in it… everyone except for Kathy. She always doubted the idea, never believing it’d get picked by the client, let alone the class. And now we’re here, standing on the other side, the ident is done, and it’ll be out into the world soon. Never downplay yourself, guys, if you have an idea you burn brightly for then go for it! 

Since I worked on this ident, I probably have too many thoughts to say about it so I’ll try to keep it short. Kathy was not only the director of the ident but also the storyboard artist and rough animator for the entire thing. She’s a one-woman army that won’t stop at anything and her passion was matched by those around her. Marija Gajic, our ultimativna animatorica, worked with Kathy’s rough animations and in-betweened them. The two relied heavily on each other during production, pretty much single-handedly animating the ident themselves. 

Aurelia Hoersch touched up the in-betweened animations, adding little details and secondary movements here and there as well as assisting the background mastermind, the relentless renderer Mara Bisconi. Just like Kathy and Marija, these two would send each other the backgrounds back and forth, helping each other render them, coming up with ideas, and further improving them with every iteration. 

As for me, I helped out on the storyboard and on the technical side of things. Since we knew the ident was going to take place in a small, cramped antique store we knew we needed a set that sold this idea. So I fired up Blender and quickly got to work on a 3D layout of the entire store. This helped me and Kathy immensely during the storyboarding phase. Once we had an idea of what would happen in the ident we got to work. I’d try out camera angles and positions, Kathy would draw on top, I’d edit it together and we’d watch it. If we were dissatisfied then we’d go back in and do it all again. 

The secret to a good ident is to have lots of fun! 

This rigorous storyboarding process helped nail the timing of the ident very early into production, and we stuck to that timing for the most part during production. 

Of course, what would a film be without sound? We got the help of ZhDK second year Vitor Huber, composer of two HSLU idents (including ours) and one bachelor movie by now. Luckily for us he’s a huge horror buff, and the ident immediately struck a chord (ha, get it? music pun?) with him. We wanted a song that felt classy and then transformed into the horror soundtrack we imagined and luckily, our teammate Aurelia knew how to play the violin really well. One recording session later and we had exactly that, a really classy piece that Vitor then distorted and transformed into the current track of the ident. Marija and I made sure the sound design was up to par with his talent and once we added all of these together, we got ourselves a real scary sound… 

Blossom Blade 

Talking about sound, here‘s another ident I did sound design for – “Blossom Blade”. Imagine this… 

“Grass blows in the wind, 

a lone samurai walks alert 

blade drawn, pure of heart…” 

And suddenly BAM! The ground shakes, monsters emerge, and metal meets flesh. 

Just like “Artistic Choice”, this ident makes use of another Adult Swim IP, none other than Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack. This one‘s a bit of an edge case, animation buffs will know the series originally belonged to Cartoon Network, though due to the final season being made years later for Adult Swim, it‘s allowed the director of this ident, Persephone Huynh Murphy, to make use of this staple of animation. 

She‘s a newcomer to our class, transferring schools to join us on our second year of animation, and yet she immediately fit in with everyone, especially with Kathy who she‘s been longtime best friends with. Despite going to different schools life eventually reunited them. Could this be the work of Madame Phate…? 

One of the immediate standouts here is this ident‘s stunning backgrounds. Inspired by traditional Chinese ink wash, May Morin Hoang spent countless weeks honing her craft to get close to the old masters. Of course, when you only have months to learn something as opposed to the years these artists had you have to come up with ways to speed up the process. With a mixture of scanned ink artworks and digital trickery Morin managed to come up with a style that not only resembles the ink wash she spent so long trying to master but also give it its own unique spin, resulting in a stunning work. 

Ella Cattaneo, on the other hand, spent her time cooking up some of the evil creatures you see on the ident, including redesigning the demon overlord himself – Aku! Her concept work is fluid, ranging from more serious depictions to silly and cutesy ones. One day, I came into their ident for some sound thing and saw Ella working on her computer, carefully rendering each one of the flowers in the ident frame by frame. The end result speaks for itself. 

Everyone contributed in animating and Persephone did the compositing, which resulted in this visually stunning ident full of slick action, inky line-art and textures that give it a weathered, watery look. 

Geranienstrasse 

“Geranienstrasse” is different from the rest. I‘m not talking about the fact it‘s a stop-motion ident or anything, I‘m talking about the tone. Unlike most other idents, this one was made for Amnesty International. While our task was to come up with something funny or cool in 20-30 seconds this group had to come up with something hard-hitting and significant in that same amount of time. How do you come up with something that manages to be subtle, something that doesn‘t resort to cliches to tug at your heartstrings, something that doesn‘t seem disrespectful and stays in your head after so long in such a short timeframe? 

The street name in the ident doesn‘t refer to any street in Switzerland in particular, that‘s the point. It could be anywhere, it could happen anywhere, in fact, it might be happening where you least expect it. This ident handles violence against women without lifting a single hand. It doesn‘t invite you to voyeur into an argument between a couple or the deafening silence after someone is hit. It shows you a house like no other, a place you are familiar uncomfortably familiar with, yet something feels off. It‘s not obvious or in your face, it‘s just little details that stack up in the back of your head. 

This ident had a bit of a struggle regarding music. How do you score something like this after all? The crew wasn‘t even sure if they needed music. The final piece they ended with is subtle, but there was debate within the group whether to actually keep it or not. During the presentations, they showed some of the earlier drafts and imagining this masterfully subtle ident scored by some of the dramatic earlier drafts the composer started out with is impossible. 

Be on the lookout for this one, and make sure to catch it on the widescreen format if possible, that‘s where it stuns the most. 

Cat Temple 

Unlike every other ident, “Cat Temple” will never have the issue of having to choose between vertical or horizontal formats since this one is going straight to the cinemas, widescreen only! Our final ident, coincidentally also a stop-motion production, was made to advertise „Kurzfilmnacht“, a short film programme that tours around different parts of the country (therefore, the ident will be seen by many across all of Switzerland!). 

If the first thing you thought upon seeing the hazy, orange desert landscape was “Dune?” then you’re right on the money. Yannick Barel and Benjamin Maurer are the two behind this operation, making them the smallest team out of the bunch. When they started production, they knew they had a real challenge ahead of them – Benjamin wanted to work on a stop-motion project with visuals matching those of big productions. He’d recently helped out one of the Master films and gotten a taste of a big-time production and wanted to implement what he’d learned on this new project. With only two people on the project that’d prove difficult to most, but with some additional help to lighten the load, the two managed to pull this crazy task off. 

Benjamin worked on the cat, the main star of this ident. For this, he meticulously sculpted hundreds of little fur strands, each incredibly detailed, overlapping them carefully on top of each other. 

Yannick helped build the sets as well as do the compositing of the ident. Those little monks you see on the still above? All compositing magic! In reality they only had two monk puppets for a close-up shot and Yannick managed to make it seem like they had dozens of miniature monks slowly trudging down and up the sandy dunes. 

But who made those puppets in the first place if Ben was busy with the cat? None other than Angelika Boos! While she wasn’t busy watching horror clips for reference or designing hot scientists she also built the monks that worship the cult of the cat. 

But now that we’ve covered every ident we come to the end of our SEP. Something that sets this one apart from the rest is the fact that this is the last time we’ll have our beloved mentor, Jochen Ehmann, head the module. He’s retiring this year, but just because he stopped teaching doesn’t mean he’ll stop animating. In fact, he surprised us with a little animation he made just for us! 

And he left us with this message: 

“Never stop animating.” 

If you made it this far, I hope you take that message to heart. 

P.S. Kathy I love you! 

The friends embarking on their trip to the Baltic Sea in Jadwiga’s latest film, “The Car that Came Back from the Sea” (2023)

I have been acquainted with Jadwiga Kowalska and her work for a few years, but I have never taken the chance to discuss it with her in depth. January 14, 2025 was the perfect opportunity. Jadwiga’s AniTalk took place that day, and I had just returned from a 4-day research trip to Poland for an upcoming project. My exploration of the country’s history and cinema, enriched by my recent trip, gave me valuable insight into the context of Jadwiga’s latest film, “The Car that Came Back from the Sea” (2023).

By her own admission, when Jadwiga starts working on a film her approach is more visual rather than narrative. This is especially evident in her earliest films. Namely, “Tôt ou tard” (2008) and “The Bridge over the River” (2016). The images and the impression that they left me with are still imprinted in my mind, but I would not be able to retell those stories with the same clarity to someone who hasn’t seen them. Jadwiga’s audiovisual approach showed me a path to the essence of those stories that is more akin to that of trying to comprehend a dream, rather than a logical sequence of constructed events.

Despite the variety of stories and techniques that Jadwiga has worked with over the years, whether it was cutout, hand-drawn or CGI animation with a 2D style, the look of her films has always had a raw quality that makes them feel alive. The brushstrokes and the texture of her animation feel organic, which I was especially impressed with in “The Car”. It was a refreshing approach to the mixing of CGI and 2D in a way that authentically supported her story.

Jadwiga Kowalska. Copyright: Ralph Kühne

“The Car that Came Back from the Sea” was the film that resonated with me the most. I had seen it at a festival before, but its impact on me was far stronger upon second viewing. The story is about a group of friends embarking on a road trip to the Baltic Sea, while martial law is imposed in Poland in 1981. It is inspired by the story of Jadwiga’s own parents deciding to flee the country following those events. Much of the dialogue in the film comes from interviews she recorded with relatives and people who shared their own experience about that time. In an early animatic Jadwiga showed us, its form was similar to that of an animated documentary, using the actual interviews as voice over narration. However, at that stage the story felt like a collection of vignettes rather than a connected narrative. With time, she narrowed down her story to focus on the perspective of Leszek, the protagonist, with a more fictional approach.

The most relatable aspect of the film for me is linked with something Jadwiga revealed during her post-screening discussion. She was motivated to make the film to understand why her parents left their country, and when she directly asked her mother about that, she said “there simply was nothing in Poland”. That is the same reason my parents gave me, when I asked why we left our home country of Belarus when I was a child. But in contrast with Poland’s evolution as a nation since the 1980s, Belarus has hardly changed ever since, and I got to witness it first-hand when I used to visit my relatives there. The opportunities to build a decent life in the country have only become more restrictive in time, and hearing Jadwiga discussing her parents’ story brought me closer to her film because of the memories it sparked in my own mind.

Martial law going into effect in Poland in 1981, as represented by Jadwiga Kowalska in “The Car that Came Back from the Sea”

I admire the positivity that “The Car” is imbued with. The characters are in a country on the brink of chaos, yet in the limits of their means, and despite not knowing what awaits them in the future, they still find a way to have fun during their trip. The good-hearted nature of this film is a rare quality in contemporary cinema, one which I find essential to the cinematic experience. Many films today are carried by anger and cynicism. The ideas of many filmmakers are clouded by strong emotions instead of focusing with a clear mind on the craft of good storytelling, which has the unique power of transporting the audience to a different reality and way of life from their own. This is what I consider to be the magic of cinema, and the reason I fell in love with it in the first place. I am delighted to have had the opportunity of experiencing this with “The Car that Came Back from the Sea”.

Despite the struggles that Jadwiga recounted about producing her film, a project 7 years in the making, her enthusiasm and especially the fun she had while creating it were evident both in the result, as well as in her discussion of the film. In fact, I think “The Car” radiates so much life precisely because there is no doubt in my mind, that Jadwiga’s urge to tell this story never waned, even now that the film is complete.

Since the start of October, the Animation Bachelor atelier has been boiling with life! Next to the already installed 3rd years working hard on the development of their bachelor films, we, the student of the second year have settled in our cubicles. Eager to finally have our own desks, we’ve been painting and decorating the space all over!

But through the fuzzy plush worms hanging from the ceiling, the fairy lights, motivational posters picturing our beloved head of study: Jürgen Hass and other nap corners, there isn’t only laughter and late-night werewolf games in the atelier. Now that the class is split into teams from 2 to 6 students, we have been spending the past few weeks working hard to build our applied projects for the semester; 25 second (to a minute) idents for the corporation clients: Adult Swim, Amnesty International and KurtzFilmNacht.

During this pre-production period we’ve had multiple inputs on scriptwriting, character, prop and background design as well as storyboarding and sound for our animatics, helping us to develop every aspect of our projects and getting multiple rounds of reviews from various perspectives and expertise. While the 2D groups are refining their character designs and storyboards or exploring textures, the stop-motion based teams are already busy building their puppets and sets, next to the only 3D project, which is deep into modeling their assets and discovering the brand-new brushstroke tool add on from Blender.

Although supervised by our semester’s coordinator Jochen Ehmann, we are mostly self-organized and the different needed roles throughout the production pipeline such as storyboard artist, puppet builder, rigger or sound designer are designated through discussion within our work groups. This allows each student to develop their individual skills in their specialization, but also for some to discover new roles within production that might interest them in the future and that they would not have considered otherwise. It has been greatly satisfying to finally put the theory and basics learned during our first year of the bachelor to practice. As well as learning more interpersonal and organizational skills, such as communication within a team, making sure that everyone’s needs and voices are heard (including oneself!), managing time and unexpected obstacles and finding time to have fun and laugh as a class.

Soon enough, our animatics were ready to be sent to the clients for approval! (Not after a last-minute change of format of course!) PowerPoints ready on our hard disks, we gathered on the 5th of November, to present our work so far to our peers, teachers and clients, of which Wolf Gehart the Adult Swim envoy was present via Zoom. The teams working for a different client got their review per e-mail. The aim of those presentations isn’t really to show our process yet but more to do a sort of checkpoint of what has been accomplished during this phase of pre-production.

Picture 1: The team Phonomenal Battle presenting their 3D blocking and concept art in from of the class

Picture 2: The team of Blossom Blade listening to the reviews of Wolf Gehart

Picture 3: The team Forever Together presenting the concept art of a church in front of the class

Pressure is building up, only 5 minutes scheduled to present and 15 minutes of feedback. Does the rhythm of the animatic work? Will the joke land? Will the clients understand our vision, or did we completely miss the mark? Does an element not fit into the guidelines? Did we remember to add a black frame at the beginning of our animatic as fervently asked by our headmaster?? Many questions running through our heads before it’s our team’s time to present. Deep breath. Here we go!

The few technical problems put aside; the presentations went quite smoothly. It is always stressful to present the work in which not only you, but your colleges and friends have been putting their hearts and souls into for the past weeks. Yet every team’s review was delivered in a caring and insightful matter. Without of course a few laughter in reaction to the not-so-quite-on-point suggestions and concerns worded by the “London Colleges” now famous within the student body. All in good faith of course! As we, for the most part, are discovering the joys and frustrations of commissioned productions and client relations. (Of which our coordinator Jochen Ehmann still takes on most of the toils for us.)

This round of review was our chance to get a fresh eye on our projects, to take in the first reactions from our peers and advice from our teachers who have accompanied us so far, to clear up any miscommunication or inconsistencies as well as simply showcasing our progress so far! How greatly rewarding it was to see our idents and the ones of our friends and colleges slowly come to life and become more and more tangible! Working on such a big project for the first time is stressful for any student, but those presentations, allowed us to see that our efforts are really paying off and that we not only have the support of our teammates but all 2nd year students behind us. The positivity, encouragements and the gentle criticisms from the other students truly showed us that this ident is also a class effort to give each other the strength to power through and inspire one another!

Students of the MA Animation

At the beginning of this semester, Regina Pessoa, one of the most talented and famous animators nowadays, visited us at the Hochschule Luzern Design Film Kunst to give a workshop to the MA Animation students, where I had the opportunity to attend and meet her. We talked about her first steps in animation filmmaking, style, her creative process, inspiration, challenges, and advice for aspiring animation artists.

Regina P.

Regina Pessoa is a Portuguese independent animation filmmaker known for the short films The Night (1999), Tragic Story with Happy Ending (2005), Kali, The Little Vampire (2012), and Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days (2019), that were multi-awarded at different festivals, among them the Jury Prize at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2019. Her work shows darkness and light, strength, and expression through high contrast and texture that invite you to press stop on her films and appreciate the visual richness of each frame as a painting.

Still from “Uncle Tomas”, 2019

Hello Regina. I’m very lucky because 15 years ago, when I studied graphic design in Colombia, you were a great inspiration for me, and today I am sitting with you. Thank you for coming to HSLU.

Tell us how you first became interested in making films

Well, I grew up without any access to moving images, without television. So it’s like I grew up in the 19th century and never interested in animation. I studied art and painting at an art school in Portugal. Art was very expensive studies, so I was looking for a part-time job, and I found a small animation studio in Porto, the city where I was studying and living. I went there, and they were starting an independent animated short, which I have no idea what it was. I was very surprised and fascinated that this kind of content existed, the animated shorts, where each author would develop their own artistic identity and mix it with all the beloved artistic disciplines, such as music, sound, writing, literature, and the arts, so I got the opportunity to start my own movies, and since then, I never left the studio.

Short film: Tragic Story with Happy Ending, 2005 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnDrQDrTuFY

How do you define your style, your visual style? 

Well, how I define my visual style, I think, is… Well, I define it as light coming from the darkness. I am lucky because, in general, some people cherish my work, but there are people for whom it’s too dark for them. But I don’t think it’s dark at all because what fascinated me is exactly the opposite. It’s to have a dark; it looks like darkness, but then even a little light is wonderful. I like to explore that, this positive feeling of light coming out of the darkness. For me, it’s very inspiring and gives me hope.

What does your creative process look like?

Well, for me, when I’m working on my movies or on a new story, I need a permanent dialogue between writing and drawing. Sometimes, I start with a sentence, followed by an image, then another sentence, and so on. I normally work on the storyboard to figure out the visual narrative in a very intuitive way. Once a friend, a live-action director, told me you should write the script first. And I said, Oh, I should learn from live action, then I tried to write the script, and it was so dry. It was so hard, you know, and it didn’t work for me. I need this dialogue, this permanent dialogue between drawing scenes and writing. For me, it is very important what the idea is and why I want to do this. This is fundamental to find. When I found this, I could endure all the process and the motivation from deep inside me. 

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Well, mostly for the stories and even for the visuals, I get inspiration from my childhood and my experiences. I had no knowledge of film writing. So the solution I found was to talk about my little experiences. And the way I started my first film was my fear of darkness when I was small. I also find inspiration in different artistic forms, such as literature, music, and a lot in painting. I enjoy going to a museum and looking at portrait paintings of medieval and Renaissance art; it is inspiring.

02_Video: Regina posting illustrations

Could you tell us what challenges you faced while making a film?

Maybe it’s a flaw from my background in visual arts, but it’s hard for me to forget or to get rid of the frozen image. I mean, every image for me counts and takes a lot of time, which I have been assuming for myself in working night and day. I don’t know; for 15 years I worked like 16 hours a day, and now I cannot do that anymore.

What would be the best piece of advice for inspiring animation artists?

Well, I always think it is the one that I received from Abi, who became my husband and my producer. He told me. Regina, think about something that is important to you. If that is the case, you will be involved with the images you produce. So, people who will see those images will feel that strength and that commitment. For me, it was the best advice I have received, and I think it is the best I can give. 

Thank you so much, Regina.

It was nice to talk to you. All the best. 

by Pedro Nel Cabrera Vanegas, graduate of MA Animation

Regina and Pedro

What does Regina do in her free time?

Listen here:

Students in the workshop  Screening of the results 

Regina looking at the students’ work            

(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.

For the second time, Animation Lucerne and HSLU had the chance to send an MA student and a BA graduate to a small island in Norway on a creative journey at the Arctic Hideaway.

The small island of Sørvær, home to The Arctic Hideaway in the Fleinvær archipelago, is a place where nature reveals your true essence. Located near Bodø, beyond the Arctic Circle, this remote island is a sanctuary for artists from all over the world. The container-like wooden cabins became our home for three weeks, offering a rare opportunity to disconnect and focus on our work.

As soon as we arrived and settled into our cabins, we were drawn into the island’s beauty. Its rugged landscapes and ever-changing light sparked creativity. One of us captured the surroundings through 3D scans, videos, and field recordings, while the other immersed in the creation of an animatic for an animation film. The island stripped away distractions, leaving only ourselves and our art. Like the island itself—bare, unique, and visible—we felt deeply connected to our work and nature.

During an excursion, we met Magnus, a lifelong islander who shared how the island’s soundscape had changed. Climate change has reduced the seabirds, leaving many ‘duck houses’ empty. This absence inspired an exploration of the theme of loss, using digital material gathered on the island.

A highlight was our collaboration with a local artist Are in his studio, where we worked on a linocut print, blending digital practices with traditional techniques. This grounded us, connecting modern methods to the island’s artistic traditions.

The time we spent at The Arctic Hideaway was transformative, both personally and creatively. This magical place, where we became one with nature while staying true to ourselves, will continue to inspire our work for years to come. We are grateful for this experience and hope to return to this little paradise someday.

Thanks to Lavinia Petrache, animator from Zurich, and Håvard Lund, musician from Norway, who made this cooperation between The Arctic Hideaway and HSLU possible.

Hi. I’m Sven. I freshly graduated from the Animation BA at HSLU just this summer.

Up until the LuMAA, I’ve been a 2D Animator. I have opened Blender and I’ve set a keyframe before, but I never seriously approached 3D animation, let alone worked with a proper rig.

However, I have always had a fascination with the medium. Why not combine that interest with my love for character animation?

So when LuMAA came up this year, I decided to take the opportunity to finally take a proper stab at 3D. Follow along as I discover the world of CG animation!

And heyo! I’m Emanuel. I am in my second year and have been animating in 3D for some time now, but I want to grow and learn a lot more about 3D character animation. LuMAA is one of the best courses for growing as an animator, so why not take the plunge again?

Block 1A: Human Walk Cycle

Time and time again I’m amazed by how much I can learn from doing default walks!

Erica Palmerini showed us a blocking approach to 3D animation, where you pose the Character from keyframes to breakdowns to in-betweens, quite similar to the classic 2D approach. Because of this, I felt at home quite quickly. I was expecting my 2D experience to help, but I was surprised about just how well my skills translated to CG.

As for getting used to Maya: We had a small introduction prior to the workshop, which helped a lot to find my way around the program. Naturally, it still felt quite clunky in the beginning, but luckily Erica and the students from abroad were very happy to help. By day three Maya posed no more issues. (The Autodesk gods must have been on my side though, because the program crashed a whopping 0 times in my first week! I learned only later how blessed I was…) 

One thing that I soon learned to love about 3D animation is how easily you can experiment without being destructive. It’s crazy how much the attitude of a walk can change just by slightly offsetting or scaling keyframes. And it’s super fast to iterate!

As the week came to an end, we went down to the REX, the small Cinema of the HSLU, to look at our work on the big screen. Discussing our Animations this way was a great way to end the week, so the REX reviews became a weekly thing.

Block 2: Creature Animation

In week 2 we animated a quadruped walk cycle with Lukas Niklaus. Not only did we have double the legs to take care of, but we also approached it quite differently than in week one: This time around, Lukas advised us to work directly with curves, achieving our poses by changing the interpolation between as few keyframes as possible. 

This was more abstract to me since it was a different way of thinking. Rather than coming up with poses, you would think about the speeds and offsets at which limbs move. 

Once I got the hang of it, approaching animation this way helped a lot with understanding how muscles work.

Working with fewer keys made it slightly harder for me to achieve organic movement. However, once I did, it was even easier to iterate than with the Blocking approach. Another bonus of working this way is that once you’re happy with your movement, you don’t have to smoothen it.

In the second week of the Creature animation Block, we tackled an acting shot. Together with Michael Aerni, we studied animals’ behavior in depth. We combined the previously learned techniques to bring our animals alive. For this exercise, I chose a little Bulbul bird. With its snappy movement it was quite the contrast to the tiger I animated the previous week. It’s really interesting to see how much body size influences movement.

Throughout the week, Michael also gave us interesting insights into previs and cameras inside and outside of animation software.

Block 1B: Lip sync 

By week 4 I started feeling quite confident in 3D animation, as I was slowly finding a workflow that felt natural to me: I would usually block out the most important body parts pose by pose, while tackling more simple movements and adding some follow through directly in the spline.

For Lip-sync week, Ramon Arango and Noah Demirci taught us a lot about how mouths produce sounds and showed us interesting observations about acting beats and subtle eye darts.

Conveniently, Ramon is also the creator of the Apollo and Artemis rigs that a lot of us had been using for the workshop. So not only did we benefit from feedback and lectures, but Ramon could also occasionally perform some Rig surgery.

Going from stepped animation into spline is always a hard step, but I found that for lip syncing, the smooth motion can feel especially jarring. When we talk, the mouth snaps from pose to pose quite quickly. So when we started splining the mouth, the focus was on getting the energy from the blocking back. Applying this I quickly achieved a satisfying, snappy animation. 

That week we also had a little screening where everyone could show each other projects they had worked on. I was absolutely blown away by everyone’s creativity, skill, and stories. We saw everything from psychedelic journeys through compost bins to silly 80s action movies with bugs and even played a little intergalactic rhythm game. The lovely evening ended with a heated round of Mario Kart in the cinema.

As every Friday, we ended the week with a cozy and delicious barbeque. This time it was also a little farewell for Matze and me, who left the workshop that evening.

The rest of the class was getting ready for their last big task: over the last two weeks of LuMAA, they would tackle more complex, full-body acting shots.

Block 3: Full Body Acting Shot

With the end rapidly approaching for LuMAA we poured all of our emotions into the acting shot. It’s the combination of all that we have learned with more SPECIFICITY. If there is something that our teachers from Pixar want us to remember, it’s this one concept. María Bjarnadóttir (and her partner Alyssa) and Kristen Willsher were focused on this concept and beat it into our heads as it had been drilled into them during their time at Pixar. This “specificity“ is the magic that really makes us see a person within a bunch of moving geometry. It’s the art of holding a look, an involuntary movement, or making specific choices that the character would naturally make, all while achieving the illusion that there is no puppeteer behind the scenes. But to learn more about this, consider joining LuMAA yourself.

Maria and Alyssa were there to help us come up with what exactly we wanted to animate for the following week, block it, and get it to IP (in progress – the stage between blocking and polishing). We listened to dialogue, learned about characters and how people move, and then blocked our ideas out. Meanwhile, they walked around and made sure we pushed our shots as far as we could. “It’s always easier to pull back an extreme idea rather than push a weak idea further“, and so we started with as wild-ass ideas as we could conceive, and pulled back some strings after. 

We had a lot of fun watching Luca together with Maria and Alyssa, a movie that both of them and Kristen worked on. It had become a little bit of a tradition to watch a movie that our teachers worked on during the weeks, sometimes with the teachers present. We also had another delicious Friday BBQ and a tour of the school so that everyone could see the vast number of departments in HLSU DFK.

Kristen was our teacher for the final week, which was all about Polish, her favorite step of the animation process. We also got introduced to splocking, which is a layered workflow, but this time we used it for character acting. With Kirsten’s clear feedback, we all made amazing progress on our shot and pushed it even further – sometimes, it was at the cost of finishing the shot, but on the other hand, we gained a lot of knowledge, experience, and clarity of our ideas.

In the final week, we tried to cram in whatever last activities were still not done yet, so besides a last weekend hike, we managed to go bowling and have a fun afternoon with the game of werewolf. Over the weeks we have done so many fun things together as a group, that helped us bond and connect with each other.

Bundling up whatever leftover energy and emotion within us and pouring it into our animation, we finished our shots. And trust me, the emotions were running high since we all knew that this wonderful time was coming to an end and we would have to say goodbye to each other by the end of the week. The last BBQ had plenty of food and a lot of heartwarming last hugs were given – then it was over. It was a great time and one that I will certainly not forget for a long time.

Once again thank you to Simon Otto, for supervising the course. Michael Aerni, Lukas Niklaus, María Bjarnadóttir, Erica Palmerini, Ramon Arango, Noah Demirci, Kristen Willsher, and Alyssa Ragni for teaching us so much. To the staff at Animation Lucerne for the support and for putting it all together and, of course, our classmates.
See you next year at the next LuMAA.

A striking bell rings out in the dormitory. Students groan, stretch, and yawn. As the morning rises on the rocky cliffs and the warm smell of breakfast fills the humble mountain hut, another day begins for the students partaking in the Out Of Home Animation camp!
This summer, from the 22nd to the 31st of August, 17 inspiring animators coming from the Hochschule Luzern to as far as Berlin, Rotterdam, and Vienna ascended to the Fromatthütte in the Bernese Oberland to partake in the annual Out Of Home Animation workshop. Surrounded by the alpine pasture, and luscious pine forest, and facing a beautiful view over the Bernese Alps, it is in this idyllic setting that we lived, hiked, and created together

Picture 1: Hills and Cliffs.

After a warm welcome involving fresh cinnamon buns and a delicious dinner, we took the time to recover from the intense but wonderful ascension to the chalet and stargaze a little bit before settling into our new home for the upcoming days. We started off the camp with a hike guided by a local artist. He told us about the myths and legends of the area as we snaked through the woods, surrounded by majestic cliffs. He periodically picked up a plant, a mushroom, or stopped next to a rock formation to give us a quick biology lesson, warning us about the dangerous plants and the impact of climate change on the flora. Some of us snacked on some wild blueberries on our way to the top.
On the second day, we had a similar program. We hiked to a mountain lake to sunbathe and take a refreshing jump in the water. It was difficult not to feel like we were in a fantasy book as we walked through the beautiful hills and cliffs and swam to the little flower-covered island in the middle of the lake! As we got to know each other while enjoying the Bernese Alps, we also filled ourselves with inspiration and ideas for our creative endeavors of the week.

Picture 2: the students sitting near a mountain lake. Picture 3: Elena and a student admiring the view.

But living so high in the mountains comes with a few quirks! Water and electricity are sparse, and we had to use both economically. A generator was turned on for a few hours a day so that we could charge our devices and work on editing or sound design. Cooking was in the care of Elena Rast and Lukas and done with an old-school wood fire stove or on a campfire. Showers had to be taken outside in a little standing tent and with a bucket full of water. But those limitations quickly became usual. They are part of the OOHA experience! Helping to prepare the meals, sleeping in dormitories all together, as well as finding new ways to spend time and entertain each other as there’s, of course, no Wi-Fi! This disconnect from the digital world allowed us to be more present, focusing solely on our surroundings and creativity. It cut us off even more from the outside, helping us focus on our animation in this cozy little world that we created in our hut.

Picture 4: A group of students sitting on rocks and listening to the guide’s stories.

Following our few days of excursions and warm sun, a thick fog rose from the valleys all the way to the top, enveloping the hut and cutting us off even more from the outside world. This eerie and mysterious atmosphere gave us the perfect conditions to get in the zone and start to work! As some began by sketching or painting, others were busy building puppets, playing with textures and collages, or even losing themselves in the mist to collect sounds, images, and trinkets. Inspiration seemed to be coming from all around, not just from nature but also from each other, as we talked, shared our worries, and discussed our ideas. Busy in work, under the guidance of Maya Gehrig, and only interrupted by games of Yatzy, the occasional visit of some goats or chubby marmots, everyone seemed to slowly find their flow while experimenting with materials and ideas. For me, it was extremely refreshing to let go of the usual production pipeline, to let myself animate whatever I felt like, however, I felt like!

Picture 5: Student taking pictures on a cliff surrounded by fog. Picture 6: Students deep in work on a table covered in various materials.

At the end of the school year, I found myself running out of creative inspiration and motivation. I was completely paralyzed and kept overthinking and changing my ideas every other day without being able to find a flow or let myself go in the creative process. I was obviously tired and in need of a good vacation. But after that, anxiety started to creep in…what if the same thing was damned to happen in September? Out Of Home Animation was, for me, the perfect opportunity to challenge myself to make a finished project in just about 5 days. The isolation from the outside world, the inspiring students around me, and the focus on more analog and simple forms of animation created the perfect bubble for me to do so!
I will admit that I signed up for the Out Of Home Animation workshop not really knowing what I was getting myself into. It sounded very fun and also a bit intimidating. Yet in the span of 9 days, I met wonderful people, and challenged myself physically and creatively! The bonds we formed and the inspiration we found in the simplest things, like a morning mist or the sound of a distant cowbell, will continue to influence our work. As I packed my bags and prepared to leave this magical place, I carried a heart full of gratitude for the moments we shared. OOHA 2024 was a journey I’ll cherish forever, and I can’t wait to see where it leads us all next.

Picture 7: Panorama of the view and a student admiring it.

Internship at Nukufilm, Niine 11, 10414 Tallinn, Estonia 

Myself working at Nukufilm 

It’s mid-March, and two weeks passed since I started here at Nukufilm. Finished my first props already, which got approved and so I am waiting for my next task while sipping coffee and listening to the head of the studio complaining about the weather, as it turned out, the winter returned. As it was for me the missed winter wonderland, for everyone else it was pure misery after having the cold-bloody and long period of darkness and depression due to the lack of sunlight. Different from ours, the Estonian winter means from November till the end of February mostly 5 hours of daylight, freezingly cold up to -15, and melancholic faces everywhere. And just as it happens to be, I arrived in Estonia, when the first glimpse of sunlight was hitting the surface of the tired faces, now I know why everyone smiled on the day of my arrival. 

Lasnamäe district after a snowy day in March 

As I started out being an assistant prop maker in two ongoing projects, I soon got to know the third project, which will occupy most of my time; The stylized and one-to-one adaption of an illustrated children’s book by Jonas Taul called “A Serious Thought”. It is about a young boy having his first existential crisis and I surely felt being set into a similar situation when I started working on the props of this project. I assume it was the strategy of the studio to create the equivalent of method acting into the prop making. 

Different Props for the Short Film “A Serious Thought” by Jonas Taul 

As I first glanced at the simplified style of the sketches of the objects, I marked it as an easy task, but what followed was my story of an ordeal for gaining pure perfectionism. To build a symmetrical object consisting of a blank-white-textureless surface; Stop motion is known for having textures; was a pain in the ass. To make the endless felt hours of sanding the surface bearable, I ended up listening to podcasts about philosophy. There is a certain humor in it, listening to talks of Arendt, Derrida, Latour, etc. while trying to get the perfectionism of CGI in Stop-Motion. It surely made the repetitiveness meditative.  

A collection of finished Props 

I couldn’t think of giving up and there was nothing more satisfying than when the director finally gave the thump up. In general, the working environment at Nukufilm was gentle and it offered me not the feeling of having dense pressure to reach a certain standard, but to be able to use the working space to learn and make mistakes. And in this, I was able to shine and get more secure in my field of work.  Nevertheless, I started to miss a little bit the multitudinousness of also working on the other projects. When I did again make a silly five-second mistake which forced me again into days of sanding, I just wished to have a break from the black and white.  

Linnahall in Tallinn, a reminiscence of the soviet time 

Now the late period of coldness started to fade away and even though I was an admirer of the frozen and in my opinion poetic landscape, I was looking forward to the week of blossoming, where spring would start. Nature started to be a good relief towards the more moderate and repetitive activity in the studio, they were complementing each other perfectly.  

Wide Landscape behind the Kopli Area 

That’s why I used my weekends to do trips. As soon as I got to the countryside, I sometimes felt like being in nowhere just surrounded by trees and a wide landscape, mountainless and absent from any human being. As I was standing beside the abandoned-looking bench and the sign marking it as a bus stop, I was not sure, if the non-English-speaking bus driver will pick me up. Those situations in solitude made clear how dependent I am on the device I have in my pocket. Google Maps got to be my best friend during my time here. I was always able to return to Tallinn.  

One of the few swamp pathways, you can find in Estonia 

It is the beginning of May and within one week the environment underwent a substantial change of its appearance. Now the forgotten soviet ruins started to be ensnared by beautiful flowers and the landscape started offering a colour range that is unimaginably beautiful to the human eye. While the abandoned places were claimed by nature, visitors started to take the central part of the urban area, and Tallinn got crowded by now.  

Ruins of the Aegna Island 

And in Nukufilm, the arrival of spring meant that the row of ongoing celebrations would start by now, every week flowers were brought into the studio, which meant that someone’s birthday was celebrated. From the outside, it was nice to participate in it, but since my Estonian hasn’t gotten better by now, it was that time where I felt mostly isolated. So mostly it ended in thanking for the finger food and going back to work. 

Restoring Fruit and Veggies for the film “Zoobox” 

The tasks became more varied by now, I was more involved in all three projects again and besides making props, I was now also helping on the set by either restoring objects or making minor adjustments. My curiosity also got bigger, and I started to look around at what everyone else was doing, asking questions and noting down things. And while my daily notebook got filled with scribbles of certain observations, the days also got longer and the nights shorter.  

Set design of the short film “Where do the grown-ups come from?” 

The time of the never-ending sunshine started until it ended up in the longest day of the year, celebrated here as the “Jaanipäev”, the Estonian Midsomer. And as the big fire was burning, I was already in the middle of my last task, making an animation test for the water scenes in the movie “A Serious Thought”. 

Jaanipäev celebration in the town Viljandi 

As it happens, they started to trust me with the task of finding a solution for the stylized water animation. As if I was a scientist, I experimented around on my own for a month with different kinds of techniques for imitating a flowing surface. It was truly exciting and inspiring also for me to discover new solutions. Yet the repetitiveness also didn’t leave me alone here, but to be honest with everyone, I guess that’s part of working in the professional field and I got a lot out of it, repeating after repeating the same thing made me truly learn it and improve my skills.  

Experimenting around animating water for “ A Serious Thought” 

The studio is starting to get quiet, a few people are still here, and the other ones already left for the tranquillity. I am one of the last ones, cleaning up my space.

Like always the ending feels odd, there is just a silent breath of wind when you are closing the door, and a Head Aega; Good Bye; follows. 

Last Day at Work