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!

(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.

Four students shared their experiences and creative processes behind making some murals at HSLU D&K.

Ella Cattaneo

I had never done a mural before, so signing up for this opportunity was very exciting and a bit stressful, but I am very happy that I took the plunge, and so grateful that it paid off! I came up with multiple concepts for the mural, but I decided to settle on one that didn’t depend too much on the format (aka the dimensions of my chosen wall), so that the organizers could potentially move me to another wall if needed.

I also wanted to depict something that related to the school, so I settled on drawing a crowd of students walking to class and choosing to depict them as animals of various shapes and sizes gave me a chance to play with proportions and composition more. I initially wanted each character to represent a specific Bachelor’s, but I soon realized that certain courses were going to be harder to represent visually than others, and that the lines between various art forms were often kind of blurry, so I decided to just freely assign art supplies to the various characters, and let the observer imagine the wider context.

I transferred my sketch to the wall by using the doodle method: I covered the surface with random irregular pieces of tape, took a picture of the wall, and then overlapped my sketch and the picture digitally. I found it much easier than using a grid, although I regretted not using a lighter color for the sketch, as I spent a good chunk of time painting over the sketch lines at the end… Otherwise, the painting was really enjoyable: I first blocked in the basic colors and then did the lineart, the quality of which varied quite a bit depending on how tired I was. I enjoyed being able to work on it virtually whenever I wanted and being my own boss. Compared to what I usually work on also felt much more straightforward: a wall is much more straightforward than a computer program.

The closer I got to the end, the harder it was to finish the project: on one side I felt fed up with the the whole ordeal, on the other side I had been enjoying myself so much that I didn’t want to be done, as contradictory as that may sound. Now that I’m done, I think that I’ll avoid the corridor where my mural is for a while, as I’m quite sick of it, but once I feel detached enough from it, I think that I’ll be able to appreciate it once again.

Janine Varga

Lea and I had the honor of painting a mural on one of the walls on the bottom floor of HSLU DFK. We spent many hours refining Lea’s initial sketch and transferring it onto the wall next to the elevator. A bunch of first-year students from the animation department banded together to send in as many applications as possible to secure at least one wall for the animation department. I eagerly joined in and submitted a simple design, which unfortunately wasn’t selected.
However, the plan was to help other animation students whose designs made it to the final round, so I got to assist Lea with her mural design instead.

I had painted murals before, so I explained some basics I knew from my previous mural projects to Lea, but even with all the experience I had, we were unprepared for the amount of work and frustration ahead. First, we analyzed Lea’s initial sketch and improvised most of the sketch directly on the mural rather than strictly following the initial design. We used yellow charcoal for the sketch, which seemed like a great idea at first but ended up causing problems later.

The first phase of painting was met with frustration when we discovered that other students had contaminated the paints with other colors. This caused the paint to look inconsistent, with darker and lighter shades mixing together instead of appearing as solid colors. This was a problem since we intended the mural to have flat colors only. Consequently, we had to repaint most areas with inconsistent colors, like the orange of the frogs. The yellow charcoal also mixed with the paint, altering its color, which further complicated the process.

Despite our efforts to avoid dripping paint onto other areas, we still managed to do so,
forcing us to repaint several sections, especially during the line art phase. Initially, we were excited about doing the line art, but it turned out to be the most frustrating and soul-crushing part of the process. Although we bought brand new brushes specifically for the line art, we eventually had to buy new ones because the brushes we initially purchased were too big or too rough to paint with. Lea did most of the line art while I stood behind her with three different colors of paint, ready to correct any mistakes. Throughout the process, I took on the role of fixing any errors we made.
In the end, it was all worth it. We were very happy with the final result and learned an important lesson: next time we do a mural, we will keep the line art out of the design.

Lea Glitsch

While I was reading through all the initial information about the murals and the walls that were available for painting, I was quick to choose the wall next to room 079. I‘ve sat in that room multiple times for various art theory classes, so I thought it would be fun to design some characters that kind of “walk” toward the room and try to „interact“ with the door. Since frogs are some of my favorite animals, naturally I had to include them in my concept.

Although I was excited to do a mural, I was also nervous because I had never worked on one before and my painting skills left much to be desired. Thankfully my friend and classmate Jan came to my rescue and we teamed up to tackle this endeavour together.

The sketching stage, in which we tried to bring the initial design from my iPad onto the big wall without the help of a projector, was very tedious and difficult. It made me realize how much I was used to only working on a small screen. Jan had some experience with mural painting already and she was able to correct all my embarrassingly wonky lines. We made adjustments to the design to simplify the painting process and added a few little references to some of our classmates.

The flat painting stage was very satisfying and relaxing (not preparing us for the horror that would be the line art). The only difficulty we faced during flat painting was the fact that many people didn’t clean the shared equipment properly so sometimes old, seemingly dry paint on the palettes would suddenly mix with our fresh paint and mess up the flat coloring.

The line art was definitely the least fun part of it all, it required a lot of concentration and a steady hand, little mishaps would be visible instantly and we needed to do quite some cleanup work with the flat colors to cover up our messy accidents. After some time Jan and I came to the silent agreement that I’d take over most of the line work and she’d stand ready with all the flat colors in case of mistakes and mental breakdowns. I guess after some time you just adjust to the misery of it all and accept the fact that some things just must be done somehow.

Aside from that the overall experience was extremely fun, with Mara and Ella just around the corner working on their own murals. We were all open for a silly chat now and then and seeing everyone’s murals progressing with each passing day was very inspiring.

Looking at the mural now that it’s finished I’m very happy with the result and I’m very grateful that I’ve been given the opportunity to add a little splash of colour to one of the concrete walls of the school!

Mara Biscioni

Personally, I always really liked the hallway area of our school. For one, because it has a nice open space at its end, and for the other, because the floor has a yellowish tone. I don’t really like yellow but hey, at least it’s a color. Most educational buildings I have been to have dark gray floors, which makes the whole ambiance of the area gloomy. Needless to say, the bar for nice, colorful atmospheres in buildings is extremely low. Even in art schools. That’s just sad. It was about time someone killed the white of this canvas. I’m so grateful for this opportunity.

The color palette was set for all the paintings to give a sense of harmony to the hallway as a whole. I initially didn’t mind this limitation since blue and orange go well together. However, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with the given colors, as there was only one main blue to work with. We had a light blue, two midtones, and a dark one. They were all slightly different hues, which made them look disharmonious. Personally, I would have loved to see more confident variations in the tones. Maybe an almost turquoise? Maybe a purple tone in the darkest blue? But that was a problem for later. First, it was time to lay down some Ideas.

Blue and orange immediately make me think of a nice warm light source. So I made a few sketches around this idea and chose the one that would be the most fitting for our nice little space.

This used to be a rougher sketch but I finished it outside of the mural project. I just thought it looked like the two characters were burning down the circus behind them, which would’ve been a more fitting image for my previous school’s walls.
This one stayed in its sketch form and never got to be anything more but a chaotic color exploration. It would have looked pretty stiff anyway with the four bluetones given.
I decided to go with this one since it featured a lot of people looking at the same light ray, much like all the people in this school have a common interest in art.

I had the pleasure of visiting HSLU last month to do a talk and spend time with students looking at their current puppets and projects.

Having heard great things about the school over the years from various colleagues it was wonderful to step inside the campus and get to meet students who are benefitting from the university’s amazing teaching and facilities. From woodwork to metalwork, to fabrics, ceramics and 3D printers, art schools are a space where ancient processes collide with cutting edge technologies.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about animation and stop motion and how this medium, my preferred métier, sits at a junction between so many art forms. It’s somewhat peripheral and often under-valued, but simultaneously fiercely unique and singular in its capacity for empathetic, poetic storytelling.

In my talk I spoke about my background in theatre, having started in the plastic arts of painting and sculpture, my love of photography, opera, dance, my collections of objects and antiques. Every time I travel  I seek out museums of puppets and curiosities and stalk through antique markets and junk shops and all of these techniques and obsessions feed into my work as a director.

Stop motion is an art form which operates in the real world; what you see in front of the camera is painstakingly built by hand, photographed under real lights, and brought to life by unseen artisans; the puppet animators. It’s a multi-disciplinary process that draws on performance, artistry, technicality, and cinema to create something tactile and tangible which in turn gives the medium a weight and gravitas which perhaps sets it apart from drawn animation or computer animation.

Having recently co-directed a live-action puppet film, I’m struck by the expressive, artistic joys of making with our hands, of mixing media and techniques to tell bold new stories.
In the world around us, we can observe the constant march of technological progress, from devices which control our homes to artificial intelligence creeping into numerous aspects of everyday life, as well as barging its way into the creative sphere, whether we like it or not. But perhaps the question is not ‘Can a computer achieve this faster or better?’ (I would argue ‘no’ when it comes to inimitable stop motion and puppetry in particular) but rather – ‘can a computer have as much fun as I can, making art with my hands?’ Really we need to turn inwards and reflect on why we make work and how the inherent qualities of these practical mediums lend themselves to moving audiences, engaging viewers, and communicating narratives and themes which challenge, provoke, and entertain.
I say, long live the practical, plastic arts, and here’s to many more years of making work with our hands!

If you missed the presentation or want to hear Joseph talk more about these themes, you can hear him speaking about the appeal and inner-workings of stop motion animation on the BBC Radio show Screen Shot alongside Guillermo Del Toro here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tr6g

Lastly, talking about the making of his short ‘Salvation Has No Name’ and the ups and downs of being an independent director on the ‘Under the Onion Skin’ podcast here:  https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/under-the-onion-skin/id1704806166?i=1000644088772

Text and images provided by Joseph Wallace
https://www.josephwallace.co.uk/

Auf einer spärlich bewohnten, idyllischen Insel in der Nähe der norwegischen Kleinstadt Bodø befindet sich eine Gruppe seltsamer hölzerner Kabinen, in denen jeweils eine Künstlerin arbeitet. Gegen Ende des Sommers hatte ich das Glück und die Gelegenheit, zusammen mit zwei weiteren Kolleg*innen aus der Animationsbranche für drei Wochen in eine dieser Kabinen einzuziehen, um an meinem persönlichen Filmprojekt zu arbeiten.

Die Menschen, die ich während meiner Zeit im Arctic Hideaway kennengelernt habe, waren genauso inspirierend wie die einzigartige Umgebung. Da war zum Beispiel Trond, ein norwegischer Künstler, der mir viel über die norwegische Kultur und Geschichte erzählt hat, oder Misha, eine rumänische Metallbildhauerin, deren elegante und tiefgründige Werke mich genauso beeindruckt haben wie ihre Persönlichkeit.

In meiner Arbeit suche ich nach dem Absurden und dem Überschreiten von Grenzen. The Arctic Hideaway bot mir einen abgelegenen und inspirierend schönen Arbeitsplatz, der jedoch nicht an Vielfalt und skurrilen Interaktionen und Situationen mangelte. Es treffen sich verschiedenste Personen an einem von der Welt abgeschiedenen Ort, wo sie sich gemeinsam auf ihre Arbeit und das Zusammenleben konzentrieren.

Das Arctic Hideaway ist eine Residenz, die von der grenzenlosen Leidenschaft der Besitzer und Helfer sowie von uns, den Kunstschaffenden, belebt wird. In Zusammenarbeit mit der HSLU Design und Kunst ermöglichte uns das Arctic Hideaway, unsere Kreativität an diesen Ort zu bringen und in den naturnahen, wilden und dennoch stilvollen und harmonischen Alltag auf der Insel in Fleinvær einzutauchen und uns von ihm inspirieren zu lassen. Jetzt bin ich zurück in der Schweiz und teile meine Eindrücke begeistert mit allen, die zuhören möchten. Ich hoffe, dass ich auch andere ermutigen kann, eine dieser hölzernen Kabinen für eine Weile ihr Zuhause zu nennen.

It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of our beloved and dear colleague, Paul Bush.

For many years, Paul was part of the lecturing team at Animation Lucerne. He had a lasting influence on the project development of the graduation films, and introduced many generations of students to the world of animated film with sensitivity, experience, and empathy. With his humour and peacefulness, he was a great role model for all of us.

Without him, Animation Lucerne would never have been what it is today. He was a formidable artist, filmmaker, animator, and lecturer whose absence will be felt for a long time.

We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends.