thefoundationhttp://www.thefoundation.de2010-07-16T19:13:28Z(c) 2010 Michael Kurze, Aachen, Germany1LIVE - Dein Leben Lang2010-07-16T19:13:28ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthias1live-dein-leben-lang<p>In January the <a href="http://bildundtonfabrik.de">BTF Team</a> produced a two minutes commercial for <a href="http://einslive.de">1LIVE</a> - the largest german youth radio station</p><object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9859295&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9859295&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/9859295">1LIVE - Dein Leben Lang</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/bildundtonfabrik">bildundtonfabrik</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> <p> This film was the fastest project we ever worked on. From beginning to public release we only had two weeks. We shot on the <a href="http://red.com">RED One</a> and did the editing with Final Cut Pro. Typography and animation was added with After Effect and 3d Studio Max. </p> The <a href="http://www.einslive.de/medien/html/1live/2010/02/01/1live-dein-leben-lang.xml">spot</a> on the 1LIVE Website.Something for the FIFA World Cup2010-07-16T18:57:17ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasard-sportschau-trailer<p>How we created a trailer for the <a href="http://www.fifa.com/index.html?language=en">FIFA World Cup</a> in South Afrika!</p><p> Some time age in may, a TV guy from the german <a href="http://www.sportschau.de/sp/">ARD Sportschau</a> TV show asked us to create a short trailer for the <a href="http://www.fifa.com/index.html?language=en">FIFA</a> world cup in South Afrika. He really liked our music video for <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/matthias/2009/aug/03/wallis-bird-my-bones-official-video-released-now/">Wallis Bird</a>, so his idea was to create something with that style. </p> <p> The idea of trailer was to emphazise the viewers in Germany to participate in the world cup with home made videos they could upload to <a href="http://youtube.com">Youtube</a>. The best were chosen by the editorial department and aired on TV after the matches. </p> <p> We shot the trailer in three days with our 5d mk2 in our basement studio. We rigged the camera over a wooden table and hooked it to a laptop for a live image preview. Our workflow turned out to be very simple, because there was hardly any compositing involved. Everything you see on the table was animated by our hands. After two days of animating at 10fps we had an image sequence of our animation. </p> <p> Now the more difficult part began. As you can see there is a smooth camera movement going back and forth. This was created the same way as we did it for the <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/matthias/2009/aug/03/wallis-bird-my-bones-official-video-released-now/">Wallis Bird</a> music video. We back-projected our image sequence on a white screen and placed a tracking grid in front of it. Then we filmed the screen with our animation and thus created the camera movement. After matchmoving the filmed video we placed the virtual camera in After Effects in front of our image sequence. So after that and after creating the rough look with some lens distortion we rendered the final video. </p> <p> <youtube id="0BfSClrvga8" /> </p> <p> <b>People Involved:</b> Christoph Pietsch<br/> <a href="http://www.philipp-kaessbohrer.de">Philipp Käßbohrer</a><br/> Robert Windisch<br/> Jakob Beurle<br/> <a href="http://thefoundation.de/matthias">Matthias Schulz</a><br/> </p> <p> <gallery slug="ard-sportschau-trailer">The entire gallery</gallery> </p>Trip to Palau2010-03-04T15:19:12ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiastrip-palau<p>In June and July of 2009 Jule and I went for trip to Palau, Bangkok and Manila. It took us three flights, one night and a boat ride to get to our beautiful island in the Pacific.</p><p> From above the islands of Palau look like jungle worms wiggeling through the shallow tropical water. In fact, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palau">Wikipedia</a> says, that the islands are the peaks of a giant underwater mountain range. </p> <p> <photo slug="palau-micronesia" size="display">Some of the Rock Islands from above.</photo> </p> <p> After two days of travelling we finally arrived on Carp Island. A small island (1km from side to side), owned by a palauan family, in the very south of the Rock Islands. It is one of the very few Rock Islands which you can visit. All the other Islands are uninhabited and are part of a big nature preserve. Some parts of the Rock Islands are even entirely closed for public. This is due to the inimitable marine wildlife, especially the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish_Lake">Jelly Fish lakes</a> which are very important to many research teams. </p> <p> <photo slug="a-visit-to-palau-5" size="display">The Jelly Fish lake on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eil_Malk">Eli Malk.</a></photo> </p> <p> On Carp Island we lived in a little bungalow right next to the islands jungle. The simple hotel was the only thing on the island. When we arrived on the island we were the only guests for about a week, so everything was very quiet and calm. </p> <p> <photo slug="a-visit-to-palau-1" size="display">Our Island from above. It looks a little bit like a starfish. Photo by Ariane</a></photo> </p> <p> We went kayaking around the islands to some small beaches on the islands right next to our island. It was just incredible. You could kayak alongside the bank and look directly into the jungle. There were a lot of tropical birds with very long white tails and carnivoral plants. We went snorkeling at one beach we found near the dive site <q>turtle cove</q>. It's amazing when you snorkel over the reef top and suddenly the reef under you drops off into the deep blue. </p> <p> <photo slug="a-visit-to-palau-43" size="display">The dive site <q>Big Drop Off</q>.</photo> </p> <p> It was a bit like in <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Island">Monkey Island</a>, the computer game, so I had (and still have) the plan to write a script for an adventure computer game set in the Rock Islands of Palau :-)<br/> We had a great time exploring the centre of the island, with all the mangroves, caves, crabs, shell roads and poison trees. <p> <photo slug="a-visit-to-palau-21" size="display">Jungle Man In the centre of the island.</photo> </p> <p> <h1>DIVING</h1> </p> I went diving around 16 times at dives sites such as <q>German Channel, The Big Drop Off, Turtle Cove</q> and the famous <q>Blue Corner</q>! And I must say it was amazing. I've been diving before in Egypt and Bali (and Lake Constance ;-) ) and I've never seen so many big fish before! Nearly every dive we saw sharks, turtles and giant swarms of snappers or other fish.<br/> I even had the luck to see a giant <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manta_ray">Manta Ray</a> at the Cleaning Station in German Channel. We think it must have had a span of around 5 meteres! We were hiding behind some corals when the huge ray appeared behind us! <p> <photo slug="black-tip-reef-shark" size="display">Reef Shark at <q>The Big Drop Off</q>.</photo> </p> <p> <h2>The Blue Corner and the Blue Holes</h2> My dives at the <a href="http://flyingfishhome.com/UNDERWATER%20PHOTOS%20PAGE/Sharks/IMAGES/BlueCornerSharks.jpg">Blue Corner</a> and the <a href="http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/18699381.jpg">Blue Holes</a> were amazing! The <q>Blue Corner</q> is a reef peak at a place were there is a lot of water coming from very deep seas and flushing over the edge of a 18m deep reef top. On our day we had very strong current, so we had to use reef hooks to secure us from being flushed away. We went down to about 20m and waited until the current moved us against the reef. As soon as we saw the edge we pedaled hard to reach the best spot. Just before the edge I felt the strong current catching me and blowing me up! And that's the moment where you have to get out you hook and grab a coral. We were hanging there like James Bond hanging onto the wing of a flying plane! The reef hook helped us staying at that spot.<br/> The current was very strong and so I had to hold my goggles, otherwise the current would have blown it away. And that's not very good at 18m.<br/> After all that action I now had the chance to look around and to experience what was going on around me. There were so many fish around me! Giant swarms and many many sharks! </p> <p> <photo slug="a-visit-to-palau-3" size="display">A giant fish swarm. Photo by Ariane</q>.</photo> </p> <p> Some days later we went to dive the <a href="http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/18699381.jpg">Blue Holes</a>. And I must say, that for me, this place is as good as the Blue Corner!<br/> On the reef top at a depth of around 7 meters there are several big holes going into the deep! We dived to the edge of one hole, deflated our jackets and jumped like some crazy base jumpers into the holes. It was amazing! It was a slow motion base jump! We went down the hole to a depth of around 30meters. When you look up you could see the light rays coming through the holes and drawing silhouettes of the fish. All the holes merged into one big cave which was open to the outside reef. We dived through a little window into the reef finished our dive.<br/> This place really gives you the feeling of being weightless! You turn around and hover through holes and over edges like you're flying. <a href="http://www.deepseaimages.com/dsilibrary/data/850/17Blue-holes-Palau-2.jpg">Nice Image</a> which shows a part of the holes.<br/> There was just one creepy thing: On the bottom of the big cave there was a cross with a name on it. Some years ago, someone died while diving the holes. </p> <p> <h2>GOING HOME</h2> </p> <p> It was not very easy to leave to island. It was very lonesome and calm, and that's something way to rare. All you could here was the noise coming from the jungle and the waves of the ocean. And sometimes the guys from the hotel switched on the power plant ;-) <p> <gallery slug="palau-micronesia">The entire Palau gallery</gallery> </p> Music Video »Angry Young Man« for Artist »Get Well Soon«2010-02-25T01:13:46ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasget-well-soon-angry-young-man-music-video<p>In November and December 2009 the team of the <b><a href="http://bildundtonfabrik.de">Bildundtonfabrik</a></b> worked on the new music video for artist <a href="http://youwillgetwellsoon.com/"><q>Get Well Soon</q></a>. The outcome is a philosophical piece on mankinds attemps to fight and control nature.</p><p> <youtube id="mumG3p3mb68" /> </p> <p> I can't remember exactly how we had the idea, but the visual style of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001885/">Lars von Trier's</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870984/">Antichrist</a> was definately an important inspiration for us. We saw the movie in a small cinema in Cologne and were amazed about the highspeed shots and the color look of the movie. </p> <p> Preproduction began in the end of October, while screening <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/matthias/2009/aug/12/der-tag-dem-herrn-muller-einfach-nichts-einfallen-wollte/"><q>Der Tag An Dem Herrn Müller Einfach Nichts Einfallen Wollte</q></a> on the <a href="http://www.biberacherfilmfestspiele.de/">32. Biberacher Filmfestspiele</a> on the <a href="http://www.biberacherfilmfestspiele.de/">31. Filmfestspiele</a> in Biberach. During the days, when there were no films to go to, we brainstormed a lot about the project and finally visited a beautiful forest not far from <a href="http://philippkaessbohrer.wordpress.com/">Philipps</a> hometown. It was that forest that gave us confidence for our ideas. </p> <p> Back in Cologne we started to tighten everything and began the official production. The were several very difficult decisions to make. One of the most difficult decision was the decision of our production format. Our idea was to shoot on S16mm or S35mm, but our budget was tight and we were thinking about switching to a digital system like the <a href="http://red.com">RED</a>. Everyone recommended to shoot digital, but somehow we were not happy with that approach. It took a lot of time and many hours of budget planning, but in the End we decided to shoot on S16mm and S35mm ;-)<br/> The next very difficult thing was our idea to shoot everything on minimum 50-75fps and two special shots on 1000fps. We knew the <a href="http://www.visionresearch.com/index.cfm?sector=htm/files&page=camera_HD_new">Phantom HD</a> and the <a href="http://www.weisscam.com/">WeissCam</a>, but theses systems are extremely expensive and the film rentals in Cologne couldn't make us a good offer. That was a big problem for us, because the majority of our concept was based around these ultra highspeed shots.<br/> So we began an intense research and found <a href="http://www.sciencedoku.de/">Norbert</a>, a guy specialised on highspeed crash test and nature shots. He supported us with the <a href="http://www.pco.de/high-speed-cameras/pcodimax/">PCO Dimax</a> camera system, which is basically the same as the <a href="http://www.weisscam.com/products/hs-2/features.html">Weisscam HS-2</a>, but a little more complicated to use. </p> <p> <h3>Production DAY 1 // Nov. 19</h3> </p> <p> We began with the highspeed shots of the kids and the bird. We built our set in the garden of the KHM and used a backdrop and a bush to let it look like it was in the forest. It turned out to work very well using the printed backdrop. I had some concerns about the color matching later in post, but we had so much color detail in the footage that it worked.<br/> The slingshot shot was a little dangerous, because the actor had to aim directly on the lens of the camera, but we constructed a safety box around the camera and shot through thick glass. <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-26" size="display">The small packshot set needed a lot of light for the highspeed camera.</photo> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-29" size="display">Alex in front of the backdrop.</photo> </p> </p> <p> <h3>Production DAY 2 // Nov. 20</h3> </p> <p> Day two was our first day with animals at the <a href="http://www.wildgehege-hellenthal.de/">Wildgehege Hellenthal</a>. It was an about 1:30h drive from Cologne. We did not work with so many different animals before, so we were a little afraid of the situation. We had no animal trainers. The deal was to go into the enclosure and work everything out by ourselves. That was a huge risk when considering that we were shooting on S16mm at 75-150fps!<br/> In the end we were very lucky and managed to bait them with some food :-) <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-46" size="display">The deer park</photo> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-48" size="display">The deer park</photo> </p> <p> After shooting with deers, goats, racoons, ferrets, and roe deers we switched over to falcons and owls. The park had a special bird of prey section and the supported us very kindly. We shot a falcon ripping a dove, which they usually use bird food. Later on we shot with <q>Hugo</q> the owl. Because they were all trained birds, it turned out to very comfortable to shoot with them. They were doing precisely what the trainers wanted! </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-38" size="display">The bird trainer, <q>Hugo</q> the owl an me</photo> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-41" size="display">Philipp checking a place for the falcon to start from.</photo> </p> </p> <p> <h3>Production DAY 3 // Nov. 21</h3> </p> <p> Again we spent day three in Hellenthal shooting with two teams in two different locations. Team one was shooting with the actors in a nearby forest on the big S35mm camera and team two was in the deer park shooting on S16mm some of the animals we did not manage to shoot the day before.<br/> The logistics of that day were very complex. There was always a car somewhere on the dirt road between the two sets. We learned a lot about how to manage two camera units and all what they need to shoot. </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-52" size="display">Unit one on production in Hellenthal.</photo> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-47" size="display">Unit two shooting with animals again.</photo> </p> <p> <h3>Production DAY 4 // Nov. 22</h3> </p> <p> On day four we relocated everything to a forest near Windeck, Kreis Sieg. Again it was a 1:30h drive from Cologne, but to a completely different direction. Just like Hellenthal we visited this location about a week before production. We got the forester's address from the <q>Anitchrist</q> production manager, so in the end, we were shooting in the same forest as Lars von Trier did.<br/> In the morning of day four we began everything so early, that we did not have enough light to start shooting :-) . During the day we had a lot of rain and so everyone and everything was soaking wet and full with mud. In Hellenthal we were a bit more lucky with the weather and lighting conditions. </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-64" size="display">Creating fog.</photo> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-60" size="display">Unit one shooting a running scene.</photo> </p> <p> As nearly every day, day four ends when the sun goes down. Unfortunately that was already at about 16:30, so there is not very much time to shoot on one day. But somehow we managed to shoot everything we needed. </p> <p> <h3>Production DAY 5 // Nov. 23</h3> </p> <p> Day five, our last day of production, was divided into three parts/locations. We shot the majority of the day in the forest in Windeck and as the sun went down we moved to a little pub in Windeck to shoot the old man singing. After that we drove to a <a href="http://dive4life.de/pages/d4l-tauchcenter/portrait.php">dive centre</a> in Siegburg where we shot the underwater scenes.<br/> During our preproduction we found a nice location in the forest. The ruins of an old gunpowder factory look really beautiful through the camera. We finally shot the climbing and some running sequences there. </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-3" size="display">The crew shooting some last shots.</photo> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-4" size="display">Director Philipp and artist Konstantin.</photo> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-15" size="display">The 20m deep dive pool.</photo> </p> <p> We decided shooting in the dive center, because there we had the chance to shoot through a window at a depth of about three meters. Hence we could save a lot of money we would have spent for underwater housing equipment. But still, the shooting turned out to be very difficult, due to the angle Konstantin had to jump in. It was very narrow and so we had to practice many times before we could actually roll the camera. At about 23:30 of our longest day we finished the production of the music video! </p> <p> <h3>Postproduktion // Nov. 25- Dez. 7</h3> </p> <p> Just one day after the exhausting production marathon, we continued with the postproduction. Therefore we first had to gather all of our footage which was mostly analogue but there were also some digital clips and still photos from our 5D MK 2. Philipp, Jakob and me drove down to Baden-Baden to scan our footage. Once again we did our standard film workflow. The S16mm and S35mm footage was scanned at 25fps directly onto HDCAM SR and 10bit Apple Prores HQ files. The tapes were actually just a backup solution, just in case something happens.<br/> Back in Cologne Philipp started editing everything while Julian and I were already working on several composites. We did a lot of complex stuff, like to the bird shot, where we gave life to the dead bird. There were also a lot of removals to do. <br/> </p> <p> <photo slug="get-well-soon-65" size="display">Bluescreen elements.</photo> </p> <p> On our 5D the 2. Unit team shot several small animals like grasshoppers, a mouse and a rat in front of a bluescreen. We composited these elements in the foreground or background of the final clips.<br/> Overall there was a lot of compositing to do for this project, but everything we managed to accomplish on our own. </p <p> After about two weeks of postproduction we mastered the video and passed it over to the label. Again one week later it was released on <a href="http://tape.tv">tape.tv</a> and <a href="http://youtube.com">youtube</a>. </p> </p> <p> <h3>Reactions</h3> </p> <p> We receive very positive reactions about this video. The people recognize the distinctiveness of this video and discuss it heavily on the web. Many people ask how the bird shot was done and think that we used a living bird for it! I hope now no one thinks that any more.<br/> Altogether I think we can be very proud of our creation and of what we learned by making it. I hope we'll have the chance to do this kind of project again in the future! The next time we will not shot in a rainy November, with animals and kids, with only 7 hours of light and everything on film at 75-150fps!<br/> What we did was insane and we were not very far from a failure, but again somehow we did it! </p> <p> Shortly after our release on <a href="http://tape.tv">Tape.tv</a> and <a href="http://youtube.com">Youtube</a> the blog <a href="http://feingut.com"><q>Feingut</q></a> contacted me with some questions about the music video and posted an <a href="http://www.feingut.com/2010/01/04/new-get-well-soon-video-angry-young-man/">article</a> with my answers about the project. </p> <p> A BIG thanks to every team member and everyone who helped us during this project! </p> <p> <gallery slug="get-well-soon-making">The entire gallery</gallery> </p> Light pollution2009-08-12T14:35:29ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiaslight-pollution<p>Since some years the discussion about <q>light pollution</q> is growing and countries are even changing their laws to prevent this kind of pollution. But what really is »light pollution«? Again, I decided to write a seminar paper about this topic.</p><p> I focused my analysis of <q>light pollution</q> on the city of Cologne, Germany. To visualize imagery I made a website with more information. I must say that photos are not the best indicator for <q>light pollution</q> but there are some good charts about how much light is burning every night on earth and how it developed in the past years. </p> <p> Click <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/files/matthias/lichtverschmutzung/">here</a> for more information. </p> <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/files/matthias/lichtverschmutzung/media/090519_HA_Matthias_Schulz_Lichtverschmutzung.pdf">Here</a> you can download the paper. Again it is written in German. Roman Polanski's »Chinatown«2009-08-12T14:15:23ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasroman-polanskis-chinatown<p>During my last semester at the KHM I wrote <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/files/matthias/Hausarbeit_Chinatown_Matthias_Schulz.pdf">this</a> seminar paper on the narrator's point of view in the 1974 movie <i>Chinatown</i>.</p><p> I know this movie for a long time now, but right now I wanted to focus on it more deeply and decided to write this paper for my film studies. </p> <p> Like in classical Hollywood film noir movies (e.g. John Huston's »The Maltese Falcon«) Polanksi decided to tell Jake Gittes story in »Chinatown« very strictly from his point of view. I found this very interesting and analyzed the movie with a special attention on how the audience and Jake Gittes see and hear and how information is spread from different characters. </p> <p> The paper is written in German. You can download it <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/files/matthias/Hausarbeit_Chinatown_Matthias_Schulz.pdf">here</a>. </p> Short film »Der Tag an dem Herrn Müller einfach nichts einfallen wollte«2009-08-12T13:47:35ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasder-tag-dem-herrn-muller-einfach-nichts-einfallen-wollte<p>A short film about a writer, who suffers from writer's block. In several short attempts he tries to stem this blockade. The film is now watchable on Vimeo.</p><p> I wanted to write this article for a long time, but I simply didn't find the right time…until now. </p> <p> After we finished the final edit of <a href="http://www.gemeinsam-allein.de/"><q>Gemeinsam Allein</q></a> the next project was already planned and <a href="http://november-film.de/">Robert</a> and <a href="http://philippkaessbohrer.wordpress.com/">Philipp</a> were on location in southern Germany to shoot <q>Herr Müller…</q>. DP <a href="http://november-film.de/">Jakob Beurle</a> used an old Arri 2C 35mm Camera for filming, which was extremely loud, so that sound had to bee dubbed in sound post. <br/> The Film was shot on 35mm Film and was scanned in full HD (Apple's ProRes HQ) for post production. For some shots we did animation and vfx, but the majority of the work was the grading that was done at our <a href="http://bildundtonfabrik.de">studio</a> in Cologne, Germany.<br/> In the end we created a nice, cinematic look for the film.<br/> And now, about seven month after finishing the shooting, we finally mastered the film. </p> <b>The film (about 7 minutes):</b><br/> <object width="400" height="166"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4899715&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4899715&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="166"></embed></object> <p> <a href="http://vimeo.com/4899715">Der Tag an dem Herrn Müller einfach nichts einfallen wollte</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/thefoundation">thefoundation</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>. </p> <p> <h3>The postproduction workflow</h3> For this short film we worked the same way as we did with <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/matthias/2009/jan/06/super-16-student-film-post-production/"><i>Gemeinsam Allein</i></a>, except that we worked on standard 35mm Film.<br/> The scan was done at the SWR in Baden-Baden with a Decklink Extreme HD directly into Final Cut Pro 6 using the ProRes HQ codec. After editing <a href="http://www.duktusbeats.de/">Andy</a> got an offline version for sound recording and design and I started to work on the look and the VFX. For compositing I used Shake and the grading was done in Color. </p> <p> I hope you like the film and we would be very grateful for any feedback. Just send comments to matthias [at]thefoundation.de </p> <p> P.S. At the moment we are planning to dub the whole film for an english version. </p>Wallis Bird - To My Bones [Official Video] released now!2009-08-03T23:55:30ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiaswallis-bird-my-bones-official-video-released-now<p>After animating 1200 single frames, we finally released <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIVif6zvDIs">this</a> new video from <a href="http://www.wallisbird.com"><q>Wallis Bird's</q></a> new Album <q>New Boots</q>.</p><p> I was diving <a href="http://www.palauman.com/Fish-N-Fins/PALAU-Blue-Corner.jpg">Palau's Blue Corner</a> when <a href="http://www.philipp-kaessbohrer.de">Philipp</a> had some hard time in Cologne writing the concept and managing everything for this great music video…<br/> But anyway…it turned out to be one of the best projects I was ever involved in! </p> <p> Even me (I have seen the video so many times during the production) can watch the video over and over again. Every time I watch it, I find new little details on the animated wall I didn't see before. Every animator created his own little world, with its own little moving objects. I am also very fond of the night scenes with the fast burning candles and the window shadow moving across the wall. </p> <p> <youtube id="DIVif6zvDIs" /> </p> <p> <h2>The Making Of</h2> While I was still very far away, somewhere in Bangkok I guess, Philipp, Alex and Robert had organized and planned everything for the first shoot. Two days after I arrived the party scenes were shot. The plan was to shoot a very realistic and cool party and we knew, that you cannot stage such a party and direct everyone around and do a shot by shot thing. So we decided to just have a really cool ;-) party and run around with the camera without too much directing. Thanks to Alex and Robert, we had enough to drink (if you now what I mean ;-) ) and the party turned out to be a really funny and great party! 90% of what you see in the video has happened spontaneously! Even burning out studio sofa was not planned :-( . Well it didn't smell good anyway…<br/> We shot all the live action stuff on an old Arri SR II with Kodak Visions 2 500T. The processing and scanning was done at the SWR in Baden-Baden. They sent us a HDCAM Tape which we captured to Final Cut (using ProResHQ) at KHM. </p> <p> The days after the party we continued to shoot the stop motion animation in the KHM Studio. The set up was actually very simple. We used a wooden studio wall and painted it to a normal concrete stone wall. After that we startet capturing single frames using a Canon 5D MK II with Hasselblad Lenses. The camera was mounted on a tripod and secured so no one moves it. We shot at full resolution (21 MegaPixels) to have enough resolution for the shoulder camera movements we added later in postproduction.<br/> On location we used Macbooks to check and save our images and to control the camera with Canon's EOS capturing tool. This tool was a great help for our production because you don't have to touch the camera, you can control every funktion of the camera remotely.</p> <p> The next 4 days we repeated this 1200 times… </p> <p> <h3>Postproduction</h3> Throughout the planning and production we were facing some severe brain damage because we didn't really know how to deal with all those frame rates ;-) We shot the party scenes on film at 25fps, the animation on the wall was done at 8fps. For the animated wall we shot clips of Wallis singing with Canon 5D MKII using 30fps. So we ended up with three different frame rates with the plan of finalizing the video at 25fps. I actually don't really know how we did it, but somehow we did…<br/> For the camera movement on the wall we built a setup with a back projection screen and a thin grid. On the screen we projected the image sequence we shot in the studio. Again with the Canon camera we filmed the screen performing the camera movement we wanted for the final video. After that we matchmoved the movement of the camera using Pftrack. Finally we could import the camera data to After Effects and render the final movement.<br/> We could have animated everything right away in After Effects, but we didn't want to have the perfect bezier style movement. We wanted to have a handheld camera in front of the animated wall and this was an easy quick method of doing this. </p> <p> <gallery slug="wallis-bird-my-bones-music-video">Wallis Bird music video shoot</gallery> </p> <p> <h3>The Crew</h3> <a href="http://wallisbird.com">Wallis Bird and band</a><br/> <a href="http://www.philipp-kaessbohrer.de">Philipp Käßbohrer</a><br/> <a href="http://rocken.org/">Alexander Rechberg</a><br/> Robert Windisch<br/> <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/">Matthias Schulz</a><br/> Sylvia Bußmann<br/> Katharina Huber<br/> Matthias Gerding<br/> Julian Schleef<br/> Theresa Locker<br/> Evy Hack<br/> Marius Beyersdorf<br/> Lisa Krane<br/> Philipp Grußendorf<br/> Holger Pest<br/> <a href="http://www.paulskiste.de/">Paul Trommer</a><br/> Andreas Fabritius<br/> Julia Kotowski<br/> </p>Short film »Gemeinsam Allein« on vimeo2009-05-30T23:42:40ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasgemeinsam-allein-vimeo<p>Here you can now watch last year's short film <a href="http://www.gemeinsam-allein.de/"><i>Gemeinsam Allein</i></a>.</p><p> It took some time but <a href="http://www.gemeinsam-allein.de/">»Gemeinsam Allein«</a> is now watchable on <a href="http://vimeo.com">vimeo</a> in a very good quality. </p> <b>The film:</b> <object width="400" height="240"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4900786&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4900786&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="240"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/4900786">Gemeinsam Allein</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/thefoundation">thefoundation</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> <p> <h2>More information:</h2></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/matthias/2009/jan/06/super-16-student-film-post-production/">Matthias' article about the post production of the film</a></li> <li><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinsam_Allein">Wikipedia article about the film</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1410022/"><i>Gemeinsam Allein</i> at IMDb</a></li> </ul>BEAM ME UP - Die Große Star Trek Show2009-05-26T23:43:10ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasbeam-me-die-grosse-star-trek-show<p>During the last weeks of April our studio in Cologne was crouched with people working on an animation for a German TV show. We created the graphics and the opener for the <i>BEAM ME UP Star Trek Show</i> for <a href="http://www.kabeleins.de">kabeleins</a>.</p><p> Again, everything had to be done extremely fast and there was absolutely no time for any preparation… ;-)<br/> <a href="http://www.sonypictures-tv.de/Beam_me_up-Die_grosse_Star_Tre.701.0.html">Sony Pictures Germany</a> and <a href="http://www.ad-art.de/">@d art medienproduktion</a> produced the show and asked us for the animation parts. So we met at our studio, bought a lot of chips and drinks and started to develop a graphical concept for the show.<br/> <a href="http://www.duktusbeats.de/">Andi</a> and <a href="http://philippkaessbohrer.wordpress.com/">Philipp</a> immediately started to work on a remix of the original Star Trek theme. Julian began to create a 3d model of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701A ;-) . Alex did a heavy illustrator job and constructed the LCARS design. Philipp Grußendorf and <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/daniel/">Daniel</a> worked remotely and produced great typography in Star Trek style and a logo design.<br/> I…well…I tried to keep everyone happy and working ;-) . <p> Thousands of rendered frames and many difficult approval procedures later the show was aired…puh… </p> <p> <h2>Thanks a lot to the entire team for your great work!!</h2> </p> <p> <b>This was aired on German TV an May 6th, 2009:</b> <youtube id="0sdNOG61H20" /> </p> <b>Just the opener:</b> <object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4763471&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4763471&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/4763471">StarTrek Show BEAM ME UP</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/thefoundation">thefoundation</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> Spardabank Frankfurt Lights Up the Dark!2009-05-26T22:54:28ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasspardabank-frankfurt-illumination<p>With <a href="lichtkunstlicht.de">Lichtkunstlicht</a> from Bonn, Germany and <a href="http://www.lichtwerke.com">Stefan Hofmann</a> we worked on the illumination concept for the <a href="http://www.sparda-hessen.de/">Spardabank Hessen</a>.</p><p>It all began in mid 2007, when I received the request for the production of a facade animation. For us the task was to deliver an animation of about 15 to 20 minutes, to be played back on the new mediafacade.</p> <p>We received several pixel mapping instructions from <a href="http://www.barco.com">BARCO</a> so <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/daniel/">David</a> could start programming. He developed a script to convert <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/daniel/">Daniel's</a> and mine animations to the format required by the content player of the facade.</p> <p> The most important goal was to create a seamlessly integrated animation, with the demand not to work as a advertisement screen, rather than to merge with the architecture of the building. <br/> Due to a resolution of approx. 50 horizontal and 1120 vertical pixels, it was not easy to create the content. The 50 horizontal pixels cover the entire new glass front of the building of about 150meters. The 1120 vertical pixels only cover 5 stories (approx. 20 meters). So we have a very different resolutions across the facade, what made it hard to imagine the final impression, while working on the animations with a computer. <br/> Finally we figured out a pretty fast workflow to preview our animations. We completely rebuilt the building with <a href="http://www.blender.org">blender</a> and thus used it to preview our work. We produced several preview animations in advance so we could test the animation before we render them in full resolution. </p> <p> <gallery slug="production-days-spardabank-frankfurt">Mediafacade Project »SPARDABANK«</gallery> </p> <h2> The Wave Theme</h2> <p> Since our work on the <a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/matthias/2008/oct/18/project-infinity/">Infinity light ínstallation</a> we thought about creating a wave theme for the bank's facade. The width of the building suited very good for animations on the horizontal axis so we developed several transformations of the wave from more static to more dynamic motions. The size of our <i>screen</i> forced us to slowdown the speed of our wave. The impression of the motions speed on the facade is completely different to that on a computer LCD. <br/> With the wave theme in mind we designed the rest of the animation. </p> <p> <youtube id="0rbD6Q64fJ8" /> </p> <h2>The Goldrain Theme</h2> <p> For christmas time we animated a special goldrain theme. After several test with ourt previz worklflow, we figured out that it was not easy to accomplish. Movement of falling vertical pixels looked boring, so we had to work with 3d particels to create the glittery effect. But finally we managed to create the look we wanted. </p> <p> <youtube id="lBXjqO_RfqQ" /> </p> <p> Finally we started the video in January 15th, about 2 year after the project began. </p> <h3>More information:</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/matthias/2008/sep/10/animating-frankfurt-1/">Animation Frankfurt #1</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.thefoundation.de/daniel/2008/nov/04/production-days-spardabank-frankfurt/">Production Day: Spardabank Frankfurt</a> - Daniel's great article about our second field trip to Frankfurt!</li> </ul> J. J. Abrams at TED.com2009-03-20T14:20:44ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasj-j-abrams-movie-making<p>J. J. Abrams, creator of <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/">Lost</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/">Cloverfield</a></em>, talks about the mystery box.</p><p> Check it out this nice keynote about him and how he approaches his projects.<br/> There are more interesting videos at <a href="http://www.ted.com">TED.com</a> </p> <p> <youtube id="vpjVgF5JDq8" /> </p> Björk »Wanderlust« in 3D2009-03-17T18:37:26ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasbjork-wanderlust-3d<p><a href="http://bjork.com/">Björk's</a> music video of her single »Wanderlust« was produced stereoscopic and can be watched only in the internet.</p><p> This is already some time ago, but I decided to post this here anyway. Since we are planning to do some of our future project stereoscopic, we studied a lot about stereoscopic imagery and motion picture during the last few month. </p> <p> You can watch the video <a href="http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/04/bjork_wanderlust_3d_video">here</a>. </p> To watch the video you need to have a pair of red/cyan (blue) glasses, otherwise the two embedded images will not separate properly. You can get those glasses on <a href="http://shop.ebay.com/items/?_nkw=3d+glasses&_sacat=0&_fromfsb=&_trksid=p3286.m270.l1313&_odkw=stereo+glasses&_osacat=0">ebay</a>. <p> <h2>The Making of »Wanderlust«</h2> </p> <p> <youtube id="nmaPLKerqOA" /> </p> Short film »Interferenzen«2009-03-13T22:04:41ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiasshort-film-interferenzen<p>Julian and I directed this 6 minute short at the <a href="http://www.khm.de">KHM</a> last October. The production schedule was very tight, so we had to shoot it in one day.</p><p> The film is about a young man who breaks into a drug dealers flat and gets surprised by a young service technician, who tries to find the interferences coming from this flat. From one moment to another the burglar impersonates the flat owner and tries to get rid of the young woman. But the young technician is not the one she seems to be..... </p> <p> <photo slug="images-from-the-film-1" size="display" /> </p> <p> We shot this at the <a href="http://www.khm.de">KHM</a> studios on video. The entire set was built and decorated the days before and together with camera students from Dortmund and <a href="http://www.khm.de">KHM</a> students we shot about 4 different films through the week.<br/> </p> <p> <photo slug="images-from-the-film-5" size="display" /> </p> <p> <b>The crew:</b><br/> Name Alaei - Technician<br/> Jochen Wigand - Burglar<br/> Julian & Matthias - Directors<br/> Etienne Kordys - Camera<br/> Alexander Rechberg - 1. Assistant Director<br/> Martina Plura - Continuity<br/> Cecilia Gläsker - Camera Assistant<br/> Christiane Buchmann - Lighting & Grip<br/> Tina Porsche - Lighting & Grip<br/> Lilia Dornhoff - Sound<br/> Alex Moyerer - Sound<br/> Rikisaburo Sato - Set Decoration<br/> Sabrina Sarabi - editing<br/> Julian Schleef - editing<br/> Martina Plura - editing assistant<br/> Susan Gohsmann - editing assistant<br/> <a href="http://www.duktusbeats.de">Andreas Fabritius</a> - Sounddesign & Music<br/> Susan Gohsmann - Catering<br/> Thanks to Sören Messing and Gabriel Andres Mora Permantier<br/> <a href="http://www.khm.de">KHM</a> mentoring by Peter F. Bringmann, Petra Clemens and Barabara Teufel<br/> </p> <p> <gallery slug="shortfilm-interferenzen">Some stills from the film</gallery> </p> Cheonan Architecture Visualization2009-01-15T00:01:16ZMatthias Schulzhttp://www.thefoundation.de/about/matthiascheonan-architecture-visualization<p>With Lichtkunstlicht we worked on an animated visualization of a complex, two layered media facade of a new Galleria store in Cheonan, South Korea.</p><p> Daniel, David, Julian and me met at our new production studio in Cologne. We had to complete the project within six days, so we had to start immediately. Fortunately Julian already worked on the 3d model of the building so we didn't lose too much time during our main production phase. </p> <p> The idea was to previsualize a facade concept of the light design agency <a href="http://www.lichtkunstlicht.de">Licht Kunst Licht</a>. The architects from <a href="http://www.unstudio.com/">UNStudio</a> designed a facade consisting of two layers. Each layer has its own structural bearing so that the facade seems to be transforming while the spectator changes his perspective. <a href="http://www.lichtkunstlicht.de">LichtKunstLicht's</a> concept was to seamlessly integrate an invisible media facade between the two layers. <abbr title="Light Emitting Diode">LEDs</abbr>, placed on the inner side of the outer facade layer, projected their light onto the milky inner layer. Over the main entrances of the building a high resolution facade is also seamlessly composed into the architecture. There is also a smooth transition between the high resolution and the low resolution parts of the facade. </p> <p> It was very important for the design concept that the integration of the facade would serve the art of the architecture rather than operating as a screen for information or advertisement. </p> <p> <gallery slug="cheonan-production">CHEONAN production team</gallery> </p> <h2>The final visualization:</h2> <p> <youtube id="UIHbZe2MFMw" /> </p>