3D-GRAPHICS, Films ;)
Star trek Into Darkness is hitting theaters this week. I had the amazing opportunity to work on this movie at Bad Robot in Los Angeles and can´t speak highly enough about the whole experience, which still feels kind of surreal to me.
Not only did I get to meet and work with J.J. Abrams and the amazingly talented Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot,(BTW: Andrew did epic, mindblowing work on these maintitles - keep an eye on his blog for more!) but a whole bunch of really nice people (Ben, Erin, Kerry, Marty, Andrew, Nate, Juan, Zack, Olaf - this list could go on forever...).
The Bad Robot offices really are geek heaven, just bursting with energy and I´ve had an amazing time working there. Now go out and see the movie. In true summer blockbuster fashion, it is a big, fun and highly entertaining movie.
So excited to be heading to the US to help out at Bad Robot, working on a major summer blockbuster.
;)
Here´s my most VFX-heavy music video to date:
"A Campus, A Heart, A Star" by THE SATELLITE YEAR.
Shot entirely on greenscreen and featuring 4:30 min. of 3D, Compositing and VFX work. Not an easy task, especially since I was doing everything by myself: Director / DP / Edit / CGI / VFX / Colorgrading
Be sure to check out the SATELLITE YEARS terrific album MISSION POLARLIGHTS while you´re at it:
itunes.apple.com/de/album/mission-polarlights/id423313465 - it´s really great.
Music Videos
This is the trailer for my last music video for the foreseeable future, since i´ll be moving on to other ventures in 2013. "A Campus, A Heart, A Star" by The Satellite Year will premiere at europes biggest computer arts festival REVISION 2013 on 30/03/2013 before going to broadcast on 31/03/2013.
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to direct and animate the Wunderlist 2 launch video for the great folks at 6Wunderkinder.
Brisk in pace and done as 2D and 3D Animation, the trailer is all about giving you a taste for what it feels like to use the app. Since the level of attention and care present in the app (and the Wunderkinder marketing in general) is up there with the very best, coming up with a trailer matching the quality of the product was no mundane (but fun!) task.
And as someone who has spend the last couple of weeks using the near-final beta, let me tell you: Wunderlist2 is quite awesome. The guys really poured their heart and soul into making a great app and it shows in every pixel and every user interaction, If you don´t know this app yet, you should definitively check it out
While my past promos always involved shooting a performance of some sort, this is much more of a graphical exploration of the track using macro-photography and 3D-graphics.
It was much more about finding images to fit the music and I animated roughly 100 different visual explorations, some of which didn´t make the cut of the final promo. I really enjoyed creating the imagery going into this video, but one should keep it away from children and epileptic people (I´m NOT kidding on this one...).
;)
There´s a photoset of stills over at flickr, too.
This might also work as a title sequence for a David Fincher film. Just saying - drop me a line, David ;)
Please head over and watch the HD-Version on VIMEO since the tiny embedded version doesn´t do it justice...
Music Videos I went with a fun meta-music video approach on this one.
The single is out 10/08/2012 - get it on itunes
I´ve been nominated for the DESIGNPREIS DER BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND. Very happy about this. Now: Back to work...
Photography 
I joined 500px, an awesome photo-community, and will be posting some of my more interesting photography-related stuff there. So head on over to 500px to see some of my latest photos.
2012 will be the year of my first independent narrative film. the script is shaping up nicely - I can't wait to get the ball rolling on this one. happy holidays to all of you.
After doing a few music videos lately, i´ve been looking for new ways to challenge myself. While in the past I could always count on the help of a few buddies for shooting and took my sweet time with postproduction, I´ve decided to break this habit and shoot a video all by myself and try to have it edited, color-graded and released all within 24 hours.
Despite all advances in technology, doing this well (and not half-assed) still represents a huge challenge. While the video itself is not breaking any new ground, it´s a nice mood-piece fitting the song perfectly. Thanks to Tobias Heiland of GHOST OF A CHANCE, a great guy and fabolous artist. Check out his current album "AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP" - A fitting title, looking back at the last 24 hours. Good night all.
My soundtrack video for a movie that does not exist. Borrowing from well established action- and spy movie clichés, this is my humble homage to +100 Mio.$ Hollywood action films.
Update:
So far, the response to the video has been incredible: Apart from being all over music television, the clip has inspired glowing reviews on leading industry websites like promonews and videostatic, as well as getting recognition from all over the world. It has won competitons, and has been the featured video on giant online music video portals like blank.tv and tape.tv.
As a side-effect, I´ve been drowning in a whole lot of requests from well known music video agents/reps offering me representation in the US, the UK and Japan. But for now, I´m happy at my dayjob, where we´ve got some incredible cool stuff coming up. And my next music video is already well underway.
Buckle up, I´m just getting started...
Photography ;)
model: anna hoff. shot on the 5D Mark II with the 100mm 2.8 IS
from christian fickingers highkey workshop @ die luminanz
Painting ;)
white//orange//red 150x35cm, Acrylic Paint and Graphite. Thorsten Hary 2011.
;)
;)
