BSSS © 1999 HFF ‘Konrad Wolf’

Synopsis

In a kitchen a fly discovers a children’s book, in which an elephant stands on its trunk. The fly becomes interested because it has one, too...

Animated short

Character

Character & Story

Originally I wanted to explore some of the functions of the animation software ‘Maya 1.0’ and make a short test animation.
Soon I came to like the character of the fly and thus started having even more ideas. A few sequences quickly turned into a short film.
The story is about breaking habits through curiosity and leads the fly to an unpredictable final destination.

 
 

Technique

‘BSSS’ is a combination of 3D-computer animation and a real life background, shot with an old animation camera from 1910. After finishing the storyboard, we filmed in a very small but beautiful old kitchen belonging to my former fellow student in the animation department, Daniel Höpfner. We worked with the animation camera frame by frame so that in the course of the shooting I could do the pixilation of certain elements – for example a drop of wine the fly drinks. The way in which we shot the background also created a kind of time-lapse photography, causing a slightly alienating effect.
The picture sequences were scanned using film resolution by a special company for visual effects. These pictures (about 960) had to be touched up digitally so that the sequences, in which there was no movement of the background, could be looped without having dust, scratches or water spots reappear in the same spots. The finished movie contains more than 3000 pictures. Without the looping, scanning would have been much too expensive.

Having created the real room, I now constructed the virtual room to superimpose onto it, where the fly was to be animated. Using the same software, I adapted some of the objects onto which the fly’s shadow was going to fall as well as objects that would cover parts of the fly. There are also surfaces, for example the wine drop, which were going to reflect the fly. It turned out to be useful to keep in mind the measures and proportions of the real-life objects. The fly is the only directly visible model from the computer and all the rest is real.

The phase that followed, in which I animated and rendered the fly, took about three months and was the most labour-intensive.

Storyboard

Storyboard

I refined the camera angles in the storyboard after we had taken some photos from the set.

Slide show

Slide show

 

Credits

Felix Gönnert
Felix Gönnert
Daniel Höpfner
Felix Gönnert & Daniel Höpfner
Gregor Wille

Markus Glunz
Dirk Steglich
Jens Gebel
Franz Schindlbeck

Matthias Berndt
Thomas Epp

Tech Specs

Length 2’16” min | 69 m (226 ft)
Format 1:1.85 | 35 mm | color | 24 fps | Dolby Digital SRD | animation without dialogue

Awards & special attributes

  • FBW-Wiesbaden, Prädikat: “Besonders Wertvoll“, FSK-Wiesbaden: freigegeben ab 0 Jahre.
  • Imagina, PIXEL-INA Award, category "Schools & Universities", 2nd February 2000, Monaco.
  • Premier Prix Synthesis 2000, category “Humour”, 18th-20th May 2000, Hornu, Belgium.
  • Animago 3D Award, 3rd position, 9th June 2000, Arri-cinema Munich, Germany.
  • 16. European FF „Alpinale“, Special Mention, 11th-16th August 2000, Bludenz, Austria.
  • Der Eisenstein – Intern. Short FF, Audience Award, 18th-22nd October 2000, Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
  • Visionaria 2000, Ninth Edition 2000, Audience Award, 17th-21st October 2000, Siena, Italy.
  • Bunter Hund – Intern. Short FF, Audience Award, 20th-22nd October 2000, Munich, Germany.
  • The 42nd Bilbao Intern. Festival of Documentaries and Short Films, Silver Mikeldi for Animation, 27th November-2nd December 2000, Bilbao, Spain.
  • Europees Jeugdfilmfestival Vlaanderen, Best Short Film, Professional Jury and Youth Jury, 16th February-4th March 2001, Antwerp, Belgium.
  • Northwestern University’s Premiere Intercollegiate Film and Video Festival, Honorable Mention Animation, 28th-29th April 2001, Evanston, Illinois, USA.
  • York Independent Film Festival, Winner Animation Category, 19th-20th May 2001, York, Great Britain.

Production, Distribution & Festival Correspondence

Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF
Festivals / Distribution
Marlene-Dietrich-Allee 11
D-14482 Potsdam-Babelsberg
Germany

Tel: +49 (0)331.6202-564
Fax: +49 (0)331.6202-568
E-Mail: distribution@filmuniversitaet.de