Believe it or not, my animated short Ins Dunkel (engl. Into the Dark) will be released this year, after almost five years of preparation. Officially. On 2nd June, 2012. In a cinema.

With all the bells and whistles!

How so?

I just made a decision. And set a date.

Today I talked to the people of the Filmhaus Bielefeld. They run a small cinema and I asked them if it's possible to show my film there, and if so, when. – I decided to celebrate of the release of my film project in June, so that I have on the one hand enough time, and on the other hand enough pressure to finish it.

So here's the big announcement!

What I plan for that special night:

• An opening reception
  
• introduction & screening
  
• a making of
  
• an interview with a q&a, and
  
• and a small exhibition with props and puppets from the film.

Mark the day in your calendar, it's official! – I'll keep you updated!

Love,
– Jessica ♥

Dear friends and blog readers,

We say goodbye to 2011 today. – Whatever the last year has been to you, I wish you all the best for 2012!

Hallo, 2012!

I hope that all those things that you're ready for will find their way into your life, and I wish you strength for those things you aren't prepared for yet.

No Year's Resolutions!

In 2012, I'll finish my animated short, Ins Dunkel – This is a fact, not a resolution; I'm going to tell you how and when someday in January.

Still here?

If you still wait for 2012 to come, I collected some nice animations for you (since this blog is about animation, isn't it?). Here we go:

• once more, once more about the cycles of our life by Katie Armstrong

• Happy 2012 by Alienatio. This is pretty much WYSIWYG and cute. – With monsters!

• Happy New Year Candy Stopmotion Animation by Joonas Utti. Actually this is from last year, but definitely sweet, so lay back and enjoy!

Again: An animating New Year, and lots of love,

– Jessica ♥

Herrje!

We still refurbish the front of our house, and the refurbishment brings a lot of problems and dirt and noise, and takes so much longer than we've planned. I haven't work on the animation for my animated short Ins Dunkel for a while, and I miss it.

Ins Dunkel: Teaser

My musician worked on the soundtrack though, and I made this tiny, tiny teaser for you:

Beside all the annoying stuff, a lot of good things happen over the last weeks, too:

• I already have two exhibition opportunities for 2012, both in galleries.
• A series of new drawings is evolving.
• I already have a new idea and script for another animated short.
• I was teaching a lot of art and animation classes, and some of my students had amazing epiphanies, and so had I.

Mourir Auprès de Toi

Explicit content!

Since it's only a week since last Halloween, I'd like to share this video with you I found today via TRIKK17:

Spike Jonze is the guy behind Where the wild things are and Being John Malcovich (et al.). Mmmmh, cut out animation!

Have an animating week!
Love,
– Jessica

…and that it is, in every respect.

I shook off my being stuck because of the refurbishment, and went straight into the basement studio in the morning. Altogether I animated 630 frames for my animated short "Ins Dunkel" ("Into the Dark") today, and 159 of those are so bad, that I'll have to reshoot them tomorrow.

Nevermind.

Some of them work pretty well, and today I also almost finished the turning point of my story. This is one of the last moments before the drama finally takes its course:

If I'll have a good run tomorrow as well, I probably will finish the Underworld animation at all. That would be awesome since the paper puppets start to fall apart.

I still hear Bristol based model maker Mary Murphy in my head, "It's not the question if your puppet is going to break, but when."

I don't really know why I'm so amazingly motivated right now. Is it the itfs deadline? Is it the now or never feeling that I sometimes have? I don't know, but I really enjoy the progress. I hope you do as well!

Have an animating week!

– Jessica

Yes, it's me.
It's been a while since I last updated this blog.

Due to some massive refurbishment at our beloved house I wasn't able to work on my film, or on anything at all. Everything has been messy in here, dust is everywhere and the only room that still has its usual function is our bed room. (Though it's slowly getting better…)

We just wanted to exchange a window and the front door. But what was planned as a one-and-a-half-day action, took us one and a half week so far since the walls need a bit more attention than expected, and will probably take another one or two weeks since the most beautiful man alive and I also have some scheduled work to do.

Part of the room formerly known as our kitchen, captured by @einfachkaffee. You can see me in the background, hi there!

Lesson learned: One does not just do a quick change in an old house like ours.

I cannot really concentrate right now. The clean-up phase has begun yesterday and slowly all our stuff finds back into their places. But it's still stressful and exhausting, and will take more time than I was willing to spend on this.

Anyway, I'm not complaining.
The good part is, that we're going to re-arrange our whole space, and that there will be space for a new order in here as well. That's going to be awesome!

But what about Animation?

Before all that chaos started, I taught a few awesome animation workshops with kids and adults. Due to the lack of progress on my own film Ins Dunkel, I'd like to show you something really cool from the kids instead:

The kids in my workshops would usually love to work with plasticine, but this time they all wanted to draw. And they draw! I don't know how many flip books and seconds of drawn animation they produced… (Actually, I do know, but that would sound less dramatic…)

I'd like to share this video with you that is made by 14 years old Benedikt, an outstanding drawing talent:

Benedikt drew three days for four hours each day to make this clip during my animation summer workshop at the Museum MARTa Herford. He planned the story, the timing and everything else. We used simple 80g office paper, 2B pencils and file fasteners as peg bars.
Well done, doesn't he?

What I understand again and again every time I teach an animation class is that you don't need much to produce outstanding animations. This is something you really should keep in mind!

I just read today that the 19th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film calls for entries until 1 December. This is going to make a beautiful deadline for Ins Dunkel, wouldn't it? What do you think?

Have a lovely week!
Love,
Jessica