What is the film about?

A little something for worried souls.

What influenced it?

I love abstraction! It helps me to dive into different subjects and to communicate with the world. Already during the work on my student film ‘Jazz Orgie’ I spend a lot of time studying Russian constructivism and works of avant-garde artists from the beginning of the last century and felt really “at home” & understood. For sure all those influences played a role for the aesthetic of ‘Black Snot & Golden Squares’. To give you just some names: Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzki, Kasimir Malewitsch, Naum Gabo, Oscar Fischinger, Walter Ruttman, Oscar Schlemmer. But for those two main characters there was also one particular graphic of Paul Klee, that solved the design puzzle in my head.

A little background information...

This little something has several parents. The mother is for sure the corona shutdown with all the consequences we have to accept in our lives, embracing and accepting the uncertainty even more than usual. The father is indirectly my debut project on which I am working right now. Filmmaking is a beautiful journey but you need a long breath for it as well. This super-short was created out of the need to recharge my battery during the long-term project that takes up 200% of my energy. And the third parent is an amazing team of super talented friends & colleges, who supported the idea & realization. I wanted to make something small and funny to refresh my brain, my soul and of course to show how much I miss hugging friends and to share this cinematographic embrace around the world…

How was the film made?

The animation was basically made frame by frame in TVPaint, animated with hundreds of layers and masks. (With the super support of Ruslan Gavrilov, Alexander Sharapov, Yelyzaveta Pysmak, Sofiia Melnik, Paulina Ziółkowska, Anna Volchkova and Jonatan Schwenk) The next step was to bring it into the right structure in After Effects, to set up the compositions for each body part of both characters and to put a big portion of magic powder into it. (Magic powder creator or compositor – Viktor Stickel) A little bit of tuned bells and strings, some bamboo chimes on top (musical sound design by Luis Schöffend) and finished is the film.