- Viola Baier -

2011-06-22T11:32:00.002+01:00

"Manège Magique", my 3rd year student film and trailer of the ITFS 2011, is finally going on festival tour… :) I'm happy that it already was accepted at the Anima Mundi Festival 2011 in Brazil, and the Siggraph Vancouver 2011!

Check out the music from Vespertina

2011-03-21T21:28:00.009+01:00

I recently designed some album art for a new group called Vespertina. Their music is something between classic, pop and trip hop. It's very special, because their team members Lorrie Doriza and Stoupe are exceptional talents and you should check out their music NOW!

If you want to see all my pictures for the album, you better get the CD. You won't regret it!

ITFS trailer

2011-03-21T21:08:00.006+01:00

This is a trailer I created in 2010 for the International Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart (ITFS) in Germany. It's the cinematic trailer of the 2011 edition of the festival with all their CI adapted to the film.
I'm very, very happy about that, the ITFS is a great and big festival for animated films.
Thanks to everyone who was involved in the production! The music was an important part of the film, and was composed and arranged by the members of the band Vespertina and orchestrated by the talented David Christiansen at the Staatskapelle Halle.

Watch the trailer here:
(Or rather watch it on youtube; it's cropped if you watch the embedded one)

Dance with the Devil - Immortal Technique - music video 2008

2011-03-21T20:55:00.005+01:00

My 2nd year film at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg recently appeared on the internet.

It's called "Dance with the devil" and a music video for a rap song with the same name by Immortal Technique. Thanks a lot to Viper Records for letting me use the song.
It was not uploaded by myself but by a fanbase of Immortal Technique, so sorry for the stretched aspect ratio.

Some things I also did during the last months

2008-09-07T16:55:00.013+01:00

I was happy to work for Studio SOI this summer, where I made a 1 min 30 animation for a kids tv show. It was the history about how cats became pets to humans. Thanks to the guys of studio SOI I had much responsibility and freedom in what I did, and I designed the cat and all side characters and did almost all the animation by myself. The backgrounds were made by Uwe Heidschoetter, a great designer and artist whos work I admire very much, so I was happy to work on a project with him.
This job was really fun, was happy to work there.

Here are some pics from an early design period, as I dont want to post the finals.

Also I did some other sketches, and designs for other projects private. Sooooome here:

We also had some great lessons. One of them was a design Workshop with Peter Popken. He is a great Character and Producion Designer and worked on big blockbusters like Speed Racer. I learned a lot from him! He helped me with the following pic, and gave me useful advices!

Following pics were for someone really special

Updating an old blog

2008-09-07T16:23:00.006+01:00

Heeeeeey!!

Long time no post. I finished my next short "Dance with the Devil", a music video to Immortal Techiques song with the same name. I the song he raps about a young man named Billy Jacobs who wants to become a big-time thug.

When I first listened to the lyrics consciously I thought that would be a great story for a movie or shortfilm.
So thanks to the label Viper records I was allowed to do this music video and use it for school and festival purposes.
Making the film was a disaster. As after 3 weeks of work my hard disk drive crashed and was irreparably broken, I had to catch up much time, and the deadline seemed impossible to make it. In addition the topic of the film was very violent and it also was hard to deal with every day on a psychological level.
But in the end, and with the help of some angels helping me with coloring, restoreing the work i lost and sound design, not to forget the mental support I received, I somehow made the deadline. Thanks to everyone that helped me in that time again!!!
Exhausting 2 1/2 months; in the end I got a bad tendosynovitis.

But I am proud succeeding making my third animated film, and that I dared to chose an untypical topic for animation, and dared to experiment with new styles and software.
I am also happy, that the film was screened on over 20 festivals till now and is winning prices!!!

:)

The effort was worth it!

New Film

2007-11-05T03:14:00.001+01:00

I'm planning my new film at the moment. This time I want to go away from the style I used to work at my other films with. Also the story genre will be different from what I did before. Won't tell too much, but something like this is the style I'm reaching for.

Cheers

Wasi-Hasi Homepage

2007-09-29T15:47:00.000+01:00

Here is the Link to Wasis homepage: http://www.wasihasi.com/

and this is the animation:

We went to the Volksfest yesterday.We were celebrating our wasi and it was a lot of fun. :)

Wasi

2007-09-25T05:02:00.001+01:00

My hard working time continued last month, because I had to create a 3D animation for the second biggest Volksfest in Germany after the Oktoberfest in Munich: The Cannstatter Wasen in Stuttgart Germany.
The animation was about the new mascot of the Volksfest, a rabbit called "Wasi", designed by Gecko Keck.

To set myself under pressure to finally learn another software than Cinema 4D, with which I used to work with until now, I forced myself to do everything in Maya. Therefore I had to learn almost every part the software within about one month: modeling, texturing, rigging (which I actually never did before, even not in cinema), animation, lighting, rendering plus dynamic cloth simulation.
It was really hard, and a very tight production period for me to do this.

First, I was very proud of my rig, which had really neat attributes like an advanced spine twist, an ik/fk switch, reverse foot control and dynamics for the hair and the big rabbit ears. Until I began to animate and I had ugly deformations on the legs when the legs were fully straighted out. :/

Anyway, time was tight for me, so I had to do the character animation inclusive lipsynch of about 25 seconds within 2 days. Then I had to simulate cloth of 6 flags, which Wasi pulls out of the Cannstatter emblem, the Cannstatter can. That was really a pain in the ... because the simulation never behaved like I wanted it to be. So I had to play for every flag with the attributes and calculate 1000s of simulations, until I found one, which was not thaaaaat bad. I'm really not satisfied at all, though, but I found out, that I hate simulations, especially under time pressure. You had so little control over the animation.

Well, today I had to be finished, and this morning, I still was working on the flag simulations. So I had to accept the look as it was, render the scene and had actually 3 hours for the background creation, compositing part, including titles and subtitles.
I finished the final rendering about half an hour before the delivery. ;)
I'll show it it online soon.

It was really fun to do once again character animation in 3D, but I admit that my heart rather is set to traditional animation.

So, the next project is waiting. I'll also do it with Maya. I'm proud that I can now work with it; it wouldn't be so without my personal adviser Fränk, who gave me useful tips and never seemed to be annoyed by all my stupid Maya questions! Thanks to him, I defeated my fear of mighty Maya (THANK YOU!).

8th Festival!!!!!!!!!!!! (Update #8)

2007-09-10T14:19:00.000+01:00

Wow!!!!!

"Mister Pin-up" was selected for its first festival, and it is also my first festival! It was selected for the competition of the 17th International Animated Film
Festival "Les Nuits Magiques" which takes place in Begles (France) from
2007 december 5th to 9th.

http://www.lesnuitsmagiques.fr/index.php?page=Competition5

Still cant believe it, I'm soooooooo happy!! :)

Wow, it was chosen for the adult humour category... I didn't expect that.

Now still 17 festivals are pending...! This is really exciting!!

Update: The second fesival responded: Mister Pin-up was selected for the official competition of second edition of PIAFF - the International Animation Film Festival of Potenza in Bella Italia!! 27-28 th October 2007.

www.piaff.it

Update:

Mister Pin-up was selected for it's first German festival!!!
It'll go into the european competition in Cologne at the unlimited Kurzfilmfreunde Festival, 30th October - 4th Nobember '07. Yeah!! :)

Another Update:

Another festival, which didn't respond yet, but by coincidence, while surfing on their website, I found out that Mister Pin-up is in the competition for the FEST international youth festival in Santa Maria da Feira/Portugal! Mister Pin-up will be screened at November the 1st at 5pm.
They wrote my name Violar.... hihi.... anyway! I'm haaaapppppyyyyyyy! :)

Next Update:

Mister Pin-up will be screened at the Kurzfilmspiele Konstanz which will take place in Constance from October 27th till October 28th!
This festival means something special to me, because I was born and raised up in the neighbor-town Radolfzell at the nice lake of Constance! Hope, I'll have the time to be there with my family!! :)))))

Update No. 6:

6 festivals? Still can't get it! Mister Pin-up is part of the competition at the Kurzflimmern film festival in Bayreuth/Germany. It will be screened November the 4th. Yesyooooooo!!

Update No. 7:

Mister Pin-up will be screened on the XXS Kurzilmfestival in Dortmund/Germany. It wasn't selected for the competition, but it will be screened in a special programme on Noveber, 10th.

Update No. 8:

Mister Pin-up takes part in the international Anima competition of Etiuda&Anima film festival in Krakow/Poland. (16.-22.11.2007)
WOW! What greater honor could be there for a young animator than to be screened in the same competition block as Godfather Bill Plymthon!??! This must be a mistake?!
Waaaaaaah!

Yipiiiiiiiiiiieh!

Mister Pin-up Cover and Maya

2007-08-03T20:11:00.001+01:00

I'm currently learning Maya for my new job. It's really hard, because it's so much to learn in such a short time.
I'm simultaneously sending "Mister Pin-up" to several festivals. Wish me good luck, that it'll run somewhere. :)
Sunny Greetz

New work

2007-07-31T02:46:00.000+01:00

Although I have holidays now, I just got a job offer by my old company. A 3D job. Really looking forward to it, but I want to spend some time on drawing and planning my next film, too.

Mister Pin-up: I did it!!!

2007-07-23T04:13:00.000+01:00

The last 3 weeks were the hardest I ever had in my life. I almost didn't sleep, I had 13 days for the whole animation part, did ca. 1300 drawings, had blebs on my fingers, lost 5 kg of weight, but out came a 3 minutes 40 animation short.

I'm proud that I managed it, but I'm a little bit sad that there was so little time for the animation. I'm really not satisfied with some scenes but there was no time to overwork them. everything had to be a "one take".... :( I wish some day, I'll have at least some time to try a few versions of ruff line tests before making the final animations.

Well, anyway I have my second own animation film.
It will be presented this Wednesday in the Caligari theater here in Ludwigsburg. Everyone who reads this and is able to come is hearty invited. As soon, as I know the time, I'll write it on my blog.

This is a screenshot of "Mister Pin-up":

Animatic

2007-06-24T03:14:00.000+01:00

I'm currently occupied with my animatic. This film will be much more complex and time-consuming as I thought. I even decided with a heavy heart to leave things of the story out... Let's see what will come out.
Here are some screenshots of my animatic. Just Close-ups; as less information as possible about the story ... I'll keep it exciting ;)

Mister Pin-up

2007-05-30T19:35:00.001+01:00

Althogh I like the look of this design and I want to have a certain style of realism in my film, it's still not "cartoony" enough... Guess I have to push it further, as David says... ;)

I tried to find out my character's shape by comparing him to my female character. She has huge hips what makes her very feminine, so I thought my male character has to have huge shoulders, making him look very masculine and a contrast to the woman.

I'm really still not satisfied. He doesn't look anymore like the smart sunnyboy but he looks like a bodybuilder, like He-Man or Superman, almost like our studies co-ordinator Manni Flick. ;)

Style Tests

2007-05-28T14:22:00.000+01:00

Today, I did some tests with my female character, how the look of the film will be... I don't know if Ive really time to make real shadows (by animating shadowlines...) i dont think so :/
The following style is kind of what it will look like:

Other Character Designs

2007-05-27T03:42:00.000+01:00

Here are two other characters for my film....

I finally get closer

2007-05-24T23:50:00.000+01:00

Research

2007-05-23T20:43:00.000+01:00

Today I did some design research for the new short film I'm planning to do.

I have to bring my designs to a more animation-friendly style because I have very little time to produce this film...

30 minutes speedpainting: hot girl

2007-05-14T21:33:00.000+01:00

This is the result of our sketchround today. I did't match the colours perfectly and there was no time for me to do the weird cell phone necklace.

This is what it looked like after 10 mintues. Do you notice, that she looks much younger than the finished one? When we talked about it after sketchround we assumed this is because of the different positions of the eyes.

Welcome on earth, Alma

2007-05-08T05:23:00.000+01:00

Last week, on Sunday 29th April 2007, my friend Florian Wagner and his wife Nadine, got their first baby child.... It's a beautiful girl and she is called Alma, a very cool name in my opinion. Flo and Nadine also have got a turtle, and so I did some little sketches... ;)

30 minutes Speedpainting

2007-05-08T00:45:00.000+01:00

FMX is over, finally everyone at the Filmakademie has a little more time now, and we can meet again to the weekly sketchround. :)

Latte Macchiato

2007-04-20T00:28:00.000+01:00

I'm totally addicted to coffee.... hmmmmm.

Happy Easter!!

2007-04-08T03:12:00.000+01:00

Happy Easter Part II

Annecy at night

2007-04-07T23:05:00.000+01:00

I think once again I've problems with the shadows and contrast...

Annecy

2007-04-06T16:39:00.000+01:00

I'm going to go to the Festival du film d'animation Annecy in France. Have been there last year and it was one of the most impressive experiences of my life. Not only to meeting so many other like-minded people, watching amazing films the whole day, having an indescribable atmosphere, but also the city of Annecy is just wonderful. This is a speedpainting of the promenade at the lake of Annecy. I'm so looking forward to june!!!

Speedpainting: Seagulls

2007-04-04T21:02:00.000+01:00

Old Showreel 2005

2007-04-04T01:52:00.000+01:00

This is an old showreel I never finished. Hope to make a new one with my new material soon :)

Sorry for the bad quality...

Sketchbook

2007-04-04T00:48:00.000+01:00

I bought a new sketchbook today. I'd like to watch an draw more people.

First Animation Round

2007-04-01T03:19:00.000+01:00

Inspired by training like animation mentor and their results, some of us animation students decided to meet regularly and animate short situations in 3D. For me it's not only training in character animation and acting, I also I want to learn a new 3D application. Till now, I mainly used Cinema4D but now I want to learn Softimage XSI properly. Well.., means long time of practicing, 'cause I'm a bloody 3D beginner.

So today, most of the time we were occupied with trying to find out how the program works and there was little time to animate. Wolfram, the XSI God, brought his models, which were already rigged, and helped with program issues. The exercise was to make the character fall down. I decided to do this by a shot in the head... the result is very short and not satisfying at all, but therefore I'll post my exercises; maybe you can help me to point the mistakes out. :)

Bavarian Girl

2007-03-30T00:12:00.000+01:00

Like to go to this years Oktoberfest and wear a Dirndl, too!

Bavarian

2007-03-29T02:06:00.000+01:00

I love Bavaria and its beer!! :)

Testosterone, baby!!

2007-03-27T22:35:00.000+01:00

These are some sketches I tried today. Anabolics-Power!!

Home, sweet home

2007-03-26T00:34:00.000+01:00

This weekend I was celebrating my birthday. I went home to Radolfzell at the lake of Constance where my mother spoiled me with cake. My sisters present were pegpars (yeah, I finally own some!!!!) and boxes of the famous Col-Erase non photo-blue pencils which she ordered at Chromacolour. :)
Friday night I went out with some friends; it was downbeat. We went to a disco, where we used to be the youngest when we were living there, and now we have been the oldest...
Some Ramazotti later, everything was cool again...

I didn't have my Laptop with me, so I had to do some sketches the "oldschool-way" by pencil and paper.

Training at home

2007-03-22T01:39:00.000+01:00

Here some speedpaintings I did today. Still I need ca. 45 min. I'm trying to figure out, how I can save more time.

Family Business

2007-03-21T03:36:00.000+01:00

This is a portrait of my beautiful big sister Jasmin. She works in the fashion industry, and I'm very proud of her.
She told me on the phone, that she thinks my blog is boring, because I don't post any of my embarassing party photos.
This took much longer than 30 minutes...

First speedpainting post

2007-03-16T23:19:00.000+01:00

These are digital speedpaintings.
The function of this exercise is to improve your feeling for colors by drawing an existing photo within 30 minutes.
The bunny, I did some time ago, and the two eye pictures actually took me 45 minutes.... :/
Guess I have to practise more.

First time Viola is blogging

2007-03-16T22:57:00.000+01:00

Hi,
so, I've finally got a blog, too.
The first thing I'd like to post is my baby:
Screenshots of my first own animation short. It's an application film for the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, the school at which I study now.
It took me 5 months and 4000 sketches to create it.
I unfortunately can't put it online, because of the rights of the music I used...