Students make it big in Hollywood: BreakingPoint wins VES Award
Ludwigsburg/Germany, February 8, 2017. It turns out to be a very successful week for the Animationsinstitute at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg: the diploma project BreakingPoint, which was directed by Martin Lapp and produced byAnica Maruhn (live action) and Tobias Gerginov (live action) as well as Francesco Faranna (effects producing), just received a VES Award for “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project” at yesterday’s ceremony. Only four days ago,Andreas Feix – who also won yet another VES Award laurel with his team from MPC Advertising for John Lewis; Buster the Boxer – claimed the Annie Award in the “Best Student Project” category with his diploma film Citipati. BreakingPoint, which already took the honors as “Best Student Project” at SIGGRAPH Asia last December, is an outstanding example of interdisciplinary team work: the short film was realized in cooperation between students from the Animationsinstitut and the Advertising Film department at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg.
A live-action short with integrated 3D computer elements, BreakingPoint tells the story of a complicated birth, translating the concept of hysterical strength – the display of seemingly superhuman strength in life and death situations – into a gripping storyline. The film, which is already available on YouTube, continues to captivate award juries and online/festival audiences with its economical and convincing employment of breath-taking VFX (read more about the technical evolution in our press releaseBreakingPoint wins “Best Student Project” award at SIGGRAPH Asia). Three of the nominees – Johannes Franz (Lead Technical Director), Nicole Rothermel (Technical Director) und Thomas Sali (VFX Set Supervisor/Art Director) – as well asMartin Lapp and Francesco Faranna attended the ceremony and accepted the prize in person.
In addition to BreakingPoint, two further Filmakademie projects exhibited such a high level of professionalism and technical finesse that they earned themselves a VES student nomination: the FMX 2017 trailer Elemental, a powerful clash and symbiosis of the four elements of nature that combines live action and high-end CG, and Shine that showcases polished 3D animation and a romantic storyline between two furry rodents. Even though the teams didn’t collect the prestigious distinction, they joined the red carpet: All in all 14 students and alumni mingled at both the Annie and the VES Awards, underscoring the international presence of the Animationsinstitut and the potency of the Institute’s practice – and project-oriented curriculum.
From the first idea to the final film it took about 1,5 years including half a year of preproduction with an extensive work in Animatics and Previz, followed by 8 months of Visual Effects postproduction.
