english title: not far away

media: cut out animation, on miniDV or DVD

year of production: 2004

country of production: Germany, Berlin

language: german singing

running time: 4:00 min

contact: der_stephan@gmx.de

synopsis:
A man is going in the cellar to get some coal, it got cold. An everyday activity becomes a journey into a 'region, not far away' from home but tinted by the cellars light. In this light, normal objects are brought to life and start having character, the otherwise plain surrounding become a vivid landscape. In this 'region, not far away' the man finds his place of choice for retreat and relaxation, a holiday.

In the soundtrack a person tell us how he would like to be like everyone else, that is "... shopping with rings around your eyes and cling to things that aren't good." But he thinks, he maybe should just stay put for a while and see if much will change at all.


technique:
This animation used the classical technique of cut out animation. We placed the actor into different sceneries and took about seven digital photos for one phase. This way we segmented the whole figure and were able to later animated its different but limited parts. For the background we took even more digital photos. All those digital photos were send of via the internet to be developed onto paper. We clued those paper photos together on an animation table and animated them. Again we used a digital photo camera to capture every single frame. The single final pictures were processed and edited with the computer.

screened at:
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax, Canada - by Centre for art tapes 04/2005

int. Filmfest Hamburg, Germany 09/2005