Monthly Archives: December 2010

THE FINAL GRÜFFELOADVENTSKALENDERCOUNTDOWN: MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Today, Dec 24th, at 10.40 am on ZDF: “The Gruffalo / Der Grüffelo” with Heike Makatsch, Christian Ulmen, Otto Sander, Edgar Selge and Gerd Voss! Happy Holidays / Frohe Weihnachten to you, from all of us here at studio soi !

Above, another interesting comparison between storyboards and final film, this time from the dramatic first encounter between the Mouse and his imaginary friend (spoiler alert). Below, because it’s christmas, an extra helping of Neil Ross‘ fantastic colourwork for the Lake (top and middle) and the Snake Sequence (bottom).

IN THE PRESS…

There was some lovely press lately to accompany our christmas countdown: The Frankfurter Allgemeine ran a long and insightful article on the life and mindset of Axel Scheffler, illustrator (amongst many other great books) of the Gruffalo. Süddeutsche Zeitung ran a very funny review of  our adaptation of “The Gruffalo” today, reminding their readers to watch on Christmas Eve what the Stuttgarter Zeitung, in today’s issue, called “possibly the most beautiful thirty minutes of television this year”. Thank you!        (image:  F.A.Z. / Axel Scheffler)

DER GRÜFFELOADVENTSKALENDERCOUNTDOWN #21

Throughout the production of “The Gruffalo” we felt very lucky to be able to approach both Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, the book’s author and its illustrator, for their advice. Early on, Axel graciously supplied us with a series of beautiful drawings of the film’s then potential sidecharacters, many of which -to our fault- didn’t make it into the film. One though, the toad, became a much beloved cast member to us (see him in action here). Top: Initial design for the toad by Axel Scheffler. Below: Modelsheet by Max Lang. Bottom: Final model by Wolfram Kampffmeyer and Felix Schaller.

Watch “The Gruffalo” on Dec. 24th, 10.40 am on ZDF and on Dec 25th, 04.30 pm on the BBC.

DER GRÜFFELOADVENTSKALENDERCOUNTDOWN #20

Top: Owl’s windbeaten “treetop house”, in a colourkey by Neil Ross. Below: An earlier layout for that same shot, with Owl’s house still seated in a conifer and some later designs for the tree as a broadleaf, both by Manu Arenas. Bottom: Manu’s eerie designs for the spiral staircase Mouse escapes on in that sequence.

See “The Gruffalo” this friday, Dec. 24th, 10.40 am on ZDF,

HAT TRICK FOR THE BEAST!!!

We take our hat off to salute “The Little Boy and the Beast” for winning three times at festivals in November: The short was given the Audience Awards at Bradford as well as at the kuki 3rd International Short Film Festival for Children and Youth in Berlin, and it was awarded as Best Short Film at the Festival Internacional de Animación Expotoons in Argentinia. In December, the Beast was awarded as the Best Animation Film at the Filmschau Baden-Württemberg. Yippee!

DER GRÜFFELOADVENTSKALENDERCOUNTDOWN #16

Here’s a fun piece of preproduction (for Gruffalo completists): Before they started working on the music for “The Gruffalo” Jakob sent composer René Aubry drawings detailing how he imagined the music would span the film.  A blithely un-musical piece of music writing, but quite close to how the different themes worked in the end. Below this, a repost from June 2010: René at his 30 year stage-anniversary concert at Peter Brooks’ legendary “Bouffes du Nord”, playing a sweet version of what he made of the green bar in Jakob’s drawing, the film’s “Mouse Theme”.

DER GRÜFFELOADVENTSKALENDERCOUNTDOWN #13

In earlier versions of Mouse’s very first encounter with his imaginary “friend”, the Gruffalo’s hands were treated almost like characters of their own: They walked about, teasing Mouse, bullying him, and eventually chasing him down, all without much effort on the Gruffalo’s part.  Sketches by Max Lang.