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).

Reminder: Tomorrow, Dec 24th at 10.40 on ZDF: “Der Grüffelo” with Heike Makatsch, Christian Ulmen, Otto Sander, Edgar Selge and Gerd Voss! Here’s some more of the beautiful colourwork Neil Ross has done for the project, this time from the opening sequence, which at some point during development was set at first snowfall. More from that sequence here.

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.

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,

Above: Colourconcept for the lake by Neil Ross.

Below: An early sketch Manu Arenas had originally done for the film’s framestory (see Mother Squirrel in the background) ended up serving as the layout for Mouse’s lilypad-passage over the lake. See the German version of “The Gruffalo” premiere on Dec 24th 10.40 am on ZDF.

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”.

Left: Snake’s design was largely based on the way Max Lang drew the character in his storyboards.  Right: The final modelsheet, a dig. paint-over by Jakob Schuh based on a maquette by Klaus Morschheuser (click to enlarge).  See more from that sequence here.