Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg Campus Magazin 23/24

ANIMATIONSINSTITUT
At Home in the World - An International Outlook
FROM THE ANIMATIONSINSTITUT
TO AMSTERDAM – AND BACK
Paul Golter IS MAKING HIS GRAND
ENTRANCE AT THE BLENDER CONFERENCE
I CAN STILL HARDLY BELIEVE IT:
LAST YEAR, I HAD MY FIRST EVER
CONFERENCE TALK AT THE BLENDER
CONFERENCE 2022! BUT LET’S START
FROM THE BEGINNING: MY NAME IS PAUL
GOLTER AND I‘M A STUDENT OF TECHNICAL
DIRECTING (TD). THIS ARTICLE WILL TAKE
YOU ON MY JOURNEY FROM SITTING ON MY
OFFICE CHAIR IN THE ANIMATIONSINSTITUT
TO STANDING ON A STAGE IN AMSTERDAM.
HOW IT BEGAN
My third year at the Animationsinstitut ended with the
project FISH OR CHIPS, which is an intellectual property
(IP) about the life of seagulls during the covid lockdown.
Yes, you read that right. Seagulls during the lockdown.
exchange with another school or gain some work experience
in a company. I decided for the latter.
In my second year at the Filmakademie, I got very much
into the realm of pipelines and I’ve been loving it ever
since. So, I knew that I wanted to apply for a pipeline
TD position. I also was, and still am, a big fan of Blender.
One requirement for the third year project at the Animationsinstitut
is to develop an IP that contains two different
formats, a film and an interactive experience – in our
case a game. This introduced us to a whole set of exciting
challenges, for example, how to smartly handle data so it
can be used for both formats.
Our film project was actually released as an Instagram
account that told the story over the course of four weeks.
The idea was that the seagulls try to reach out to the humans,
who are at home due to the lockdown, via Instagram
because they miss their chips so much. The game
offers you a different experience of the setting: Deep Fryton
Beach. Here, the task is saving baby seagulls from
starvation by feeding them fish and chips.
HOW IT CONTINUED
After their third years, students at the Animationsinstitut
get the opportunity to take a year off to focus on their
personal development. Most of the students either do an
Blender is a 3D Software that was developed by the
Blender Institute, which is located in the heart of the
Netherlands, at Amsterdam. As it happens, besides the
Blender Institute, there is also the Blender Studio which
produces open (source) movies. These movies are funded
by the Blender community and in return, the Blender
Studio shares valuable production knowledge such as
assets, production files, and much more.
I decided to apply as a pipeline TD and fortunately, they
needed someone to fill exactly that position. Four weeks
later, I was in Amsterdam and supporting the team on
the production of the open movie SPRITE FRIGHT,
which is a ten-minute long, full CG film completely
created in Blender. It has a very interesting twist and is
available on YouTube. But make sure to put your kids to
bed beforehand.
For the project, I developed various tools and Blender
add-ons. One example would be the Blender Kitsu addon,
which lets artists interact with Kitsu (a production
tracking software) directly inside Blender. So, the team
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