Right is the head of the princess with NEW & REAL EYES!

Revision EYES
The characters changed a lot after I had some technical issues with the puppet's eyes protruding from the heads 1 or 2 millimetres more than I had planned. I had the idea to replace the puppet's eyes with the eyes of real people. I studied one of my favourite animations "Madame Tutli-Putli“ (made by Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowsk in 2007) and by coincidence I met the man who knows best about the film "Rabenjunge" (made by Andrea Deppert in 2011) and their replacement-eye technique.

For days and days my little brother let me strap his head to a board construction to ensure nothing whatsoever other than his eyes would move. I planned how the eyes should move for every little moment of every scene and which emotions and thoughts would be important. We went through everything until it was perfect. In After Effects I already added a few scenes and controlled the last tiny head movements. I did the same for the role of the princess with my good friend Frederyke Sauerbrey.

Direction / Script / Production / Puppet & Set building / Costume / Animation / DoP / Postproduction / no sleep

Official Music video

2011 Weimar
Puppet Stop Motion Animation

(in progress forever!)

As a homage to LITTLE NEMO (1905) and to his author Winsor MacCay a little boy goes on a dreamed adventure, trying to find a princess in the unconscious.

Accompanied by the music of George Arnold and a mix of hope and sadness we go once again on a journey through a snowy slumberland.

All the above was written in the past, because unfortunately the only thing I have left of that work is this screenshot I made 2 years ago.

All the work and raw files of the entire film were STOLEN together with other works such as a new design for this webpage, the complete footage for a music video which I had produced, not to mention all my brand new and super equipment. All this still makes me very sad. With what remains of the original files for Homage to Slumberland it is impossible to redo the eye replacement. But one day I will work with this technique again.

By now i would do everything a bit different and more effective anyway, but it remains a big shame.

01.2014 /2018