This is the official trailer for my animated short Ins Dunkel. I've been working on this film for almost five years now, and I can't believe that it's going to be finished so soon.

When I saw the fully rendered trailer for the first time, a tear ran down my face and I cried. I cried tears of joy and happiness and relief and just because I found it so beautiful. … Wait until you see the whole piece!

Thank you all for being here! I can't tell how grateful I am to have such an awesome group of people around here supporting what I do.

Lots of love to all of you,
– Jessica ♥

Stills from the latest animation.

I'm serious.

95% of the animation for my animated not-so-short Ins Dunkel is finished.

The release party will be in less than three weeks.

I'm close to crazy, and I'm still not reading any news sites, so no inspiration today…

Stay with me!

Excited internet hugs,
– Jessica ♥

U P D A T E

100%. One hundered f*cking percent of the animation is done! As in, "DONE!!!"

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. I just can't.

More information on this soon.

So it's Sunday again.

On Sundays I usually share inspirational web finds with you to feed our brains. Nevertheless I decided to stop reading last week: cold turkey, for one week. Mostly because I was so annoyed by myself reading really useful stuff on the internet and not getting things done.

I stopped reading on the internet, especially on Twitter, blogs and news pages. And I also deprived magazines and books.

Hey, it's only one week! Plus, I still read mails once a day.

For you, this means no brain food today except my report on

One Week of Reading Deprivation

I started last Thursday and suddenly I had an amazing amount of spare time.

So I called an old friend. I spent time just sitting in the kitchen and watching the birds outside. I cleaned the kitchen completely. I worked in the garden. I did a lot of nice things, most of them creative activities.

And then it was Friday.

Usually, I start my day with journaling and a cup of coffee. Next I have another cup and breakfast with the most beautiful man alive and after that I read e-mails and a few things on the internet. By then it's an hour later, I'm annoyed by myself and I can't really concentrate because my brain is so full of information.

Friday went completely different: I made my way into the studio after breakfast and thought, "Hey, let's read some… well,… dammit!" I suddenly I had nothing to do but to animate. So I simply did that. The whole day!

Which is why I finished three other scenes for Ins Dunkel over the weekend. Here's one:

Orpheus enters the Underworld to bring his Eurydice back.

I now see clearly how much energy reading takes, especially when it seems to be necessary. A whole lot of things I read aren't.

(Even though I miss Twitter!)

I learned that I have to take good care of the energy I have. Reading is fine, helpful and sometimes really important. But the work I do (in my case, animation, art and design) is way more crucial. It keeps me alive.

Reading is an easy way out if I work on something really important. – Anyway, I will read (and tweet) again from Thursday on. I want to limit my reading though to special time windows because I tend to read too much, in a way that affects my well-being. Let's see if this is going to work better…

My advice: Give it a try, definitely! It changes a lot, and I suddenly remember what is really important to me.

Love,
– Jessica ♥

Sundays I'd love to share my Top 5 finds of the week (in no particular order) with you:

• Animate, don't animate!
  

• Stop-frame animation is painstaking but popular
  

• Video: Animal Beatbox
  

• On Artistic Freedom, Fame & Finishing No Matter What
  

• Planning without planning.

I told you about that I borrowed a book about stamps and printing? I'm totally addicted to stamping these days:

I made this as a birthday gift for my father-in-law. Walt Disney always is a big source of inspiration to me.

Enjoy the reading!
– Jessica ♥

Play is important, especially when you work in a creative job. Most often, we take ourselves way too serious. All this seriousness will eventually lead us into stuck situations in which we may have the feeling that nothing is Ever. Going. To. Work. Again.

Recovering from these moments is possible, but prevention is much better, and playfulness is one of its finest variations.

I recently read the following advise in a book on that topic:

List 5 professions you'd love to have if you would have five more lifes to live. Don't be reasonable about this. Choose whatever you think you would love to do. Everything is possible.

My list

(at the beginning):

• typographer
• gardener
• shop owner
• ballet dancer
• ornithologist

Next,

Chose one of these professions and do one little thing that somebody of this profession would do every day for a few minutes. It doesn't matter if it's professional or not, just play .

Last week I was a type designer.

I love working with fonts, but I'm not a trained typographer. Anyway, playing with words and letters and spacing and kerning seemed to be fun.

An approach to start with designing a display type for my name. Made a sketch. Photoshopped it.

Vectorized the letters, played with it. Didn't like it so much.

Read this quote Milton Glaser had in his office. Created a script from long, thin pieces of paper. Framed it.

Made a cut-out label for my printed paper stock. From printed paper.

Wanted to create something completely different. Used paper clips to shape letters.

I love working with colored inks, and I love to let them run over the paper. Tried to shape a word this way.

Borrowed a book about stamping and printing with found objects. Wanted to make a type from this. Chose toothpicks to stamp the letters.

I don't want to be judged on the design because this is not what I've been after. It's about P L A Y. It's about learning what's important to me.

When I look at these images, I see a certain amount of quirkiness, a love for hand-made and layered things and lots of colors. – It was so much fun to make these. This week I'm going to be a gardener. It was so much fun, that my list grows steadily, and I want to do this for almost every profession I've ever wanted to own.

What professions would you chose? You can play with me, and tell about your experiences in the comments. It's safe in here!

Lots of love,
playful internet hugs!

– Jessica ♥

Sundays I'd love to share my Top 5 internet finds of the week (in no particular order) with you:

• Video: Zelda: The Musical
  

• My Favorite Liar
  

• Crazy Plant Trend of the Day: Lifes of Grass
  

• Video: The Power of Storytelling
  

• The people are what makes comics go, not the characters.

Enjoy the reading!
– Jessica ♥

This is a short report on how the animation is going:

Last week I finished the final Underworld scenes for my animated short Ins Dunkel which is set for release in early June.

Last Monday I started with the 3d puppet animation, and getting used to the "new" puppets. Up to now, I animated silhouette puppets only. The silhouette puppets are a lot more limited and that's why easier to animate I think. But, hey: I suppose it was me who had the idea of mixing all those techniques…

Anyway.

4 seconds

This is completely different. And fun. And difficult. And fun!

(Even though I miss the perfect armatures below the skin of my Bristolian puppet.)

See you soon,
keep animating!

– Jessica ♥

Sundays I'd love to share my Top 5 finds of the week (in no particular order) with you:

• The ‘Simpsons’ Guide to Art History
  

• Playful Sculptures & Installations by Misaki Kawai
  

• What we wear can change how we act
  

• Girls only? "What Happens To 3 Out Of 4 Girls After Leafing Through A Fashion Mag For 3 Minutes?"
  

• That Other F Word

Enjoy the reading!
– Jessica ♥

Hey there again,

A few weeks ago my dear friend Nils came over for another Studio Monday. He grabbed all my animation equipment and wanted to make another One Day Animated Short™ as he made one last year.

His setting looked somewhat like that:

Setup for One Day Animated Short 2.

Nils' idea

He cut out all the shapes you see in the clip, put them into a frame and lit them from behind in a way, that the camera grabbed the images of the back-lit shapes on a white screen.

The Animated Short

What he thinks

This animation was more experimental than the first one.

I had no story in mind and was a lot less focussed on the production than last year. The basis was just the technical idea of filming projected lights and shadows from a screen – and although the result is okay, the technique (that's my summary) isn't really useful.

Post-production was extremely time-consuming (each image had to be altered regarding brightness, contrast, and color in Photoshop), and preparing the cut-outs was pretty time-consuming as well ... I would say: The best technique should be the one that helps you best to tell your story. This one was more a stumbling block than anything else. ;)

What I think

Most hand made animation techniques are time-consuming, that's for sure.

Nils chose one for which this is especially true. Basically, he did a replacement animation and had to cut out every tiny move from a sheet of paper.

I love the style though. (And I love to work with replacements, too!)

The mean thing about trying to finish an animated short in one day is that you have to keep it simple. – For most people that's the hardest part. Whenever you have the time and the resources, I'd say, go for the most fancy way.

Anyway, I like this little animation, and as always, it's very inspiring to have someone like Nils around. Well done, Nils! I look forward to your third One Day Animated Short!

What do you think?

See you soon!

Love,
– Jessica ♥