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 ♥

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 ♥

Dear peeps,

Currently I fight a lot with the animation for my oncoming animated short, Ins Dunkel. I work on this film for almost five years now, and I definitely want to finish it before summer.

This stubborn little piece of animation often drives me crazy.

When I think about the moment it's going to be screened for the first time, I'm happy and satisfied. But when it comes to actually start to animate again, Resistance (yes, with capital R!) tries to keep me busy with other things, Twitter for example, or news sites…

The really important things, you know?

Some people say we try to avoid the things we wanted most because we are afraid of the changes that may come once our task is completed.

I don't know what it is that keeps me running away from this project all the time: I'm so happy watching the already completed takes… Even though I suppose the next 55 days are going to be like hell…

Anyway, to show you some progress, I uploaded two tiny takes as an appetizer for you:

Happy Easter holidays!
– Jessica ♥

I recently made a film, for an art show around all the aspects of home:

(To) Be found a Home

What is it about?

Two little guys meet in the woods.

The bigger imposes a house on the other one. – He really wants the smaller to feel home, forcefully.

I know this feeling well: someone wants to do me something good, and just don't care what I want. – I'm afraid I did this to others before, too. You?

This animated short is about observing what we do, and the effects of how we behave.

I had the script and the storyboard in the drawer for about four years. So very often I think that I'll never get things done, and that I'm not able to finish the things that I start.

The film is also exactly about that: Someone once told me these things, and I started to believe them: I got buried under other people's ideas about me.

I started to believe that I'll never finish things that I've started and this is one of the reason's why I have such a hard time to move on with Ins Dunkel, my animated short that is set to release on June 2, 2012. (I simply don't trust myself.)

Even though I tend to believe what other people think about me is true, I worked pretty hard to finish this little piece for the exhibition, and I drew about 200 frames in three days (Ouch! And Ha!)

I shot all the frames, edited the animation and added some sound effects in time.

My synapses jumped delightfully while they were creating a new path inside my brain: "Hey, I am able to finish things when the time is right, and when I decide to do so. Awesome! Maybe I'm able to finish this major project of mine that I started in 2007 as well?"

Yesterday I sorted all files for "Ins Dunkel" and found out that I already finished three minutes of animation (which is pretty cool!). I cleaned the rigging out of 100 frames, and arranged the finished shots along my storyboards. It already looks like a short film now. Again, awesome!

What do we (read, "I") learn from this?

Never believe someone who wants to pigeonhole you in any way, no matter how well they mean it.

And always have enough pencils and an electric pencil sharpener.

This is pretty personal, but important stuff. Life is messy sometimes, and I'm writing this for you to know that you're not alone. Celebrate with me in the comments, or get a warm internet hug there if you need one!

Have a wonderful weekend though!

Love,
– Jessica ♥

Believe it or not, my animated short Ins Dunkel (engl. Into the Dark) will be released this year, after almost five years of preparation. Officially. On 2nd June, 2012. In a cinema.

With all the bells and whistles!

How so?

I just made a decision. And set a date.

Today I talked to the people of the Filmhaus Bielefeld. They run a small cinema and I asked them if it's possible to show my film there, and if so, when. – I decided to celebrate of the release of my film project in June, so that I have on the one hand enough time, and on the other hand enough pressure to finish it.

So here's the big announcement!

What I plan for that special night:

• An opening reception
  
• introduction & screening
  
• a making of
  
• an interview with a q&a, and
  
• and a small exhibition with props and puppets from the film.

Mark the day in your calendar, it's official! – I'll keep you updated!

Love,
– Jessica ♥

Dear friends and blog readers,

We say goodbye to 2011 today. – Whatever the last year has been to you, I wish you all the best for 2012!

Hallo, 2012!

I hope that all those things that you're ready for will find their way into your life, and I wish you strength for those things you aren't prepared for yet.

No Year's Resolutions!

In 2012, I'll finish my animated short, Ins Dunkel – This is a fact, not a resolution; I'm going to tell you how and when someday in January.

Still here?

If you still wait for 2012 to come, I collected some nice animations for you (since this blog is about animation, isn't it?). Here we go:

• once more, once more about the cycles of our life by Katie Armstrong

• Happy 2012 by Alienatio. This is pretty much WYSIWYG and cute. – With monsters!

• Happy New Year Candy Stopmotion Animation by Joonas Utti. Actually this is from last year, but definitely sweet, so lay back and enjoy!

Again: An animating New Year, and lots of love,

– Jessica ♥

Herrje!

We still refurbish the front of our house, and the refurbishment brings a lot of problems and dirt and noise, and takes so much longer than we've planned. I haven't work on the animation for my animated short Ins Dunkel for a while, and I miss it.

Ins Dunkel: Teaser

My musician worked on the soundtrack though, and I made this tiny, tiny teaser for you:

Beside all the annoying stuff, a lot of good things happen over the last weeks, too:

• I already have two exhibition opportunities for 2012, both in galleries.
• A series of new drawings is evolving.
• I already have a new idea and script for another animated short.
• I was teaching a lot of art and animation classes, and some of my students had amazing epiphanies, and so had I.

Mourir Auprès de Toi

Explicit content!

Since it's only a week since last Halloween, I'd like to share this video with you I found today via TRIKK17:

Spike Jonze is the guy behind Where the wild things are and Being John Malcovich (et al.). Mmmmh, cut out animation!

Have an animating week!
Love,
– Jessica

…and that it is, in every respect.

I shook off my being stuck because of the refurbishment, and went straight into the basement studio in the morning. Altogether I animated 630 frames for my animated short "Ins Dunkel" ("Into the Dark") today, and 159 of those are so bad, that I'll have to reshoot them tomorrow.

Nevermind.

Some of them work pretty well, and today I also almost finished the turning point of my story. This is one of the last moments before the drama finally takes its course:

If I'll have a good run tomorrow as well, I probably will finish the Underworld animation at all. That would be awesome since the paper puppets start to fall apart.

I still hear Bristol based model maker Mary Murphy in my head, "It's not the question if your puppet is going to break, but when."

I don't really know why I'm so amazingly motivated right now. Is it the itfs deadline? Is it the now or never feeling that I sometimes have? I don't know, but I really enjoy the progress. I hope you do as well!

Have an animating week!

– Jessica

Yes, it's me.
It's been a while since I last updated this blog.

Due to some massive refurbishment at our beloved house I wasn't able to work on my film, or on anything at all. Everything has been messy in here, dust is everywhere and the only room that still has its usual function is our bed room. (Though it's slowly getting better…)

We just wanted to exchange a window and the front door. But what was planned as a one-and-a-half-day action, took us one and a half week so far since the walls need a bit more attention than expected, and will probably take another one or two weeks since the most beautiful man alive and I also have some scheduled work to do.

Part of the room formerly known as our kitchen, captured by @einfachkaffee. You can see me in the background, hi there!

Lesson learned: One does not just do a quick change in an old house like ours.

I cannot really concentrate right now. The clean-up phase has begun yesterday and slowly all our stuff finds back into their places. But it's still stressful and exhausting, and will take more time than I was willing to spend on this.

Anyway, I'm not complaining.
The good part is, that we're going to re-arrange our whole space, and that there will be space for a new order in here as well. That's going to be awesome!

But what about Animation?

Before all that chaos started, I taught a few awesome animation workshops with kids and adults. Due to the lack of progress on my own film Ins Dunkel, I'd like to show you something really cool from the kids instead:

The kids in my workshops would usually love to work with plasticine, but this time they all wanted to draw. And they draw! I don't know how many flip books and seconds of drawn animation they produced… (Actually, I do know, but that would sound less dramatic…)

I'd like to share this video with you that is made by 14 years old Benedikt, an outstanding drawing talent:

Benedikt drew three days for four hours each day to make this clip during my animation summer workshop at the Museum MARTa Herford. He planned the story, the timing and everything else. We used simple 80g office paper, 2B pencils and file fasteners as peg bars.
Well done, doesn't he?

What I understand again and again every time I teach an animation class is that you don't need much to produce outstanding animations. This is something you really should keep in mind!

I just read today that the 19th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film calls for entries until 1 December. This is going to make a beautiful deadline for Ins Dunkel, wouldn't it? What do you think?

Have a lovely week!
Love,
Jessica